venture feature
Skip NN’ Hole
Founded by Jaron Lodge What do you get when you cross the nostalgic activity of stone skipping with the more recently popular game of cornhole? For entrepreneur and Global Sport Venture Challenge winner Jaron Lodge, it’s a game called Skip NN’ Hole. The idea originated among his high school friends at the time, with whom Lodge often discussed future business ideas. One fortuitous day between classes, a friend suggested a problem that needed a solution: You spend so much time finding the perfect stone to skip, only to throw it into the water and never see it again. What if you could retrieve it or create an unlimited supply? Lodge dived into background research and quickly found that stone skipping went far beyond leisure. In fact, there were quite a few organized groups and competitors in the realm. He began prototyping the perfect stone with an aim toward making a standard for the sport. The first iterations that used clay and even compressed fish food as the main materials didn’t quite work. Lodge reached out to Guinness World Record holder Kurt Steiner (his record: 88 consecutive stone skips) and worked together with him on the ultimate design.
Shortly after that, Lodge would again become successful in pitching and winning funding from the Global Sport Institute. In one year, Lodge brought his game to 17 events, improving not only the product but also the experience it provided every time. He has since held a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign raising far more than his $11,300 goal, ending with $53,378 from 676 backers. Skip NN’ Hole has also been made available at Big 5 sporting goods stores, and Lodge is actively working to bring the game to many more major retailers’ shelves.
Images courtesy of Jaron Lodge
Presenting this idea for a nontraditional sport in front of the Global Sport Venture Challenge judging panel, Lodge’s enthusiasm and creativity earned him a first round of seed funding. Ultimately, what started as simply a stone eventually became the game of Skip NN’ Hole. Then came another pivotal moment. Lodge had the opportunity to demo Skip NN’ Hole at ASU’s Sun Devil Marketplace pop-up with various event attendees. “When I started getting feedback, that’s when everything started changing, because it wasn’t just about what I wanted,” Lodge said. “It was about what my customers wanted.”
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