As it closes in on its third million-dollar Kickstarter campaign, one Boulder startup is showing that its fitness products aren’t monkey-business.
Before Dan Vinson co-founded Monkii, he was inspired to reimagine fitness during his summer as a wilderness ranger in 2007. He compared his workouts in the Sierra Mountains to those of Rocky Balboa in Rocky 4, wild and unstructured.
His co-founder David Hunt had a similar experience as a wildland firefighter in Montana and the duo vowed to launch a company centered around this fitness journey when they returned to Georgetown in the fall.
Monkii wasn’t officially born until years later, when Vinson and Hunt launched it here in Colorado. Since then, the brand and community of ‘monkiis’ has exploded.
The fitness startup has designed a portfolio of on-the-go workout devices that allow users to set them up whenever and wherever they are.
“We’re taking a different approach to fitness, having it be more of a lifestyle,” Vinson said.
The company’s original product, the Monkii bars, a minimalist bodyweight trainer, landed $110,000 on Kickstarter in 2016. Then, the second iteration, Monkii Bars 2, launched later that year and garnered nearly $1.1 million from 6,000 backers.
Not to be outdone, Monkii released a pocket version in 2018 that raised $1 million from 8,300 backers.
Now, Monkii is back with an entirely new product and is set to break the $1 million Kickstarter marker again.
The Monkii 360 is a resistance trainer designed to be used with a high-intensity training to give a full-body workout. The product costs $149 and comes with access to Monkii’s training app.
Monkii has raised $982,000 from 4,641 backers for the 360 at the time of publication. The campaign still has 30 days remaining as Monkii aims to break the million-dollar Kickstarter barrier for the third time.
Vinson said the company has already begun putting orders for the 360 in, as the company plans an April 2020 delivery date. He said it's also developing additional fitness products as it eyes its next Kickstarter campaign.
“We’ll definitely go to Kickstarter,” he said of future product releases. “I can’t say enough good things about the platform itself and the people that are on it.”
With only three full-time employees, Vinson said he’s felt the support of the Colorado innovation community.
“It’s been invaluable, I came from the Bay Area and the problem there is that the buy-in is so high to start something,” he said. “It was the right fit for the company we were trying to build. We weren’t this high-growth tech company, we’re making physical products.”
The company hasn’t raised outside funding and Vinson said with the Kickstarter success, it isn’t in the cards.
“We don’t want to have to answer to anyone,” he added.
