Jasmine Sanchez, 23 and Jalen Brown, 25
Co-founders of Vessel Athletics
About Jasmine
Title: Co-founder and CEO, Vessel Athletics
Location: San Jose
Education: B.S. in business administration from San Jose State University
Resume: Worked as an intern for the ZinnStarter Accelerator program, then as an intern at the Plug and Play Tech Center and as an ambassador for the Female Laboratory of Innovative Knowledge. Now working as a corporate partnerships manager for the Plug and Play Tech Center.
Hobbies: During her free time, Sanchez loves to stay active: running, basketball, hiking, tennis and snowboarding. She also loves spending time with her new puppy.
About Jalen
Title: Co-founder and COO, Vessel Athletics
Location: San Jose
Education: B.S. in marketing from San Jose State University
Resume: Worked in the business development fellowship at SV Academy, then as an intern for Talend and as a business development representative for QuinStreet. Now works as an enterprise account executive for Adobe Stock.
Hobbies: During his free time, he loves to cook and create new recipes to share with other people. He also loves spending time and traveling with his family. Paris was the Holy Grail of all vacations for him.
Dehydration is a major concern for runners, particularly in the current dry weather conditions afflicting the Bay Area. San Jose entrepreneurs Jasmine Sanchez and Jalen Brown have come up with a novel way to make it easier for those exercising to drink water.
The duo are working on creating the HydroShirt, a piece of apparel that seamlessly integrates water into its design, to provide a more comfortable way people to hydrate on the go.
Sanchez came up the idea when she enrolled in her first 5K race a few years ago. As her training and competitions grew longer, she struggled to find a suitable way to keep hydrated.
“I went through a series of different hydration products,” Sanchez said. “The backpacks and vests were often very heavy, very bulky. I also didn’t want to be holding a bottle in my hand.”
Sanchez and Brown were classmates at San Jose State. Brown, who had already had experience starting his own skateboard brand, knew how to locate manufacturers, and the two worked to get the business off the ground.
That first professional meeting blossomed into a personal relationship and a romantic one. The two have now been dating for three years, and their company has grown to five employees. The startup is now looking for manufacturers for its first HydroShirt design to hopefully launch a prototype by December, so that she and Brown can wear their product while running in the California International Marathon in Sacramento.
“Our main focus right now is to engage with other runners out there and share our product with them and get feedback,” Brown said. “At the end of the day, we’re still learning, we’re taking it each day at a time.”
Once a prototype is ready, Sanchez and Brown aim to raise money for production through a Kickstarter fund.
“The most effective thing tight now has been really reaching out to the running community early on,” Sanchez said. “We want to show them that we’re not just a brand, we have real faces and are real people.”
