SUMMARY







Alex Hejazi the founder of Ballbox joins us, today, to discuss how Ballbox is creating an item share revolution. With kiosks full of sporting equipment, beach chairs, and AR/VR sets – they are swiftly innovating in this space. They are setting up kiosks around the country at the beach, in apartment buildings and even at hotels.







Alex walks us through validating the Ballbox idea, the process of creating these kiosks and how they’ve made business decisions. From how they picked the locations to choosing what items to carry in the kiosks.







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TIMESTAMPS







Learn a little about Ballbox – 00:55 How Alex validated the Ballbox idea – 03:52 How to make Ballbox scaleable – 06:33 The Ballbox ‘go-to-market’ strategy– 08:36 Understanding how different products appeal to different target audiences – 13:36 How Ballbox is working with retailers and providing value– 15:52 Ballbox’s fundraising journey and growth – 17:32 Innovation Hotseat with Alex – 19:4







FULL TRANSCRIPT







Erin Srebinski [00:00 ]: Hi everyone. Alex Hejazi is here on Ask an Innovator today. Alex is the founder of Ballbox. Ballbox is an innovative company pioneering the item sharing revolution. So, what is the item sharing revolution? Ballbox is building kiosks to rent items like beach chairs, virtual reality systems, electric massagers and everything in between. They are setting up these on-demand kiosks at the beach, in apartment buildings, and at hotels. They even offer package delivery to their kiosks for easy pickup. Such a cool concept and definitely worth checking out. Ballbox was recently named one of the top 50 startups to watch here in Chicago. So, let’s dive in.







Josh Barker [00:46 ]: I’d love to hear from you about your background and who you are and where I think Ballbox, right? That’s the thing and I want to learn a little more about ball box.







Alex Hejazi [00:55 ]: Yes, so I’ll just give a kind of this story about myself. I grew up kinda up the road in Ann Arbor, Michigan grew up there ended up going to Michigan State, studied finance and graduated 2016 I made my way down to Chicago and when I got here, you know, I guess this is kind of the story about Ballbox but I got here and found myself at the parks and beaches all the time. You have like three months out of the year where it’s actually enjoyable to be outside. I would be at the beach and realize that didn’t have a football to toss around, beach blankets, speakers, like literally everything I used to be able to find in my garage. It wasn’t there anymore. You know, when you move down you kind of keep it lean.