Beer pong bots help propel Solano County couple’s ventures high on national fast-growth list
Rather than a better mousetrap, Eric Fragola envisioned a better beer pong robot.
And that entrepreneurial dream of a more exciting, techy way to play the popular drinking game turned into a string of ventures that landed the Solano County resident and his newly beloved in the rarified part of a national list of fast-growing companies.
Fragola, 29, and his wife, Francia, 30, run Labruutories LLC, an umbrella company for Bruu, the pong bot venture; Boxable, maker of logistics software for third-party sellers on e-commerce platforms; and Gift of Glimmer a clicks-to-bricks accredited jewelry retailer.
Labruutories just ranked No. 256 on the Inc. 5000 list, with 2,111% revenue growth from 2018 through 2021, the magazine’s ranking metric.
The startup ranked among the top 500 firms, which was the extent of the publication’s list when it started the competition in 1982. In 2007, the list expanded to 5,000 firms.
To make it on the list, a company must take in least $100,000 in revenue the first year in business and over $2 million in 2021. The Fragolas declined to say where their total sales landed last year.
A couple of months ago, Labruutories moved its operations from the couple’s 400-square-foot garage to a 3,000-square-foot warehouse in Fairfield.
Eric Fragola came up with the Bruu beer pong bot while watching viral videos during the night shift at the Marathon refinery in Marinez. He saw plastic cups arranged on top of Roomba autonomous robot vacuums and figured he could build it better — cups wouldn’t fall off — and sell it for hundreds of dollars less.
Fueled with $20,000 in Kickstarter money, he hired a patent attorney and engineers to design it then lined up a partnership with Aplus contract manufacturing company in Shenzhen, China. The Bruu bots first shipped in 2018.
The work with Aplus led to Labruutories helping the manufacturer get its own products ready to come to the U.S. and then to get them to Amazon e-commerce warehouses. But some items required special packaging, such as secondary bags around spillable items.
Amazon charges third-party sellers 70 cents per bag and 55 cents per label to do that in the company’s facilities.
The work with Aplus led to a business to prep third-party seller packages for e-commerce platforms with any required additional packaging and labeling. But the processing of incoming shipments and tracking the progress through the garage facility to resulting pickup in palette loads by couriers was taking the Fragolas a few hours a day in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Currently, they move through about 3,000 to 4,000 items per week.
The Fragolas then contracted with programmers to develop Boxable software, which is tailor made for third-party e-commerce suppliers and their outsourced-services teams. Now, the warehouse team of three can scan packages and print labels themselves, without the need to conceal sensitive product and logistics information.
After a year of testing, it’s about ready for testing with the existing logistics clients for potential licensing at other third-party seller processing facilities, Eric Fragola said.
Last year, Francia Fragola, originally a special education instructor, launched a third business, jewelry store Gift of Glimmer, after getting trained by the GIA, the Carlsbad, California-based trade organization for the gem industry. The business has been online-only but in recent months opened a private showroom for customers in an undisclosed location.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Before coming to the Business Journal in 1999, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
