LAGUNA NIGUEL – Rounding many of the sports world’s most famous wrists is today’s mystical, must-have, performance-enhancing accessory: the Power Balance wristband.
Los Angeles Laker forward Lamar Odom wears two yellow silicone bands on his left shooting hand for home games. He sports two black bands, one clinging to each wrist, on the road.
In Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Boston on Thursday, he juked a Boston Celtics defender out of his high tops, jetted inside for a pretzel-bodied layup and yet another free TV commercial for Laguna Niguel-based Power Balance.
This wristband looks unremarkable yet is more contoured than the ubiquitous yellow Lance Armstrong-inspired “Livestrong” band and its pride of copycats. Its distinguishing characteristic lies in its two circular Mylar holograms that are, according to product literature, “embedded with frequencies that react positively with your body’s natural energy field.”
Huh?
“I don’t know how it does what it does,” said Odom, who turned Lakers Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar onto the bands. “But wearing it helps my agility and has kept me from falling to the floor as much as I used to. I feel more energy and flexibility. So every game, I wear Power Balance.”
The band supposedly interacts with the body’s vital life force known in Eastern medicine as the Qi, improving one’s strength, balance, flexibility and general well being.
Skeptics think the product’s effects are psychological, enhancing performance no more than a lucky rubber band. Granted, believing in Power Balance requires letting go of Western medicine, conventional science and, yes, the retail price of $29.95.
But embracing a Power Balance band’s woo-woo factor has translated into a win-win for its wrist-brandishing faithful and for Troy and Josh Rodarmel, the Orange County brothers in jeans and flip flops who founded the company in January 2007.
The company that started in a 150-square-foot Dana Point office has grown to a staff of more than 40 employees in a 7,000-square-foot Laguna Niguel headquarters plus 10 contractors who run a 5,000-square-foot Lake Forest warehouse. Sales have already topped 2.5 million units, most coming in the past 15 months on the word-of-mouth power of viral marketing.
“I get so excited when I go somewhere and see somebody wearing Power Balance,” said Josh Rodarmel, 26, of Laguna Niguel. “Just a little while ago, the product didn’t exist. I didn’t know what I was going to do next in my life.”
Power Balance has now slapped athletic wrists everywhere, from Play-Doh-bodied weekend warriors to stand-up paddle boarders, the USC men’s tennis team, UCLA kicker Kai Forbath, Anaheim Ducks All-Star forward Teemu Selanne, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitcher Scott Kazmir, New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, soccer icons David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Lakers and the Boston Celtics’ Glen “Big Baby” Davis.
Just to name a few.
The wristband has crossed international borders, finding its most customers – and counterfeiters — in Spain and Japan. With Power Balance trending like a juicy rumor, the curio has gone mainstream, now residing beside more than one celebrity Rolex.
It has adorned the full-house-shielding hand of World Series of Poker champion Joe Cada and the wrists of “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, actor Robert DeNiro, socialite Khloe Kardashian, the cast of “Jersey Shore,” and – this just in — members of the Spanish Parliament.
Using alternative medicine
The idea for Power Balance began 3 ½ years ago with a crystal. Practitioners of ancient Chinese medicine turned for nature for healing, and the Rodarmel family embraced alternative medicine.
Troy, who built computers and sold memory, knew he would make a healthy living if he could program the “frequencies” emitted by Eastern medicine’s pricey stones into affordable, wearable material.
He discovered that Mylar film used for party balloons and anti-static envelopes could hold the desired frequencies. He embedded the signals in Mylar holographic disks, which he fastened to a wristband because it would be worn within the body’s energy field.
Troy and Josh sunk their savings into their startup and left steady employment to launch Power Balance. But selling wristbands, especially on the Internet, was challenging. Consumers thought: Why trust this product?
A year into the business, they were going broke. Troy was in Sweden, collecting recyclable bottles and cans for pocket change. Josh, a Yale graduate, was scrounging out a living by delivering luggage, tutoring Spanish and doing anything to stave off the 9-to-5 cubicle of adult life.
“It was a rough beginning before we got lucky,” said Josh. “In 2008 we just started going up to everyone we knew, showing them the product in person and letting them try it for free. If they liked it, we told them to tell their friends.”
They demonstrated the product’s value by conducting one-legged balance, sit-up strength and rotational flexibility tests. People were amazed with the difference the band made.
