Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Arnold Risvik. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Arnold, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

So I build Ninja Warrior Obstacle Gyms for a living. It started 11 years ago when I tried out for the show and made it on. After that season I started building obstacles at my house to help me train. I was in the process of starting my own machine shop at that point and was no stranger to building pretty much anything. I spent the next 6 years building Ninja Warrior obstacles on the side as the show grew in popularity. About 5 years ago I hired enough help to run my machine shop so I could focus strictly on building and innovating new Ninja Obstacles. i have had a passion for Ninja ever since that first time running the course. Along with building, I have also been competing at Ninja competitions all over the US including taking top 5 at multiple world championships. There are now a handful of companies that do what I do but none with capabilities that I have. All my building is done in house with almost nothing outsourced, allowing me to solve problems very quickly as they arise. For years I have been traveling the US and building full gyms on site (which I still do some) but I’m trying to switch gears and ship parts that can be assembled by the customer. My son gets to come on some builds, but not as many as I would like and that is the main reason for trying to travel less. It was a pretty big risk switching to Ninja full time, but I know it was the right choice because I still get excited when I have an idea for a new obstacle and I get to try it out.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I didn’t plan to build gyms for a living but kind of fell into it. The beauty of having lots of fabrication equipment is that I can make things work that were never designed to work. I have customers that have parts from other companies and want some of the parts I offer and its quick and easy for me to design a solution to make it work. I am beyond grateful to be doing something I love for a living. There are multiple charity Ninja competitions every year that I get to donate New unique obstacles and prizes for. Also a few years ago I also got to work with the Wishing Star foundation to build a Ninja setup for a little girl who also happened to be the Biggest Ninja Warrior fan.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The fact that I have been in the Ninja scene almost since the show came to the US really helped. Most of the people opening gyms are former or current contestants on the show and knew that I built obstacles. I started a you tube channel where I teach people how to build some of the easier do it yourself obstacles to get my name out there for some of the newer generation of Ninjas.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

So building out of town is always a huge challenge. I prep and prepare as much as I can, but problems always come up and not knowing the area or what options are available make it very hard sometimes. There have been many times I thought I would not be able to finish a job I was on. It gets a little bit stressful, but I’m good at staying in the mindset that it is a challenge and not a problem and I always think of a way to make it work.

Contact Info:

• Website: Myninjasource.com
• Instagram: @myninjasource
• Facebook: My Ninja Source
• Youtube: My Ninja Source

Image Credits
I have the rights to all pictures.