SPORTS WAS THE BRIDGE INTO TECH for underserved communities?
This Hooper became a mechanical engineer at 19 years old & after 4-ACL surgeries, no access to expensive shooting machines, or pro-trainers, he decided to build his own.
Only 1% of athletes make it to the NBA. What about the other 99% ?
GRIND's Mission is to use sports to funnel 100M kids into high paying STEM careers by 2030.
The City of Houston, TX granted us GRIND Day, where we bring sports, technology & culture under one roof.
This is hosted annually at our Houston warehouse in 5th Ward.
What to expect: - Activities w/ our smart sports equipment - STEM activities - Back-2-School drive - Food / Music / Fun
We are looking for partners, sponsors & collaborators as we scale the impact!
$8,000
Invested in our community
1,500
Families served
200
Kids exposed to STEM
3
Scholarships given
MEET THEGRIND TEAM
Chief Culture Officer | Dr.Hendo
Customer Success | Mr. Colombia
COO | PV "The Shipping Queen"
CMO | Marketing Queen
Cheif Engineer | E-Money
Brand Product Developer | D'Angelo
Software Developer | Nani
Brand & Marketing | Mo Elrod
CEO | "The Founder" Thomas Fields
Launched in 2020
Founded in 2014
19 years old hooper turned into a mechanical engineer to change the world through basketball.
2014
4 ACL Surgieries
Top 100 Houston Ranked recruit, Thomas Fields tore his ACL for the 4th time. Coming out of HS he was denied access to his schools Shooting Machine that he loved using.
That's when the idea came to him, TheWorld's 1st Portable Shooting Machine.
2015
The Garage Startup
19 years old Thomas went into his parents Garage and called one of his friends that was attending welding school. Thomas asked him to teach him how to weld and he was off to the races.
2016
Locked-In
Designing a patened system that would pass basketballs to the 3-point line while folding down to a duffel bag was challanging. Over 300 interation on passing mechanisims and structures
2017
Pitching for the 1st time [Red-Labs]
After 2 years of junior college Thomas was finally accespted into Univeristy of Houston. He signed up for the technology accelorator for student startup companies. If you had an idea they would help refine your idea, business model and stragety. Then you would pitch infront of 400 mentors, investors and people with alot of money. We didn't get any investors but Thomas got into a pitch compition after this and won $5k.
The guy who write that check ended up becoming our first big investor!
2018
Bootstrapped
At this time Thomas and the GRIND Engineers were striving to complete the 1 protoptype.
Meanwhile Thomas funded the company by working Overnight Shifts with his cousin digging out trenches.
2019
Struggle Breeds Greatness
Tough times build tough people. This was the picture Thomas's future wife would take after applying to Shark Tank for him.
