We Give You:
The BfR Annual Report 2017!
Curious for a look backstage at BfR Professional? Well, here’s your chance…
Almost one year ago, our New Year’s resolution was to make BfR Professional happen – for real. As founders of BfR, we (Lars and Martin) had already spent over one year meticulously planning and testing prototypes for our occlusion straps. Now a Kickstarter campaign starting in December 2016 would demonstrate to us whether there was any interest out there. After all, not that many people knew about blood flow restriction training then.
Off to a flying start
Fortunately, you guys were curious about this totally new way of working out – and about us. Our Kickstarter left us 125% funded, and in January and February 2017 we sent out our first products: the BfR Pro ARMS straps and the BfR Pro Elastic Training Tube. By then, our website and newsletter were also up and running. Things were quickly picking up speed, and in April we got our first interns in order to increase our efforts within sales and market research.
In mid-May, two other BfR babies were born: the BfR Pro GluteBuilder and the BfR Pro LEGS. Like all other fathers, we were of course extremely proud to send them off into the world!
Bumpy road ahead?
Creating and launching new products can get rather addictive, and over the summer we decided to up our game and start developing the prototype for a digital product. Second generation BfR equipment, enabling you to take your training to the next level. We’d just received a grant from The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship, so we knew we had the money as well as the vision.
However, no pain, no gain; things got a bit uphill for a while... Imagine dozens of meetings with potential business partners, redesigning packaging, insane amounts of coffee and equally insane hours. And ordering a thousand new product manuals, only to find out that you’ve managed to turn the text upside down, doesn’t exactly help! But the point of mistakes is that you learn from them. That’s always been our philosophy.
For example, we learned that always doing things at the very last minute isn’t a sensible idea. Unless you like high blood pressure, that is. After having to speed build a wooden promo stand minutes before a crowd of eager bodybuilders and athletes would come surging through the doors of the Newcomers 2017 in Herning, we’ve solemnly made each other a promise to at least try to be in good time.
The Newcomers fair turned out to be a huge success, though, and our digital dreams are well on their way, so basically we haven’t looked back. Another philosophy of ours is that success isn’t something you get – it’s something you create.
Autumn ramp-up
In the second part of 2017, we brought in graphics and communications interns because we wanted to boost the visual identity of BfR and give our communication an overhaul. After all, everybody wants to look and sound good, right?
At BfR, we’re always eager to improve not just our muscles but also our minds, so in August we attended Inspire Convention 2017 in Denmark where one of the world’s leading BFR researchers, Prof. Jeremy Loenneke, spoke. And in November we flew to Portugal to join Web Summit 2017 in order to show off our digital prototype and do some serious business dating.
On Black Friday we were lavishing discounts on you guys, which you generously rewarded. Now it’s December, and we’re finishing off 2017 with an Advent Calendar on Facebook and Instagram. So swing by our page and profile if you feel like getting your hands on our products, body boosting supplements and a unique Christmas discount.
One big BfR family
All in all, it’s been an amazing year, and although we’ve learned a few lessons, getting enthusiastic feedback from you guys makes it all worthwhile. Lots of exciting things are in the pipeline for 2018, probably including our digital BfR product, an app and more youtubing.
So, the humble wish we want to make for Christmas this year is that you will keep following us and share your personal BfR stories with us and the rest of the BfR family. We’re together on this one.
Thank you for making 2017 an awesome BfR year!
Lars and Martin
Team BfR Professional
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Something’s Cooking at BfR!
Here at BfR Professional we are proud to announce that we have received a grant from The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship (Fonden for Entreprenørskab). For the uninitiated, this is the Danish national knowledge centre for the development of entrepreneurship. It also allocates grants for students with great ideas in order to promote entrepreneurship as a career path.
Competition is fierce, which is why we are incredibly proud and excited about this grant. Those of you who may be entrepreneurs yourselves will know just how taxing startup life and building a business can be. However, receiving a stamp of approval like this makes it all worthwhile! Now we want to turn this into even more value for you.
Great application and we believe there is a huge potential in this niche. At the same time, it is nice to see how far you’ve taken this as a team already with the development process.
Feedback from the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship
World domination, here we come!
Oh, we have big plans… Here at BfR we constantly want to stay innovative and ahead, and one of the many things we are currently looking into is prototyping. We’ll give you a small hint: It has to do with digital. The time is right to take BfR and you to the next level. For the moment, we want to keep our cards close to our chest, but stay tuned for more information by signing up to our newsletter here or follow us on Instagram here.
On a related note, this grant has also enabled us to join Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon on November 6-9. This is the largest tech summit in the world as well as a hotspot for entrepreneurs as well as investors, and as part of the ALPHA programme we are keen to exhibit BfR while boosting our inspiration and network.
Come and meet us there or stay tuned to our blog for a report on the summit. We will also be posting on Facebook and Instagram during our time in Portugal. As always, we welcome your feedback and personal BfR stories. Simply use the @bfrpro or #bfrpro on Instagram and we promise that we will find you.
Take care,
Team BfR Professional
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