The mythology launching a company out of one’s garage isn’t exclusive to Silicon Valley.
Another rising start-up known as Noggin Boss was born in a garage as well — this one located just off Lake Pleasant Parkway and Happy Valley Road in the in Querencia community.
With a nice push from a famous reality television show, the company is now turning heads from many corners of the country. Just scroll down social media or visit a local sporting event, and you are bound to come across one of their over-sized hats.
Gabe Cooper and Sean Starner got into the hat game a few years ago because they wanted to bring something new to the world of promotion.
Cooper said there has been nothing new in the promotional space since the foam finger, which hit the scene more than 50 years ago.
“We wanted to give people a way to promote what they love, so we created the world’s first, high quality, fully customizable hat,” Cooper said.
And people have been responding.
In recent months, Noggin Boss products have been sported by members of the Georgia football team at the SEC championship trophy presentation, as well as Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen on Monday Night Football. Add to that a large number of NFL and ESPN broadcast teams have requested them for their shows, and dozens of sports teams have been asking for Noggins for their players.
Cooper said the company is pursuing licensing and has a list of opportunities for a number of big upcoming events — including the Super Bowl — leading up to spring training.
Even Peoria-elect mayor Jason Beck used a hat to promote his campaign leading up to the election.
“There is no one else doing this and it brings so much joy to others,” Cooper said. “It’s so humbling to see the support from everyone.”
The journey of these milliners of the new age began in 2019, when Starner and Cooper began working out of his garage, and then launched in February 2020 at the Waste Management Open, turning heads at the golf course.
Cooper and Starner were ready to jump on that success with spring training waiting in the wings, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and, like everything else, the hats stalled.
But Cooper said they used that time to hustle and innovate a new service for customers to create Noggins for business owners and/or charities, as well as made phone calls to buyers for promotional teams and licensed teams that paid off in big dividends.
Then in March 2022, Starner and Cooper earned a spot on season 13 of Shark Tank, the long running business reality TV show, that positions fresh entrepreneurs in front of investors who have the ability to invest in startups or products.
The two struck pay dirt when apparel magnate Daymond John offered the company $50,000 for a 30% stake in Noggin Boss, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban verbally agreed to sell their hats with the team logo in the team’s store, in what has been touted as the quickest deal ever made on Shark Tank.
Additionally, Noggin Boss had offers from investor Barbara Corcoran and entrepreneur Kevin O’leary, who also appear on the show.
Due to agreements made with Shark Tank, Cooper said he is not allowed to discuss profits publicly.
Around the time their Shark Tank episode shot, the Noggin Boss duo graduated from the garage to a warehouse at Grand Canyon University’s startup business accelerator program Canyon Ventures, now with 20 employees in their workforce.
The program educates, mentors, and connects startup ventures with relationships and resources. Cooper, being a GCU alumnus, said it was a “no brainer” to set up shop with them.
He added that Canyon Ventures has a great support system and that Noggin Boss will be with the accelerator program for a good while.
“It’s been so cool to have other entrepreneurs around in the same space where, when you get stuck or they get stuck, you lean out your door and go, ‘Hey we need something for enterprise,’” Cooper said.
GCU student Annabelle Kubinski said she has been working with Noggin Boss for almost a year and has proven to be a perfect fit to be able to have a flexible student-worker job allowing her to get valuable experience at a growing company.
She said she was excited about the potential to immediately contribute to scaling the company.
The experience has allowed her to wear a lot of different hats, including customer service, order fulfillment, research of new marketing methods, or inventory control processes, said Kubinski, who wants to be a consultant after she graduates.
“The experience I have gained at Noggin Boss has taught me best practices at running a small business and how to manage expectations of internal and external stakeholders of the company. Not many students get the opportunity to apply what they are learning in their classes and be able to see an immediate impact,” she said.
Kubinski began working with the company around when the Shark Tank episode aired, adapting to an initial flood of orders.
This proved the potential of Noggin Boss early on, she said.
“Now, we have been in it with another wave of orders with the holidays and some good public exposure from players and ESPN. People are really demanding these big hats and I think we realize we are now able to really double-down on growth initiatives to turn the company into a sustainable brand, not just a quick fad.”
Philip Haldiman can be reached at phaldiman@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman.
Meet Philip Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.
Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater.
Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.
Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.
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