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SANDY — What started out as a personal project for a Utah father has evolved into much more.
At the end of March, BJ Minson decided to devote his efforts full-time to running Grip6, the belt company he started with the help of Kickstarter back in 2014. He quit his full-time engineering job to focus on the growing company.
“Now I have the time to focus on all of the things I’ve sort of been meaning to get to but haven’t been able to,” he said. “Between my full-time job and my kids and stuff, it’s been kind of a difficult balance.”
The idea for the Grip6 belt came to Minson as he was finishing up a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Utah. He had long been obsessed with belts, but couldn’t find one that had what he wanted.
In particular, Minson disliked belts that had holes or belt flaps that stuck out, so he designed a flat belt for himself. Things took off after he shared his creation with one of his friends.
“He just started telling everybody about the belt and pretty soon he had me making a bunch of belts for all of his family and friends,” Minson said. “After that, I got a lot of positive feedback, so I figured I’d just throw it out there on Kickstarter and see what would happen.”
David Burton, one of his current partners for Grip6, gave Minson $1,000 so he could purchase an industrial sewing machine. Minson ended up with an order of nearly 10,000 sales from the crowdfunding campaign.
“It was way bigger than I thought it would ever get,” he said. “I’m not a very social person. I don’t have a ton of like contacts or friends on Facebook or anything, but the amount of people that found the project and pledged to it was just crazy.”
After the Kickstarter campaign, Minson pulled long nights in his garage to make all of the belts and fulfill the orders. He still makes the belts himself, now with the help of one other full-time employee in a small Sandy warehouse. He said they can make about 250 belts in a day.
Grip6’s most recent Kickstarter ended in December, raising just under $320,000 for a carbon fiber version of the belt. Minson said the carbon fiber buckle is especially useful for frequent fliers who want to cruise through security without taking their belt off.
Things have been hectic since he started working on Grip6 full-time during the first week of April but productive. He said he decided to take a “leap of faith” and quit his other job because Grip6 was getting close to providing a workable salary.
“My kids are excited because in their mind it means I’m home a little bit more,” he said.
