Max Kislevitz co-founded Bala after quitting a 12-year advertising career to travel with his then-girlfriend Natalie — and conceived the idea for redesigned wrist and ankle weights on that trip. What started as a $40,000 Kickstarter campaign shipped out of a Brooklyn apartment has grown into a 30+ product design-led fitness brand that has sold over 4 million pairs of Bala Bangles and nearly doubled revenue in 2025. Max unpacks how Bala built a brand without any meaningful paid marketing in its early years, how the Shark Tank deal with Mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova came together, and what it actually looks like to run a 10-person company doing serious volume with a lean-and-mean operating model.

Topics Discussed

Conceiving Bala on vacation and launching on Kickstarter with $40,000 and no money of their own
The design philosophy behind Bala: bringing color and aesthetic to fitness equipment that had never received design attention
Why Bala is a female-first brand and what that means for product and marketing
Organic celebrity endorsements (Kim Kardashian, Adam Levine) that drove early growth without any paid spend
The Shark Tank appearance in 2020 and the deal struck with Mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova
The ecosystem approach to marketing — paid social, email, search, retail, and studios working in concert
Brand partnerships with Ralph Lauren, Pucci, Spanx, and Dunkin Donuts and the asymmetric value exchange
Offline-to-online events: how a 20-person lunch generates outsized brand reach
AI at Bala: cautious exploration limited to chatbot, deliberately avoided for customer-facing content
2026 priorities: heavier products (dumbbells, weighted vest), international expansion, continued growth