What started as a fun idea in a fraternity house several years ago has turned into a company gaining national attention for its quirky and successful improvement on a college tradition — beer pong.
William Heimsoth, a graduate of Cole Camp High School, works as an engineer at Gardner-Denver and his co-founder, Aaron Attebery, works as an engineer at Black & Veatch in Overland Park, Kansas. Heimsoth and Attebery attended Missouri S&T in Rolla, and with their engineering backgrounds they discussed ways to improve the classic college game of beer pong.
“My fraternity brother and I came up with the idea in college (in 2009). We didn’t do anything with the idea at first, it was just something we thought of and we didn’t do anything until 2015,” Heimsoth told the Democrat last week. “We went on a trip with one of our friends and he challenged us to do something with the idea and we did. We started an LLC, learning about what it would take to start a business. We put together some funds of our own to get the tooling for the cups. We drew the concept ourselves.”
Hexcup has several features to set it apart from its traditional round counterpart.
“We designed it as a hexagon. If you put three round cups together, you have a gap in between,” Heimsoth explained. “Since they’re circles, they’d only be touching on one spot, so they can sit on top of each other and these don’t because you have the whole side pushing against the other.
“The next thing we did was on the bottom of the cup we made a relief feature so there’s no surface tension on the table if there was water on the table, it won’t float around. Instead of making them out of a brittle material like most are, they’re made out of a softer material that’s pliable and they don’t crack as easily.”
Heimsoth admitted that the marketing piece of starting Hexcup was new for he and Attebery, so Attebery’s sister-in-law helped create the logo and packaging. They also went through the process of getting several design patents and trademarks for Hexcup and secured a lawyer to protect their intellectual property, a process Heimsoth said was more difficult than he expected.
Once the product was designed and a prototype had been made using 3-D printing, Heimsoth and Attebery needed more funding, so the pair turned to Kickstarter and launched a 60-day campaign from December 2015 to February 2016.
Heimsoth said it was slow progress at first for the Kickstarter, which plateaued for a few weeks after raising about $4,000 from friends and family. Soon a few articles were posted online about the product and it was featured on the Kickstarter homepage, which helped raise about $108,000 for Hexcup.
Hexcup just became available as a real product for purchase earlier this year. The first ones were shipped out in June to those who contributed on Kickstarter, and soon after the two partners met with Spencer’s Gifts to sign a contract to sell Hexcup in stores nationally.
“We partnered with a guy in Rogers, Arkansas, who is fulfilling them for us and shipping them out,” Heimsoth said. “From there, we’ve been trying to grow it any way we can. From the Kickstarter we got the attention of one major retailer (Spencer’s) and we’re trying to get into others. I think our next step’s probably going to be pursuing liquor stores and corner gas stations.”
The popularity has continued, with Hexcup being featured on a variety of popular websites, such as The Chive and Buzzfeed. Heimsoth said Hexcup continues to be posted on social media, with each post garnering about 1 million views.
Beer pong equipment may not seem like the type of topic that would create social media arguments, but Heimsoth said he’s seen tense comment conversations from purists and Hexcup converts.
“It’s been polarizing because a lot of people are married to the standard beer pong game. It sounds weird, but they’re purists I guess — they hate that we’re changing it,” Heimsoth said. “There’s those people, and then there are the people who have played with (Hexcup) and really like it, and it gets to be an argument in some of the posts on Facebook.”
The product is doing well locally, too. Heimsoth was a presenter at 1 Million Cups a few months ago, and it’s thanks to some local businesses, such as Braden Signs, Midland Printing and Wilson Toellner & Associates, and family and friends that Hexcup has been successful. Heimsoth said they’ve taken Hexcup to local community events in the area and in Kansas City, and that it’s been nice to get feedback in person rather than online.
For more information or to purchase the product online, visit www.hexcup.com.
