Patent Attorney and Founder
Okay, um, welcome to our program here, Steve. Thanks for coming on. What is your name?
My name is Steve Hoover, and I’m the founder of HomeStrong Fitness.
And how did you find Bold?
Well, you know, I had gone through the patent process myself and attempted to, and I was unsuccessful at getting through the total process myself. So, did a Google Search and found Bold Patents highly rated and gave it a shot, and I’m so glad I did. Awesome, thank you for that.
What do you like best about Bold?
The things that I like best about Bold are, one, the process was very simple. Right from the get-go reaching out to them, it was an immediate response pack, which is really comforting because, you know, I’d reached out to a few companies just to check the market, and I got an immediate response, which was comforting that somebody was actually checking messages, you know, checking the media. And then, you know, it wasn’t only just one person that I was talking to; there seemed like there was a team of people that I really was introduced to very early on. So, just knowing that there’s a real company behind the internet contact that you make was really, you know, comforting. Awesome, thank you for that. Two more questions here for you. So, given that you looked at a few different companies, what was it that made you pick Bold over others?
The thing that made me pick Bold over the others is one, obviously, the detail that they provided me right out of the gate. Kind of really establishing, almost reiterating what my goals were and then giving me a path, you know. So that really clarified things as to they knew where I was in my process within the patent, where we needed to go. You know, I really kind of took out the questions and made that clear as to where we were heading in the patent process. Awesome.
And last but not least, would you refer others to Bold and why?
You know, I would definitely refer others to Bold because of everything that I’ve said. You guys hit the budget; you had a team behind it. I’ve worked with multiple people. Everyone that I worked with was great. And, you know, I think it is important to protect your patented idea or patentable idea. And so, you know, with that experience I had, with not busting the budget, all those types of things, is exactly what you want to look for in a partner. So, you know, Bold has been great the whole process, and I definitely refer people to you. So good. Thank you for that. Okay, awesome. Okay, let’s go to a bit more of the fun questions. And Huda, if you don’t mind, would you mind adding up that part of it, and we can make this a bit more back and forth, natural instead of just more robotic if that makes sense?
Yes, but you know what? I do apologize. I have to search for the questions. Matt is sending them to me really fast. Sorry about that. I would—I thought I had it front and center. Okay, guys, I got pinged by my Gmail. It’s not front and center. I’ve got the first one if you want to go looking. I can send it to you. But Steve, if you would provide details about your background, let them know kind of where you grew up, what’s your family like, where you went to school, and what are some of your interests?
Sure, let me go ahead and kick it off. Yeah, go for it. So, I have an interesting background. My father was a private pilot. We worked on airplanes just about every day, every weekend, my entire childhood, and I was expected to be a pilot. I was signed into the Air Force pilot program right out of high school, went in, took my first physical, and found out I had an astigmatism I’d never known about. So, kind of crushed my pilot dreams right there out of high school. Still love to fly but can’t do it professionally or at least in the military. So, I thought the next best thing was going to be going into engineering, maybe designing planes, working on the design of aircraft. You know, but that’s not the same thing as flying, so that A-Tech personality that I had really didn’t get fulfilled in the engineering world.
So, when I got out of school, spent a brief period working for other companies, and that anti-personality really saw that I was going to be driven by starting my own companies. So, started early on in small contracting companies; we did lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, window coverings, and worked for some of the big national hardware stores. Grew that into more complex contracting, roofing companies, things like that, and ultimately grew into a very large landscaping company, one of the top 50 landscaping companies in the nation. And it was a great experience, but I think we all know what the labor pool is like these days and the challenges that you have in a business like that. So, I was looking for something less reliant on the labor pool, and so I wanted to start my own business in an internet-based business.
So, going back to my family, we grew up and were raised in Arizona, and we were very active here. We’re always outside, riding dirt bikes, going to the lake, staying in shape, and that was very important to me. And my family always went to the gym, stayed in shape, and then COVID happened, and everything got shut down, including the gyms. So basically, I was relegated to working out at home, and I had to figure out the best way for me to work out at home. Didn’t have the space to put the big huge rug racks in and all the weight plates and everything else. I just had a little bit of space in my garage that I could dedicate to building a home gym had some bands and with the bands, they were good they really provided an interesting way to work out but they didn’t give me the Dynamics I wanted of you know squats and overhead presses and everything else because typically attach it under the door or over the door or to the doorknob and it just really didn’t work out that well. So with my engineering background started tinkering started playing with things and came up with an idea to separate the bands out get a couple of sets of bands found a local shop to fabricate it and that’s where HomeStrong began.