Apr 1, 2019 · 1h 0m · how-i-built-this
Springfree Trampoline: Keith Alexander & Steve Holmes
Keith Alexander · 17m spoken Guy Raz · 17m spoken Steve Holmes · 16m spoken Chris Heilman · 1m spoken Cindy Heilman · 52s spoken
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
This episode of 'How I Built This' chronicles how New Zealand engineering professor Dr. Keith Alexander and Canadian entrepreneur Steve Holmes joined forces to invent, commercialize, and scale the Springfree Trampoline into a global safety-oriented brand.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 32.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 0.2 Guy pushing back 0.7
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 29:47 Trade show competitors threaten patent litigation
Steve recounts aggressive pushback from rival manufacturers and retailers at the 2003 Vegas Super Show warning him that selling without or with traditional enclosures would trigger patent infringement.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 37:20 Guy probes thin profit margins on initial retail pricingGuy challenges Steve on pricing the product at $999 with thin margins, prompting Steve to admit they were actually losing money on every unit to establish market proof.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:17 Keith explains the geometry of 45-degree fiberglass rodsKeith educates Guy on mechanical safety design, explaining how laying fiberglass rods at a 45-degree angle provides spring tension while ensuring a jumper hitting the perimeter pushes the rods outward rather than being impaled.
Guy holds their own ▶ 19:10 Guy explains institutional university IP ownershipGuy displays clear knowledge of academic commercialization structures, explaining to Keith how research universities across the board legally claim intellectual property developed on campus.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keith Alexander's Early Tinkering and Education | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz leads Keith Alexander through his early tinkering background, asking playful follow-ups about Keith's walk-on-water shoes and bald patch mirror inventions. Keith warmly explains the mechanics behind his student projects. | |
| Consulting Career and the Trampoline Safety Dilemma | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy checks whether theoretical physics supports Keith's early magnetic flying machine idea. Keith explains the theoretical mechanics involving magnetic poles while acknowledging the practical impossibility. | |
| The Spark: A Mother's Safety Warning | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Keith recounts his initial motivation to disprove his wife's safety concerns, only to find research confirming high trampoline injury rates. He explains how his early inflatable rim prototype proved safe but lacked bounciness. | |
| The Fiberglass Rod Concept at Canterbury | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Keith details the core engineering breakthrough: angling fiberglass rods at 45 degrees so jumping on the edge bends them outwards rather than impaling the user. Guy visualizes and clarifies the geometry. | |
| University Ownership, Prototype Testing, and Stalled Commercialization | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy demonstrates familiarity with university IP policies where academic institutions claim ownership of faculty inventions. Keith describes local manufacturer feedback and the university commercialization office stalling the project. | |
| Mid-Show Break: The Journey to Market | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy introduces Steve Holmes, who wires $10,000 to New Zealand to have a prototype shipped to Toronto. Steve describes testing the product with his neighborhood kids on his back patio. | |
| The 2003 Vegas Super Show and Retail Feedback | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Steve recounts the 2003 Vegas Super Show where retailers insisted trampolines required safety enclosures, while a competitor claimed an overarching enclosure patent. Steve notes Costco CEO Jim Sinegal's refusal to sell dangerous trampolines. | |
| Purchasing the Patent and Inventing the Soft Enclosure | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks about buying out the university patent for over $1 million. Keith explains his low-risk appetite and describes how they created a flexible enclosure using fishing net and fiberglass poles. | |
| 2004 Orlando Launch and Costco Canada Debut | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Guy drills down into the economics of the initial 400-unit Costco Canada order. Steve admits they were losing money at the $999 retail price point because manufacturing each unit in New Zealand cost significantly more. | |
| Supply Chain Migration and Global Costco Rollout | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy and Steve discuss protecting proprietary rod technology while shifting labor and steel production to China. Steve explains surviving on purchase order financing with high interest rates to fulfill Costco orders. | |
| The 2009 Halifax Crisis and Pivot to Direct-to-Consumer | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Steve narrates the crisis of May 2009 when Costco's CEO abruptly terminated all trampoline sales after seeing a prominent Halifax store display. Steve details their immediate pivot to direct-to-consumer experience centers. | |
| Scaling the Brand and Reflections on Success | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks the standard question about whether success was intelligence and persistence or luck. Keith reframes invention as raising a child, where initial creation is deliberate but eventual market fate relies heavily on lucky circumstances. | |
| How You Built That: The Growing Candle | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | In the 'How You Built That' segment, Guy interviews Chris and Cindy Heilman about their plantable seed-paper candle business (The Growing Candle). |
Statements from this episode (17)
Alexander: Walk-on-Water Competition Winnings Funded His Engineering PhD
“I managed to win the competition two years in a row, and then won a third one in Auckland, and that helped fund my PhD.”
