He turned lemons into lemonade!
Thomas Fields is a former star basketball player who once had big dreams for making it in the NBA. He started out with a very promising career, making the varsity team his freshman year of high school before suffering a number of setbacks including multiple ACL tears, lack of access to training gyms, school transfers and a MCL tear between 2010 and 2014. He eventually switched his focus to entrepreneurship, figuring out other ways to interact with the game he loved outside of being on the court.
“#MyStory was everything but smooth. In fact it almost felt like I had bad luck,” Fields captioned a posted video of his journey.
But that journey too came with its fair share of challenges. Fields’ friend taught him how to weld in 2014 and he began prototyping ideas for products that could help train basketball players. In 2015, he began creating a portable shooting machine, working a 5am side job at the YMCA before finishing the first prototype in 2016/2017. While it wasn’t the best aesthetically, it worked, and “GRIND” was born.
To fund his dream, Fields sold t-shirts, taking a 2nd side job at Raising Canes, before acquiring a small workspace in 2018. In 2019, he needed more funding, getting another side job working the graveyard shift shoveling mud. On March 1, 2020, he officially launched the company and a meet up to test the product went viral, receiving more than 1 million views the same year. Fields would go on to take his product all the way to Shark Tank, pitching in August 2020. The show aired 9 months later in 2021 and Fields was finally able to quit his side jobs and focus on his business full time.
View this post on Instagramadvertisement
In 2022, he moved into a huge warehouse and made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list at just 26 years old. The following year, his business GRIND Interactive received its own day, August 12th, in Fields’ hometown of Houston, Texas. Today, GRIND is the fastest growing company in the industry, boasting the World’s 1st Portable Shooting Machine designed for focus training. The device can be stored anywhere and is safe for players ages 8 and up. It “captures made and missed shots,” focusing on reps, not rebounds. With “5 spots around the key,” it helps players to “improve from all over the floor,” with a 12 inch tall net for an “optimal shooting arc.”
The GRIND basketball machine can be used at home, in gyms, and at schools. An innovative technology, Fields’s product aims to “revolutionize shooting skills, offering players of all levels an unparalleled opportunity to reach their full potential.” Trusted by the NBA, the success of Fields’ product is proof that his dream was well within reach, even if not exactly the way he originally imagined. Now he hopes to inspire others to keep going.
“Some advice to everyone chasing their dreams or passion, every struggle is just making your Story/Movie more exciting to watch. Push past your failures as FAST as you can but don’t rush. If used correctly, velocity is a fail proof philosophy […] keep grindin’,” he added.
Get your GRIND products here at www.grindbasketball.com.
Cover photo: Watch This Man’s Heartwarming Journey From Aspiring NBA Player To Basketball Entrepreneur/Photo credit: Eugene Drake/The Drakes