January 30, 2017

Meet Joe Jackiewicz of Stratus Bubble Soccer in Hollywood

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Jackiewicz.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My business partner’s partner is from Denmark and during one of their trips visiting her family back in Scandinavia they saw people playing bubble soccer. He fell in love with the idea as soon as he saw it and wanted to bring it back to the US so that more people could play.

At the time I owned another company, and I’m always looking for exciting new ideas, and after he showed me some videos I had to try it. On a trip up to San Francisco, we had a chance to play and we knew that this was something that Los Angeles would love.

We started thinking about what kind of businesses we want to frequent and how can we be the change we wish to see in the world. I’ve started using the Ben & Jerry’s test, what would Ben & Jerry’s do, to decide if we’re moving in the right direction. We use this test for everything from how to pay our employees, how to source our products, to who we want our customers to be.

We named ourselves Stratus because we wanted a name that was shareable and memorable while relating to our business and we wanted to associate ourselves with the sky because we both love to travel. In fact, that’s where we really bonded is our love of travel. Before launching the business we traveled through South America for an entire summer and went to the World Cup, climbed Machu Picchu, and had many adventures.

We started looking into how we would get these bubbles and it turned out that they are made in China so we had to become experts on how to import giant plastic bubbles. We had a great conversation with a someone at border patrol about what we were importing and the best way we could explain it was a beach ball that you can climb inside. Somehow the border patrol thought that was close enough and we were able to get a giant pallet of plastic balls and pumps and soccer equipment delivered to my apartment which they dropped in our driveway, needless to say, my neighbors were not our biggest fans to start but we were in business.

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?
It’s been bumpy, and there are still bumps, but that’s the fun of starting a business.

We’ve always struggled to get our name out and to stay in people’s minds because Southern California provides so many activities. We’ve tried everything from calling businesses directly, to handing out fliers, to having people play in public places just so people see us, to working with charity groups to have more events.

Please tell us about Stratus Bubble Soccer.
We are a Bubble Soccer event company. Our goal is always to provide some of the most original and most fun parties for people across LA. Our staff is all college athletes we provide everything a group needs for their event so they can show up and practice sending their friends airborne.

I’m most proud that we’ve built a company that is profitable while treating our employees well and using environmentally friendly products.

We have set ourselves apart by having some of the most fun and engaging bubble soccer events in LA. Our social media team is fantastic, our employees have a blast at the events, and our goal is to make sure that every event is a memorable one.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I lived in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Oregon as a kid but there’s an ice cream place in New Jersey called Carvel that makes soft serve ice cream and the best ice cream cakes you’ve ever had. My parents and I used to go there and get chocolate soft serve with chocolate sprinkles and sit on the hood of the car being silly.

Still some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

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