Anyone who's witnessed even just a minute of basketball knows how important accuracy is in sinking shots on the court. One Houston startup has developed a device to help practice make perfect in a game.
GRIND’s portable basketball shooting machine, the first of its kind, was created by founder and CEO Thomas Fields, former basketball phenom at Houston’s Reagan High School (now Heights High School).
“I remember being on varsity as a freshman and shooting thousands of shots every day trying to be the best,” says Fields. “My school bought a shooting machine, but they never let me use it. It was a game-changing piece of equipment, and I didn’t even have access because the gyms were always closed or closing.
“And another major problem was getting your rebounds, so we set out to make a portable basketball rebounding machine, so you could take it anywhere like home, the park, or the gym. It was also important to make it affordable, too.”At just 110 pounds, the GRIND shooting machine is 54 percent lighter than other home shooting machines, has a 12-foot net, and needs just 90 seconds to set up or take down.
“Our portable shooting machine has been on the market for about three, four years now,” says Fields. “So now it's time to kind of accelerate the growth, and that’s pretty exciting. We really have our sights on NBA Africa for a partnership there. Another one is Adidas; we are collaborating with them right now and they're also one of the sponsors of Black Hat Mission. And hopefully, we would like to land some NBA guys to invest and really get behind our sportstech company, but also make a significant impact in the community by getting kids into tech through sports.”
To that end, GRIND recently won second place in a competition from Black Ambition, an organization founded by Pharrell Williams. With the tagline, “Uninterrupted ambition. Unmatched impact,” the Black Ambition Prize celebrates underrepresented founders globally.
“When I initially heard of Black Ambition, I just kind of heard that Pharrell had started a venture fund aimed at uplifting black and brown entrepreneurs,” says Fields. “And when I read more about it, I realized that their mission perfectly aligned with GRIND. Our goal is to try to get kids into tech and STEM, but use sports as the conduit and the bridge to get them there.“We applied for the million-dollar cash prize for first place, but took second place, which is a $250,000 investment in the company. So now that Pharrell and Black Ambition are behind us, we are going out and raising some more capital to hit that hyper stage that we're going into. We are launching our software next year and our hardware has really been growing.”
Fields pitched GRIND on Shark Tank in May of 2021, where he was offered a joint deal for $250,000 for 25 percent of the company from both Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran. While Fields agreed on the show, the finalized terms of the deal were not disclosed.As a startup, GRIND, a consumer brand developing the world’s first smart ecosystem of sports equipment products, represents the continued uptick with sportstech innovation in Houston.
“We want to revolutionize the world of sports equipment by leveraging cutting edge technology by developing sports equipment that can seamlessly connect to software, enhancing athletic performance, and pushing athletes to achieve their peak potential,” Fields says.
As GRIND continues to push forward and expand its footprint, it’s also looking to expand its customer base.
“I think the target users are middle school and high school athletes,” says Fields. “These are the kids that are striving to be great athletes and striving to get into college. We also have colleges that have our product, as well. But mostly, the customer is the parents of those athletes. That's really who we're trying to get excited.
“And then, of course, there are the coaches and trainers. They own gyms; they own organizations and need equipment for their schools and universities. That's another target customer of ours for sure.”
Ultimately, GRIND will continue to build on Fields’ initial inspiration to design products and technologies with the athletes — especially hoopers — in mind.
“Our goal in the next few years is to really amp up the scholarships that we facilitate to funnel kids into STEM tech careers and pathways,” says Fields. “GRIND Day, which is a proclamation the City of Houston gave us for August 12 each year, is a day where we bring sports, tech, and culture all under one umbrella. Kids see us using 3D printers and lasers to cut the products that we make in our warehouse, which is in an underserved community, which hopefully makes them think it’s cool and want to get into technology.”
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This story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.
