Writing it down is the first step towards achieving your goal. At Think Board, we strive to help you accomplish your goals, enhance collaboration, and express your creativity. Writing BIG allows you to do just that.

Writing it down is the first step towards achieving your goal. Writing BIG allows you to do just that.

"At Think Board, we created a space to write down ideas and take action on them. I started Think Board in my dorm room as a sophomore at Babson College, and it has now turned into my post-grad full-time job. My goal as an entrepreneur is to show other young entrepreneurs around the world that this all is VERY within reach and that you too can go out and reach it.

Everything starts with an idea. Then you put pen to paper (or in our case, marker to Think Board) and let the ideas flow. Share them with friends. Bounce ideas off each other. Let the ideas grow. It took me about 50 ideas to realize that the product I was destined to create was right in front of me the whole time." - Hanson

Where did you get the inspiration for your product?

It started out of my dorm room at Babson College. All I needed was a space to write down business ideas and stay organized from week to week; however, I couldn't drill holes into the wall to set up a massive whiteboard or paint my walls with whiteboard paint. So Think Board was born - a dry erase film that was easy to install, looked beautiful, and worked like a charm. I stuck the first version of our product to the wall purely so I could write down other business ideas. It wasn't until 50 ideas later that enough friends came into my room and said "Hanson, your ideas aren't that great... BUT this thing... this is cool. Where can I get one?"

How did it go from a side project to a real company?

Well, it took time. I started as a Sophomore at Babson. Fortunately, I had 2 years until crossing that graduation stage in 2016. After enough friends demanded the product, I stayed up until 4 am and launched a super rough version of the website. I woke up the next morning for class with 4 orders to fulfill. I was blown away. After a month or so of sales, my friends nudged me to launch a Kickstarter. With a little bit of video editing skills from High School and some very willing friends, we pulled it off on a $0 budget. 30 days and $10,000 later, we spent weeks fulfilling orders before my future COO, Ken, and I left to go abroad. Thinking sales would slow down post-Kickstarter, I hired my sister to fulfill orders after school while I was away. Somehow, a stroke of luck hit us and we were featured on ABC in Boston. Primetime. 3 nights in a row! Soooo once we saw more orders overnight than we did during the entire Kickstarter... my sister quit. Annndddd that's when I hired my mom and brother for a few months until we could find an intern. 1 intern turned to 3, and soon enough we had a full-blown shipping and fulfillment center sending out product for us. (All of this over the course of Junior year). Coming into Senior year, I had just launched on Amazon & The Grommet. Sales were insane, but somehow I kept on course and maintained my grades. At that time, all of my friends were interviewing and applying for jobs. Part of me felt like I was missing something... like I was doing something wrong, even though the business was turning enough of a profit to pay a steady salary. After a few good phone calls with some of our customers and teachers, I realized it would be insane not to continue it.

Upon Graduation, I hired my best friend, Ken, and we set out to change the world (of whiteboards). Andddd believe it or not, my sister and her best friend, Alessandra, decided they wanted to work with Think Board again while still in college! After a few years of Live Chatting and being absolute Customer Service rockstars, they both decided to change it up a bit. We now have Rachel overseeing our Customer Happiness team and keeping you all smiling :)

After a few years of running Think Board as an e-commerce brand, we realized that the real value we bring is in the classroom. Our products are good. Really good. And we spent years perfecting it so it could get beat up over and over again on tables and desks. But once we realized we could resurface old whiteboards that were no longer erasing, or convert chalkboards into whiteboards without changing the infrastructure in the classroom, we knew we needed to pivot. And then, once we started resurfacing boards and hearing the feedback, we realized how much time, money, and hassle we were saving schools - especially schools that have asbestos behind their boards.

And so now we're in the business of brightening up learning spaces across the country. Retrofitting classrooms and saving old boards from the landfill. Our product requires less material, manufacturing, and shipping, vs a traditional whiteboard, and so we're not only improving the learning spaces while saving schools tons of money, but we're helping the planet in the process :)

Where did you get the inspiration for your product?

