Meet Robin Stewart

Today we’d like to introduce you to Robin Stewart.

Hi Robin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
RipFix has been in my family for three generations. It was concocted in the kitchen of my grandmother and passed down to my mother rather than me. As a kid, we called it “Miracle Cream,” and we depended on it for almost everything: dry, cracked lips, heels, rashes, diaper rash, scrapes, burns, even zits!!… but for me, as a gymnast who never wore grips, it was essential in my gym bag. It works amazingly on hand rips. My Mom made it for gymnasts and ball players and I’ve known since my 20’s that I was suppose to market our family recipe, I just didn’t know where or how until CrossFit!!!. When I started CrossFittng, I knew it was my market. First, I had to figure out how to make it. It took a lot of trial and error because my mother is trapped in the world of dementia, and the recipe would change every time I asked her (you can laugh. She has a great sense of humor). I figured it out, tweaked it a bit to make it more holistic and like that, my business started. I started selling RipFix to athletes locally and to my own CF community and received rave reviews and requests for more. Thanks to the pushing of my community (CrossFit Talon in CoolSprings TN), my business partner and I now have vendors all around the world.

While working on events, I have discovered that a lot of athletes do not know how to care for their hands, and guys, especially, are skeptical about treating their calluses. I was a sponsor at an event last weekend where a guy ripped so bad it was a bloody, ugly, gnarly mess of about a 1/4 inch of skin ripped….I told him he had RipFix in his gift bag, he said, “No way it will work on this” …I said, “Just try it; it’s free”…he contacted me two days later on my RipFix Facebook page saying, “You win, It works, I did pull-ups today, I owe you”. I love stories like that, and I have many.

For some athletes, rips are a right of passage, a warrior wound, a sign that you worked hard…but that gets old quickly, especially when your daily workouts are affected by a hand that is not healthy enough to hold you on a bar. We have found that if you do daily maintenance on your hands the less likely you are to tear. When you build up those hard mounds of flesh, known as calluses, and then add friction, they have nowhere to go but to tear off, causing painful rips. If you take some time every night to pumice the calluses down, then apply RipFix. Your RipFix not only mends a rip, it is a great preventative.

The RipFix story has come around full circle because I am now a single mom to a state-champion Gymnast, and her whole team uses the product. Our product is selling worldwide, and I am now known on the local competitive circuit as the “RipLady,”…Fixing and treating hands one athlete at a time!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been smooth sailing. I was a theater major, not a business major! I put the cart before the horse many times, getting tripped up during the process, which I had to learn as I went along. However, my lack of knowledge actually was an asset to me because had I known all the steps and everything you have to go through to get a business up and running, it may have made me hesitate, knowing how hard things were. My ambition and belief in the product are what kept me going.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about RipFix?
Ripfix is a very niche business. We’ve been helping heal athletic hands for many years now… We wish we could mainstream the product and get it. FDA-approved for everyday household needs. It literally helps to aid in the healing of all skin afflictions. What I pride myself in most with this business is the word-of-mouth free advertising we get and people finding us organically and passing on our information strictly because the product really does work… it does what it says.. we do not spend money on hiring or paying people to talk about our product. We let our products speak for itself and I love when someone emails me and says wow this product is magic. I have an elderly customer who reaches out every year to let us know how much we’ve helped his skin problems. It’s what keeps our small business going and growing.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
What I love best about this city is the abundance of opportunity. It’s a city full of dreamers, and that helps feed my soul. What I like least about the city… is it’s a city to easily become isolated in. Finding your crew, your people is really important.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ripfix.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/RipFix
• Facebook: RipFix
• Twitter: RipFix