We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kory Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kory, appreciate you joining us today. 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.

I grew up going to the lake in AZ. We would go wakeboard before school, go on long weekend trips, spend weeks on a houseboat during summer skiing, wakeboarding, and wake surfing. The lake offered some of the best childhood memories. But when we moved to CA from AZ, the lake became the beach and my ability to do what I loved became harder. If you wanted to go wakeboarding the lake around here were too small and easily over crowded. Some lakes smelled horrible. Other lakes were too far away or private or had rules against boat sizes and swimming.

We concluded quickly that Southern California couldn’t give the same access to wakeboarding like other parts of the country. In Orange County I knew dozens if not hundreds of people that had boats to wakeboard on… but used and housed them out of state. Which is insane! But those people could afford it. What about those that couldn’t afford it? What about those that just can’t find the time to get away for a weekend to do it? What about the groups that have always wanted to do it but never saw the opportunity? What about those that find out what it is and suddenly have the itch to do it?

Wake Up lowers the barrier to entry for the average customer to experience wakeboarding. In Southern California we have so many local boarders. Surfers, skaters, skiers, and snowboarders, but where are the wakeboarders go?

Wake Up is excited to announce the opening of a massive cable wakeboard park in the heart of SoCal.

This is the dream. A local spot that houses some of the best boarders in the world right in its backyard.

The problem is; no one can go wakeboarding without spending tons of money, time, or having a massive commitment to the sport in Southern California.
The solution is to build a world class cable park like Wake Up. Additionally offering a skate park, an industry leading surf machine, water ziplines, giant Ramps slides, volleyball courts, outdoor pavilion for night life dancing and music, food truck food court, bungalow vacation rentals, and so much more.

Wake Up is THE ULTIMATE Adventure and Sport Water Park.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Kory Johnson.
I am 29 years old. I have 2 daughters, 8 years old and as new as can be. I have an absolutely beautiful wife and we all live in Orange County CA.

I am a high school basketball coach, I have personally started 11 businesses, and have been part of 2 additional start ups, all in the last 10 years. I have “failed” at most of them. But have successfully learned valuable lessons in each failure that have aided in our success story. Even coaching high school basketball required big picture thinking, goal setting, and leadership just like starting and running a business. From coaching I have coined the phrase, “Effort is the Currency of Success.” Which is the foundation of my life. Success finances, business, relationships, sports, and whatever you have goals in.

We own Whoop Axe Throwing. One of the busiest axe throwing venues in the country. This is where we gained valuable insight into the adventure entertainment market of Southern California.

Whoop Axe started with a dream and $100,000. Which might be a lot to some, but for Southern California, the majority of the funds went to securing a lease and a minor build. (Heres where effort comes into play) We had to open our doors in 5 days of signing the lease and make enough money in 30 days to build the rest of the space out and pay the next months rent. We learned a ton about viral and social media marketing. As of right now we have 75 million views across all of our social media platforms from being in business for 18 months. We have now had 70,000 customers come through Whoop Axe. We really have gotten our beak wet in the Adventure Entertainment industry.

The pivot to Wake Up is truly the end goal for me. Axe throwing wasn’t a passion, but it was fun and I enjoyed the building process and the challenge Whoop Axe presented. Having, what felt like, no money to build it up Whoop Axe has gifted us with being able to solve complex money and marketing problems and be solution oriented in so many ways. Wake Up is designed to be EUPHORIC and simple. The business will require a more money to build. Which at the moment doesn’t seem all too problematic.

For the last 18 months in business with Whoop Axe, many have seen our success and seen our work ethic and have essentially begged to be part of Whoop Axe because of us. They beg to give us money. So when the Wake Up business plan was created and shared- it only took us 1 week to get 1.2M committed to Wake Up by sending out a handful of texts.

Wake Up’s success is truly built by the the success of Whoop Axe. It was the leverage needed to get us going.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The is double sided.
For Whoop Axe, we had just closed the doors of one of our failed businesses. We had a throats slit because of Covid. We started a custom farmhouse furniture building company. We built rustic tables and built custom barn doors. But during covid the lumber prices rose and we rose our prices to accommodate. But sadly, we were nestled into a great price point. Once we left that price point, sales disappeared.
So, while sitting in an empty warehouse and scrolling through Instagram, I saw a video of someone Axe throwing. So we built a target with random wood and tried it out. We posted online about doing mobile events and got booked for a place in Hemet CA. In that event for about 200 young men we had a group of boys and one of their dad’s come through. The dad had so much fun at our axe throwing station that he ditched his kids and hung out with us the whole day.

A week later I met this other guys son at the beach and told him about Axe throwing and our idea for a brick n mortar. The kid invited me to his house that night and I pitched the dad the idea. He was excited and committed 50k. His son committed 10k.

I then went to the event dad and asked if he would throw in a few bucks because he had so much fun doing it. He convinced his brother to do it too. Both for 20k.

That’s how we got our first 100k for Whoop Axe.

Years later, after Whoop Axe’s success, we collected a small list of individuals that wanted in on our next projects. That list was texted and pitched for Wake Up. One week later we had 1.2M committed to Wake Up.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I have a lot of health problems and grew up “rich” and poor. As a kid I caught meningitis and almost died. Probably should’ve died honestly. The problems grew over time. Skin conditions, hospital visits galore, type 1 diabetes, epilepsy, blah blah blah. There is a huge sob story there. Family had big houses in AZ and lost everything shortly after moving to CA.

Went from riches to rags. Fancy vacations to being homeless. I drove the family suburban to get to school. I had a full time job doing interior remodeling for a construction company to basically feed myself and drive the stupid suburban.

Shortly after high school I had a seizure before heading off to work. My face went face first into a jar of jelly and I dislocated my shoulder. I had cuts all over my face. When I woke up my boss was calling and I answered in a hospital bed. After answering that I had a seizure and wouldn’t be coming into work he responded with, “I wish you would’ve given me more notice.” And then hung up on me.

This set me on my path. I was disposable to the company. I was working my butt off for someone else and they didn’t care about my well-being. I was dollars to them. So I knew I wanted more for myself.

I was 20 then. For the next few years I worked my butt off with side hustles and small businesses to see if they would work out. I failed and learned. Failed and learned. Progressing every step of the way.

Until… today. Despite the health issues that planned me and despite the financial hardships to get here and despite my dad leaving the family and forcing me to man up early and despite bad bosses that taught me to do it on my own and to work ethically and not ruin the lives of others for a buck (I definitely have more than one story there). I proved ultimately to myself that I can do hard things.

So I’ve done all the hard things.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Whoopaxe.com
• Instagram: Whoopaxe
• Youtube: Whoopaxethrowing
• Other: Wake Up is going live on all socials with a new marketing team next month. Website link will likely change. Insta might change names too.
  Right now it’s @wakeupsocal.
  We will also add a YouTube channel for it. All TBD