Alexander: Engineering Professors Need Practical Experience to Be Valid Teachers
“I don't think I'm a valid teacher of engineering unless I've got some engineering experience.”
Alexander: Traditional Trampolines Are Dangerous Due to Steel Frames and Springs
“Traditional trampoline has got a steel bar around the outside edge and springs right beside it, and then the mat that you jump on in the middle, and I can see that it's dangerous because the accident rates have gone up, and it's pretty obvious. You give this n…”
Alexander: Angling Fiberglass Rods at 45 Degrees Prevents Trampoline Impalement
“These things are sticking straight up, and if you're on a trampoline on the top, and you fell on it, because they're vertical, if you fell right on the edge, you could impale yourself on them. So what if we laid them over so that they're 45 degrees? Then if yo…”
Alexander: New Zealand's Largest Trampoline Maker Sold Only 400 Units Annually
“I found the biggest trampoline manufacturer in New Zealand. He was selling 400 trampolines a year.”
Holmes: Global Trampoline Market Was Estimated at $500M-$600M in 2003
“I think that we had measured that we thought that the trampoline market, that maybe it was a five to six hundred million dollar trampoline market globally.”
Costco CEO Jim Sinegal Refused to Sell Trampolines Over Safety Concerns
“The answer was yes, and that was Costco. The CEO of Costco was a man named Jim Senegal, and Jim said, I will not sell trampolines.”
Holmes: Acquiring the Springfree Trampoline Patent Cost Close to $1 Million
“To buy everything when everything was all said and done and all the settlements at the university, I think it was probably close to that, yes.”
Holmes: Springfree Spent an Entire Year Developing Its Safety Enclosure
“So we didn't sell any products, we didn't make any products, we just spent a year building an enclosure for the Spring Free Enclosure.”
Holmes: Springfree Sold Initial Canadian Units at a Loss to Test Demand
“It was more than that. We were losing money on every product. We had to do that to find out if we could create a market.”
Holmes: Early Springfree Trampolines Cost About $1,450 Each to Manufacture
“They were costing about 1400 and 50 dollars To make one.”
Holmes: Springfree Kept Proprietary Parts Local While Moving Steel to China
“Even to this day, most of the original Manufacturing components, the rods and the net material that we use, we're using the exact same manufacturing partners. They've come a long way, the whole way through the whole journey. We've never deviated from that, but…”
Holmes: Costco Represented 90% of Springfree's Distribution Prior to 2007
“Virtually in, in the northern hemisphere and are only. We were selling direct in places where we could, but they were basically 90% of our distribution.”
Holmes: 50% of Early Sales Came From Word-of-Mouth Customer Referrals
“If a spring-free customer has a spring-free trampoline, if a parent who says, well, I really don't like trampolines, they'll sell it for me to other friends and neighbors, and 50% of our sales came from our customers.”
Holmes: Springfree Invested $7M in Manufacturing and Raised $3M in Debt
“We probably invested maybe five to seven million dollars in the factory construction and then a couple more million in some other stores. And I think we had a debt raise of about, at the time, three million dollars.”