Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff and Kristina Hunter.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jeff and Kristina. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Our entire business began as sort of a fluke and we literally had no dreams or intentions of starting our own company, let alone a fitness brand.
It all started in the Spring of 2013. I was kind of bored with the same old gym routine and was looking for something a little more intense and motivating. A buddy of mine had mentioned something about CrossFit and said that some of his workouts only lasted 8-20 minutes. I loved the idea of getting a serious workout in without taking up too much of my day. At that point, I would spend upwards of 2 hours per day by myself for a workout where I barely broke a sweat. CrossFit was offering classes where you workout with people and with trainers who were constantly monitoring and motivating. To me, this sounded like a no-brainer. My wife Kristina however, was not so interested.
We did some research and found a nice gym in Studio City (CrossFit Horsepower) and I was able to convince Kristina to at least do the intro class with me so it wouldn’t be so awkward for me in a new class. I promised her she wouldn’t need to show up after that. But lucky for me, BOTH of us were hooked after the first class and joined straight away. Within weeks we had tons of new friends and we were soon becoming the healthiest we’ve ever felt. But soon I noticed a problem that made the classes pretty unbearable.
High intensity, high repetition workouts like CrossFit can be absolutely brutal on the hands. Calluses grow and then fail to leave your hands torn and bloody. This would happen to the majority of the athletes as well, it was a bloodbath! While many people found that to be a badge of honor, I, on the other hand, found it to be a total nuisance to my line of work. Kristina and I both were bartenders at one of the most exclusive, high volume nightclubs in Hollywood at the time and we would go to work with open sores on our hands, squeezing lemons and limes in drinks. The pain was excruciating, to say the least! It got so bad on some nights that I would be holding my breath not to scream out in agony in front of my customers.
After work one night I came home and told my wife that I’d had it, I couldn’t keep doing CrossFit and exposing myself to these types of injuries as it was affecting my work. But by that point, we were so hooked on the training and the community of friends we had acquired that walking away was a non-option for us. We tried using regular gym gloves but they simply didn’t work and leather gymnastics grips were too thick and uncomfortable. I needed a solution and Kristina, who had a background in fashion, said “I’ll just make you something” and gets to work on her sewing machine…
2 days later she whips up these incredible workout gloves unlike anything on the market and combined them with wrist support, something that nobody in this space had done before. Proud of my wife’s creation, the next day I went around the gym showing off what Kristina had made for me. By the end of class, we had 9 orders to make more. It was at that moment that a light went off and we thought, ‘hey, we may be on to something here.’
With absolutely NO business experience we invested $40k of our own money, sourced the materials, the people and the time and we grinded over the next 9 months to get them and another innovative product we created manufactured. In that time we named our brand JerkFit based on the ‘Jerk’, the physical act of lifting a bar above your head, or in other words to “Raise the Bar” which is our motto.
In June of 2014, we were finally ready to introduce WODies and Nubs to the world. Incredibly, we had our first order within 10 minutes of going live and within 3 months, we had the number 1 selling exercise gloves on Amazon. We quickly realized we needed to quit our jobs and devote 100% of our time to grow this business and we’ve never looked back!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Anyone who runs or starts a business would agree that it’s rarely a smooth road. I think where we differ from many companies was how quickly our product became a blockbuster. We were making a profit almost from the get-go and I know for many businesses, it can take years to turn a profit. So I do think that we were very lucky in that respect, especially since we had no experience, not having to shell out more and more money to get this train moving took a lot of the stress off and we were able to focus on continuing to get the word out about our products. That’s not to say we didn’t face a TON of hardships along the way…
Early on, and based on our lack of business knowledge, we teamed up with a few partners. One was our creative director, Ben Ceccarelli who single-handedly made our brand and branding look incredible and far exceeded our expectations. He made us look professional before we were even ready to be. Another partner, Kirk Sullivan was a master PR consultant, business guru, and an all around out of the box thinker. More than anything he was a mentor to me, someone who had walked this road many times and a person I could confide in when issues would arise. I spoke to him just about every single day. Tragically, he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly just as our business was making huge strides thanks in large part to him. In fact, I had spoken to him just hours before his passing.
It was a crushing blow to the business, but even more to me personally. At his wake, I said a few words off the cuff that rang so true to me at that time, “As captain of this ship, I feel like I’ve lost my compass.” That was how I felt for many months as the business continued to grow, I was lost, I simply didn’t have the guidance or tools to make the big decisions that needed to be made in that crucial period. To this day, I think about him and how much I wish I could talk to him and bounce ideas. No doubt our growth suffered with his loss, but perhaps, in the end, I grew out of this. I was forced to remove the training wheels and start making the big decisions on my own. It’s incredible what life lessons come from loss.
JerkFit – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
What sets JerkFit apart from other companies is that were founded on the idea of innovation, rethinking and reimagining of fitness products. Many brands today just slap their logo on a product they bought overseas in bulk and hope for the best through marketing.
Every single product that we manufacture is made with the best quality materials on the market, most are made right here in the USA and we put quality control above all else when it comes to putting a product to market. JerkFit is essentially an umbrella brand that designs and creates different products with their own brands, for instance, our WODies, Nubs, JerkFit Omega Speed Ropes and Death Grips. We produce a multitude of fitness accessories like gloves, weight belts, knee sleeves, speed ropes and more for every athlete on the planet.
What I’m most proud of is being able to produce something that corrects a problem and help people take their fitness to the next level. To go around to various gyms across the country and to see people wearing our gear gives me such a feeling of pride, you have no idea. All of this from a single idea that we took from nothing to something really big. It’s an amazing story.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career was my wife and I being able to quit our 2 full-time jobs and be our own boss. There is something about working for yourself and creating your wealth that is so much more satisfying than just getting a paycheck.
I like to make the analogy about the time I went out to fish and I came home with dinner and grew my own vegetables. I could easily have purchased the fish and veggies, but boy did they taste sweeter when I put in the hard work myself. That, in a nutshell, is how I feel every day owning a business, its a lot more work, but its just sweeter and more gratifying that we’re creating our own living.
Contact Info:
- Website: JerkFit.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @jerkfit
- Facebook: facebook.com/shopjerkfit
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
