Entrepreneur On The Road To Wellness After Firing

By Deborah L. Cohen


Four years later, sales at Carlsbad, California-based Sonic Boom Wellness are approaching $2 million. Van Noy's startup is fighting office sloth by promoting unorthodox activities such as lunges en route to the restroom and hula-hoops in the halls. It relies on a social media platform that encourages employees to interact and inspire each other.

"We were willing to take a huge risk," said Van Noy, 39, the former national sales director for American Specialty Health, who said he was let go during a sales retreat after he raised a "red flag" about what he perceived to be an outmoded strategy.

"All the big (wellness) companies were going down the same path - health assessment, biometric screening and telephonic coaching," he said. "We knew the door was left wide open."


"We started to say, 'Gosh, why isn't anyone using social networking? Why isn't anyone using high tech for team-based competitions to get employees healthier?" said Van Noy, who married Korn in 2008. "Danna put the bug in my ear. She'd always told me that the place I worked seemed a little constrained."

"Selling Air"

Sonic Boom users, who engage in a host of fitness and educational challenges to reach goals and win prizes, are anything but constrained. They embrace office rivalry, create custom challenges and reward each other for good behavior. "Sonic Striding" allows them to track everything from lunchtime walks to weekend bike rides using a wireless device that attaches to their shoe, uploading their data into a personal profile.

"We focus on changing people's habits, making it fun and energetic," said the effusive Korn, 49, who often travels to a new client's office for a kick-off event, inciting workers to engage in imaginary football passes, invisible jump rope contests and other affronts to office protocol.

"Last time I did this, I couldn't get them off the stage," Korn said, noting Sonic Boom's nationwide employee participation averages 65 percent - a rate she contends is significantly higher than the industry average.

The co-founders concede it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Several times they were close to packing it in, after burning through their own seed money of $100,000 and making costly mistakes such as spending $50,000 farming out development to India.

"We had to completely start from scratch after that," confessed Van Noy. "We learned the most valuable lesson - never outsource your core competency."


"We were selling air," Korn said. "We'd go out to companies and we'd talk about this program but we had nothing. We didn't have software developers yet."


"They signed up, they took the leap of faith and then from there we just started refining the program," Korn said.

Healthy Bottom Line

The company's early foibles have been invisible to customers such as Janet Wickstrom, director of employee benefits and wellness for Super Store Industries, a Stockton, California-based processor and distributor of dairy products. She said the founders' enthusiasm is contagious.

"You can't bottle that kind of energy," said Wickstrom, noting one of her workers had lost over 50 pounds and gone through "a complete transformation." Nearly half the company's 750 employees are actively using the plan.

"We had done pretty much the standard wellness fairs, lunch-and-learns, weight loss programs with healthcare providers," she said, "but nothing where the employees could go in and have their own Web page, receive their own information and then interact with their peers."



"It sounds like Sonic Boom is really trying to take advantage of the rise in social media, with people challenging each other and becoming more of a team," Gotass said.


"Some people don't have daily computer access but almost everyone now has a smartphone," Van Noy said. "We've got this Web-based program, and it's looking great. Let's take it to the mobile space."

Next: Judge Upholds Firing Of Ohio Teacher In Bible Case

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