The basketball forward had his agent contact Hyperice about investing and participating in marketing.īlake Griffin, a Davis client, used the wraps even before his knee surgery this summer. Grizzlies forward Rudy Gay, who had shoulder surgery in 2011, was one of those players and liked the product, Katz said. “There were 20 guys playing in that game and I got product on 20 of the top NBA players,” Katz said. The entrepreneur, spotting an opportunity, took knee and ankle Hyperice wraps for every player. James hosted a charity basketball game in Miami to which he invited Katz. James met Katz and told him, “People want to buy (Hyperice) but you don’t even have a website.” (It does now: .) “He was not paid to wear it he wasn’t endorsing it it wasn’t an ad,” Katz said. The company got an unplanned break when ESPN magazine did a spread on the Miami Heat and in one photo of LeBron James was wearing a Hyperice shoulder brace. “His investment management team funded the next round for Hyperice.” “Troy was the first who came back to us and not only liked the product he wanted to be involved, Katz said. Through Orange County friends with USC connections, Katz sent Steeler Polamalu a Hyperice wrap for an injury. “Athletes give you two things: credibility and exposure,” Katz said. He and Katz developed a list of 20 well-known athletes who could influence many others if they tried and liked Hyperice. He also introduced it to the influential athletes under his training.
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It’s a private company so he does not disclose valuations or amounts investors have put into Hyperice.įor the first time in 19 years as a professional trainer, Davis endorsed the Hyperice and invested time, energy and money in the startup. Katz structured Hyperice as a corporation with a third of its shares undistributed for future investors. I said, ‘are you sure no one is doing this?’ but he had a patent on it.” When Katz returned to Davis, the trainer was impressed but incredulous.
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“One thing that alerted us to the idea this wouldn’t fail is feedback from athletes from high school to pro and professional trainers who tried it.” Rob Marton thought Hyperice was so promising he took the job of director of operations to run the manufacturing side of the new company. “They built it so I could have a prototype to show people,” Katz said. “I continued to work on the compression side, and I thought of a button you could push to let the air out.”Īnother friend told him about Marton Precision Manufacturing, which makes parts for aerospace, medical and energy companies. “We tear a hole to release the air and then it leaks.” “The problem is that as the ice melts, the bag fills with air so it loses its cold and compression,” Davis explained. Instead of leaving, Katz hung around Davis for a week, watching him fill 30 bags with ice and manually suck the air out for players to use following a practice game. “I laughed him out of the gym I said, ‘it’s been done,'” said Davis, who is constantly approached for product endorsements or introductions to celebrity athletes. To make his own ice compression wrap, Katz bought Neoprene from a Huntington Beach wetsuit maker, cut it with an X-ACTO knife and sewed on Velcro to hold it in place.Ī friend introduced Katz to Robbie Davis, a Los Angeles personal trainer to dozens of NBA players and Olympic volleyball and soccer stars.
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The common elements: elevate, ice, compress. He did the same in Australia where he taught school for a year.Ībout five years ago, Katz became interested in ice therapy after watching athletes use everything from plastic baggies filled with ice cubes to $4,000 machines used on race horses. When they wanted to keep fit off season, Katz organized pick-up games. Katz had a lot of friends who were elite high school and college athletes. Then Rob Marton, working at family-owned Marton Precision Manufacturing in Fullerton, turned Katz’s idea into a real product that the two have patented as the basis for Hyperice, which recently opened its own manufacturing facility in Anaheim. Anthony Katz, who grew up in Laguna Niguel, came up with the concept out of his life-long love of sports, especially basketball, and used his natural talent for making friends to turn it into reality.