TMCnet News
Rubberbanditz owner sees products as possible job-creation toolDURHAM, Jun 28, 2012 (The Herald-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- It was when he was on an island in the Caribbean with the Peace Corps with no gym nearby that Ari Zandman-Zeman started using elastic bands to try to stay in shape, he said. That led to the launch in 2009 of his own company, Rubberbanditz, a startup based in Durham that sells elastic resistance bands and related products, mostly online. Now the 30-year-old Zandman-Zeman is looking to take Rubberbanditz products overseas in hopes the bands will become a job creation tool. He's planning to partner with Carolina for Kibera, an existing nonprofit affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to create health and business benefits for people living in a slum near Nairobi, Kenya. "We're hoping to provide a low-cost resource that enables really anybody to work out," Zandman-Zeman said of his company. A certified personal trainer who previously played college Division I basketball for the University of Northern Colorado, Zandman-Zeman said he was working on an island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines with the Peace Corps, and wanted to stay fit. "Where I was stationed, (there was) nothing close to a gym for a four-hour boat ride," he said. "It wasn't even close to a business idea; (it was) something I could do to stay in shape while I was there. Then I did two and a half years of development work in Guatemala, where the idea was refined." Zandman-Zeman said he started Rubberbanditz with about $8,000. He said he found a supplier of industrial-grade elastic bands that could be modified to his specifications. He added a suite of accessories to go with them, including an exercise manual and DVD. Since the launch, he said the company has brought in enough revenue to break even. The company has had around 12,000 customers, and has sold products in 15 countries, he said. The business employs one other person full-time, and is based out of the downtown offices of Bull City Forward, a group that houses entrepreneurs launching ventures to solve social problems. About two years ago, Zandman-Zeman said the company donated equipment to the nonprofit Carolina for Kibera. The nonprofit has youth athletic and health programs, and the bands were integrated into some of what they were already doing, he said. At first, it was an experiment, he said. But in August, the Durham-based entrepreneur plans to travel to Kibera to host a week-long personal training seminar for eight young men and eight young women. The idea is that after a year, they'd be working as personal trainers. He said the plan is to require them to donate a year to the nonprofit working at training others to use the resistance bands. His hope is that he could then go on to use the model for work with other community organizations in underserved communities. He said he thinks it will work in Kibera because there are gyms there that have rudimentary equipment. There's a burgeoning soccer and athletics scene. He believes more young people are interested in fitness. Leann Bankoski, executive director of Carolina for Kibera, said the nonprofit partners with many groups to try to grow the organization's reach. Right now, she said the nonprofit directly serves 55,000 to 65,000 per year through a health clinic, as well as scholarship, waste management, entrepreneurship and soccer programs. "Our model is participatory development. The community members are the recipients of the work, but they drive the work, and the programs," Bankoski said. "The programs are really just a means to an end, which is a new generation of leaders in a place that's not seen as a slum, but a community that has a lot of different value," she added. Bankoski said the nonprofit was given some Rubberbanditz bands to see what participants would do with them, "and they loved them." "So since then, we've been trying to figure out how to create a new training program," she said, to help participants develop leadership qualities, as well as to turn into business opportunities," she said. As for Zandman-Zeman, he said he's planning to ultimately leave Durham to get a master's of business administration degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and to manage the company remotely for about two years. But he plans to return. "The overarching goal and I guess market that our bands target, it's pretty broad," he said. "It's mainly to help prevent, or eliminate barriers to fitness -- whether it's lack of time to get to the gym, lack of access finding a facility or lack of financial resources." ___ (c)2012 The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) Visit The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) at www.heraldsun.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |