Name
Stephen
Aarstol
by OFIVE11
Company
Tower Paddle
Boards
Stephen created a logo for Tower Paddle
Boards with 99designs over five years ago.
garnered an offer from business mogul Mark
Since then it’s been a whopper of a
Cuban… And Tower went on to become one
Cinderella story.
of Mr. Cuban’s best investments from Shark
Tank with the show helping propel
When interest in paddle boards began
Stephen’s company from doing $265K in
growing in the US, Stephen saw a way to
sales in 2011 to over $1.5M after his pitch
carve a niche by selling directly to consum-
aired in 2012!
ers and avoiding markups from retailers. In
2011 a producer at ABC’s Shark Tank
And today Stephen is still growing the
reached out to Stephen and asked him to
company: “We’re dropping the ‘paddle
pitch Tower Paddle Boards on the show. He
boards’ and morphing into Tower, a holistic
agreed, but when it came time to give his
beach lifestyle brand that’s branching into
presentation the first few minutes of
wooden sunglasses, flip flops, bikinis, a
Stephen’s pitch were a bonafide flop!
digital magazine, and a surfboard company!”
Stephen struggled to compose himself, and
He’s continued to use 99designs for Tower’s
was eventually able to successfully finish his
website, newest logo — and even some
presentation… The result? His pitch
snazzy paddle board designs!