Creating the first soccer-specific tailgate game.
The idea of what we now call Wobblrs™ came to us one afternoon while tailgating before a Sporting KC game. We played our usual "hit the can" game using two empty aluminum cans and a soccer ball. The game is simple. Each team (1v1 or 2v2) sets their can or bottle about two parking spaces apart and take turns kicking the soccer ball attempting to hit the opponent's target. A successful hit equals one point and the first team to 11 wins. On this specific day we arrived to the stadium entirely too early because we thought the game started at 5:00 p.m. when in fact kick off wasn’t until 7:00 p.m. After the fifteen-hundredth time we played the game we became really annoyed that we had to reset the bottle every time. So we thought,
"Someone should make something that would fix this and doesn't require you to pick it up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME it gets hit."
The idea of what we now call Wobblrs™ came to us one afternoon while tailgating before a Sporting KC game. We played our usual "hit the can" game using two empty aluminum cans and a soccer ball. The game is simple. Each team (1v1 or 2v2) sets their can or bottle about two parking spaces apart and take turns kicking the soccer ball attempting to hit the opponent's target. A successful hit equals one point and the first team to 11 wins. On this specific day we arrived to the stadium entirely too early because we thought the game started at 5:00 p.m. when in fact kick off wasn’t until 7:00 p.m. After the fifteen-hundredth time we played the game we became really annoyed that we had to reset the bottle every time. So we thought,
"Someone should make something that would fix this and doesn't require you to pick it up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME it gets hit."
We immediately started brainstorming and thought that something like an ocean buoy would work. A target which had a low center of gravity would fix this problem.
It was hard to sit still and watch the game without thinking about the new idea. We talked and talked about the ideas going through our minds. Most of our conversations started like: "it would be cool if...", "I think we can make it do...", "We could call it..." we even went as far as dreaming about the day we could afford a suite to bring friends and family to the games after we made it big. It's funny to reminisce about that.
By the next home game we made a DIY prototype using a weighted base, foam, and some handy-dandy duct tape.
It was hard to sit still and watch the game without thinking about the new idea. We talked and talked about the ideas going through our minds. Most of our conversations started like: "it would be cool if...", "I think we can make it do...", "We could call it..." we even went as far as dreaming about the day we could afford a suite to bring friends and family to the games after we made it big. It's funny to reminisce about that.
By the next home game we made a DIY prototype using a weighted base, foam, and some handy-dandy duct tape.
The nods and highfives we received in the parking lot were our first points of validation that we were onto something that fans, like us, might enjoy. We just didn't know the steps what steps were required in order to bring a product to market.
