The long way round.
I didn't start as an expert. I started as a student with a sore back and a makerspace down the hall.
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Before 2017
A workshop in Saint John.
My grandfather was a mechanical engineer. He let me build things in his workshop and taught me to design the best answer first and worry about the limits after. He never made anything feel impossible.
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2017
A makerspace on the day it opened.
Engineering didn't come easily, and my four-year degree became five. That's when I found UNB's technology and entrepreneurship program and its brand new makerspace. On the day it opened, I had a file ready to print.
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2017 to 2018
A suction cup and 220 design variations.
The idea came from a summer job installing windows. The suction cups were strong enough to carry glass, but they wouldn't stick to drywall. I spent two years and 220 design variations turning that into a massage ball that mounts to a wall. It became Vertiball. To pay for it, I entered pitch competitions, even though public speaking was one of my biggest fears. I won the NBEX and Apex competitions and Canada's Business Model Competition, about $40,000 in all.
I went through the RBC Technology Commercialization Program, Energia Ventures, and the Summer Institute accelerator, which paid me a wage to work on my own product. I still can't believe that was a thing.
Canada's Business Model Competition, 2018.
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2018 to 2019
Learning to make things in China.
$40,000 wasn't enough. A mentor helped me work out that I needed $400,000 to reach profitability, so I knocked on doors until I could pay for injection moulds. I flew to China to find manufacturers, ran a Kickstarter to test the price, and launched Vertiball in 2019.
The first inventory. Saint John.
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2020 to 2024
Dragons' Den, then $20 million in sales.
On my third application I pitched Dragons' Den and left with a deal. Vertiball went into Amazon, Target, Best Buy and QVC. I designed Vertiroller, then Vertigun, a massage gun that mounts to the wall, and led it from first sketch to mass production. Symbodi raised $6.5 million, passed $20 million in sales, reached more than 300,000 customers, and was named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2024.
Our campaigns featured athletes like CeeDee Lamb, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Clelin Ferrell and Carli Lloyd, and Vertiball made its first appearance on QVC in 2019.
With the factory team at Danli Toys, Longchuan.
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Now
Taking founders to the factory floor.
I'm Entrepreneur in Residence at UNB's J Herbert Smith Centre, the same place that gave me my start. This year I took two hardware startups to Guangdong to meet the factories that will build their products. Form by Four is the company I built to do this with more founders.
Ryder Industries, 2026.