Troy, 35, a former surfer who lives in Capistrano Beach, took to the Orange County shore, handing out first-generation neoprene and Velcro wristbands stamped with “Power Balance” and containing two shiny disks. Soon surfers, then beach volleyball players wanted the bands they heard provided an edge.
Josh went to USC to track down his former Mission Viejo High football teammate Mark Sanchez. The then-Trojans quarterback wore the band during his sophomore and junior seasons. Seeing Sanchez’s success, first his Trojan teammates, then Coach Pete Carroll, then USC fans and then USC’s opponents bought bands.
Power Balance’s big exposure came when Sanchez and Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford donned wristbands at the 2009 NFL Combine. They were drafted in the first round.
“I’m performing at a higher level with it on, so I never take it off,” said Stafford, who got his first band from Sanchez. “I can go longer and harder in workouts. I also don’t feel so beat up after a tough game.”
Another turning point came after Josh met with Phoenix Suns team physician Dr. Michael Clark in 2009. Players including All-Star point guard Steve Nash and then-center Shaquille O’Neal sported the bands for a game that “we won by like 57 points,” recalled O’Neal.
“I want to do everything to get the slightest advantage…,” said O’Neal, who became a believer after the stone-footed, stilt-stepped center felt a surge of jungle-cat quickness. “It (Power Balance) works.”
Word of mouth
It was about 15 months ago when more athletes made the Power Balance wristbands a part of their uniforms. These athletes’ images were making covers of Sports Illustrated, highlights on ESPN “SportsCenter” and front pages of newspaper sports sections.
Power Balance didn’t have to buy advertising. It was getting the best kind — placement on popular athletes who voluntarily wear the product — for free. Soon Internet orders surged, especially for the newer silicone bands. Promotional doors opened in world tennis, surfing and beach volleyball events.
Sales leaped overseas, accounting for 91 percent of its 2.5 million units sold and 72 percent of Power Balance revenue. The company won’t divulge how much it has made beyond saying that it has turned a healthy profit. Troy said the profits have allowed him to “buy a few more pairs of shoes.” Josh reports that he bought a suit at an outlet and that he is considering the purchase of modest Mission Viejo home.
Most remarkably, this growth came without scientific proof that the wristbands actually do anything. Power Balance, which offers a 100-percent, money-back guarantee, makes no official claim to enhance performance. But about 20 pro athletes have praised the product in testimonials on the company’s Web site, www.powerbalance.com.
“It just got crazy,” said Troy. “We needed more hands.”
To meet its growing needs, the company relocated into the spacious two-story, brick and tinted-window office park in Laguna Niguel. It has acquired lawyers, a public-relations firm, Web designers, brick-and-mortar distributors like The Sports Authority, Dick’s and Modell’s, a Lake Forest warehouse and an oversized van painted with the Power Balance logo.
This is what happens when people who know people tell people who know people.
“Our growth can be traced like six degrees of separation, with one player seeing another wearing it, then trying it and then telling another player, ‘Hey, check this out,’” said Keith Kato, 44, the company president, chief financial officer and one of Power Balance’s original six-man braintrust of the Rodarmel brothers, sales guru Kevin McCarthy, customer service agent Taylor Holiday and business operations manager Ryan Johnson.
The staff has grown too. More than 30 new workers — mostly young, shiny, creative types who are unusually passionate and, of course, happily sporting at least one Power Balance wristband – thrive in Power Balance’s start-up culture.
In offices, mad-genius scrawl covers giant sheets of paper and dry-erase boards from floor to ceiling with product diagrams, flow charts and lists of athletes to visit and things to do. In common areas, the walls are milk-white except for 60 portraits, each painted by San Juan Capistrano surfer/artist Brian Bent and each depicting Power Balance-sporting athletes.
The Rodarmel brothers plan to make prints of each canvas and give the original to each athlete. Athletes can autograph the prints for auction off at an Aug. 3 Power Balance charity event to benefit ovarian cancer research. Their mother, JoAnne, died of ovarian cancer in 1997.
Production has been high gear. Bands get produced in China, holograms made in Minnesota and frequencies embedded here in a “secret” broom-closet-sized office to which the Rodarmel brothers have the only keys.
“We’ve got to keep growing the brand,” said Troy, who won’t let Power Balance be a passing fad.
Luckily, Troy Rodarmel enjoys increased stamina. Perhaps it’s all in the wrist?
Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com