It started out of my dorm room at Babson College. All I needed was a space to write down business ideas and stay organized from week to week; however, I couldn't drill holes into the wall to set up a massive whiteboard or paint my walls with whiteboard paint. So Think Board was born - a dry erase film that was easy to install, looked beautiful, and worked like a charm. I stuck the first version of our product to the wall purely so I could write down other business ideas. It wasn't until 50 ideas later that enough friends came into my room and said "Hanson, you're ideas aren't that great... BUT this thing... this is cool. Where can I get one?"

How did it go from a side project to your full-time job?

Well, it took time. I started as a Sophomore at Babson. Fortunately, I had 2 years until crossing that stage in 2016. After enough friends demanded the product, I stayed up until 4 am and launched a super rough version of the website. I woke up the next morning for class with 4 orders to fulfill. I was blown away. After a month or so of sales, my friends nudged me to launch a Kickstarter. With a little bit of video editing skills from High School and some very willing friends, we pulled it off on a $0 budget. 30 days and $10,000 later, we spent weeks fulfilling orders before my future COO, Ken, and I left to go abroad. Thinking sales would slow down post-Kickstarter, I hired my sister to fulfill orders after school while I was away. Somehow, a stroke of luck hit us and we were featured on ABC in Boston. Primetime. 3 nights in a row! Soooo once we saw more orders overnight than we did during the entire Kickstarter... my sister quit. Annndddd that's when I hired my mom and brother for a few months until we could find an intern. 1 intern turned to 3, and soon enough we had a full-blown shipping and fulfillment center sending out product for us. (All of this over the course of Junior year). Coming into Senior year, I had just launched on Amazon & The Grommet. Sales were insane, but somehow I kept on course and maintained my grades. At that time, all of my friends were interviewing and applying for jobs. Part of me felt like I was missing something... like I was doing something wrong, even though the business was turning enough of a profit to pay a steady salary. After a few good phone calls with some of our customers and teachers, I realized it would be insane not to continue it.

Upon Graduation, I hired my best friend, Ken, and we set out to change the world (of whiteboards). Andddd believe it or not, my sister decided she wanted to work with Think Board again! So now my sister, Martina, and another family friend, Alessandra, help out with our Live Chat and customer service :)

Now, we spend a lot of our time speaking to schools about our story. Successes and Failures. We feel that it's super effective since we can really resonate with the students, as it was only a few years ago that we were in their position! If you're interested in having Ken and I come in to speak, let us know!

So Ken, you joined in 2016. What has changed since?

Everything. Hanson described how Think Board was generating enough sales to draw a salary. Barely. And definitely not for the both of us, that's for sure. I officially joined on to the Think Board team in April 2016. Since then, we've doubled our annual revenue once and are on track to do even better this year. To get there we completely upgraded all of our products and created the Premium XL Series. We expanded our school business to fix (resurface) old chalkboard and whiteboards and work with more creative working spaces throughout K-12 and higher-ed.

There is one thing has changed the very foundations of Think Board since I arrived - it is Customer Service and how we interact with our customers. The core piece was when we introduced the 100 Day Happiness Guarantee. We will absolutely replace or refund you if you're not happy with your Think Board but it's not a "No questions asked guarantee." "No questions asked" is what businesses who don't care about their customers and clients pitch to you.

We DO ask questions and we DO ask for pictures. How can we build better products, better packaging, better instructions and enhance your experience if we don't know what you need or how we can improve?

Once you've found us, you help shape us. We are looking out for our customers 100%. If you've got any dry erase related questions you can always shoot them my way or to our team. (ken@think-board.com / hello@think-board.com) If I don't think Think Board is the best solution for you, (because sometimes it isn't) I can point you to the right one(s).

We built our business and brand with Word of Mouth from great customers who believe and trust in us and we will continue to do so. We've got tens of thousands of Think Boards out in the world and we are not perfect, nor do we expect to be. We are on the endless journey towards perfection and hope that our Think Boards help you to do the same.

What's next for Think Board?

We want to better showcase our teachers, our schools, our small businesses, and our homeschoolers. We want to show the world and the Think Board community how an extra writing surface can help to impact a school, a business, and even an individual.

If you want to be part of our newsletters & guest posts, shoot me an email: ken@think-board.com. I'll make you look good! :)                                          

Check out a recent interview with Entrepreneur Magazine & Babson College, respectively, below!

Check out a recent interview with Entrepreneur Magazine & Babson College, respectively, below!