Courtney Billups

Anthony Katz was a basketball player with aching knees when he walked into an Alita Wetsuits shop in California in 2009 with a paper sketch of a neoprene ice sleeve and asked them to make it from scrap material. He wore it to pickup runs at UC Irvine that summer. Kobe Bryant's personal handler noticed it and asked Katz to make Kobe a pair. Kobe liked it but gave him notes: the melting ice created an air pocket that pushed the sleeve down his leg. He told Katz he had a little ways to go, but promised that if Katz got it right, he'd wear it on the bench. That was the moment Katz decided to turn the project into a company. He taught himself steel rule die cutting, injection molding and neoprene manufacturing, built a supply chain entirely in California and hand-assembled prototypes on his kitchen table ten to fifteen at a time. His Chinese project manager was murdered over a real estate dispute and he had to start over. He kept going. By 2011 he had raised $500,000 off prototypes with no sales. LeBron James started using the product in 2012. Nike's Global VP of Basketball Sports Marketing told him a Nike deal would be too expensive. Hyperice launched in 2013, did around $350,000 in its first year with pro and college teams, then went from $10 million to $65 million in revenue in a single year after launching the Hypervolt massage gun. The company recently partnered with Nike on a recovery slide, the deal Katz had been told was impossible. His lesson: get the product in the right hands before you worry about anything else. He spent years making things for free and showing up uninvited to NBA workouts. That was the strategy. Read more: entrepreneur.com/building-a-…

Some of the best business advice fits in a single sentence. Here are four worth keeping: "Remix existing ideas. You don't need to start from scratch." — Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit "People don't follow great resumes. They follow great people." — Jen Cohen, founder and CEO of No Gym Required "We have succeeded if we accomplish what we want, not what society or other people want." — Marcus Lemonis, executive chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond "Storytelling is business. Tell a story that shows that you relate to a client's struggles." — Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur Want to hear insights like these in person? Robert Irvine, Megan Thee Stallion, Gary Vee and more are coming together for Overcoming Impossible Live, an Entrepreneur Level Up event, a curated experience for decision-makers who want to learn from industry leaders, access proven growth strategies and build a network that actually moves the needle. Learn more: entrepreneurlevelup.com/over…