Taking the Plunge into Soake Pools

Overview

In this podcast episode, host Angelique Robb interviews Karen Larson, co-founder of Soake® Pools, a company that specializes in precast concrete plunge pools.

Karen explains that she and her husband, Brian, started the company in 2015 because they couldn't find a similar product on the market in the United States. They were inspired by a vacation experience in Stowe, Vermont, where they enjoyed a warm saltwater pool with beautiful tile.

She shares that their pools are designed to be affordable and accessible to those with good taste but who don't want to spend a large amount of money on a pool. Karen talks about their journey of targeting landscapers and homeowners to generate interest in their product.

Eventually, they gained traction in 2016 and expanded their business nationwide. Karen emphasizes that their plunge pools are easy to install, as they are precast in their own forms and arrive at the installation site ready to be placed in the hole. The size of their pools is limited to fit on a standard flatbed truck, with the largest size being 7 by 13 feet. Karen concludes with a discussion about the features and benefits of their plunge pools, including the option for heating and year-round use.

You can listen to the podcast below while reading the show notes.

Transcript

Angelique
Welcome to SYNKD On Air brought to you by Turfs Up Radio. And I'm your host, Angelique Robb and today I have Karen Larson from Soake Pools with me. Welcome, Karen.

Karen
Hello. Good morning. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Angelique
Great. Great. Well, good to have you. I first heard about Soake Pools. I believe I read something somewhere I can't remember exactly. But then, shortly thereafter, I bumped into you at the Equip Expo in Kentucky. So yeah, great to meet you there. And why don't you start by telling us a little bit about Soake Pools. And why they're so unique.

Karen
Gosh, well, thank you. Yes, I love talking about our company and where we've been and where we're going. And it was nice meeting you in Louisville. We'll be back again this year. So.

Angelique
Oh, great. We will do. We'll see you there.

Karen
Yes, that sounds great. I hope that my phone doesn't go off during this call. I don't know how to silence that on my computer. But yeah, so my husband and I started the company in 2015. And really we just are we are a small pool company. So we make plunge pools. There precast concrete plunge pools. And we started the company because there really wasn't anything in the United States on the market at all, anything like it. And we had a personal need for this particular product. We've came on a vacation, we went to Stowe, Vermont, and we were out in the middle of winter in this beautiful warm saltwater pool with gorgeous tile. And we were just in love with the concept. It wasn't a hot tub. It was just a warm pool, there was a hot tub next to it. And we just thought it was magic. And we wanted the same thing at our house in New Hampshire. And when Brian went and started calling around to local pool builders, there wasn't nobody, you know, going out builders or low Custom Pool Builders weren't interested in building that pool or if they were going to build. The same price as a large pool. You know, in for them. It made sense. They had the same overhead they had to send crews. Right.

Angelique
And it's a specialty skill to you know, so yeah, I guess to mobilize their crew and all their equipment, it's going to be the same price. That makes sense. Well, I never even thought of using a plunge pool. So it's interesting that it was in the US. So where did this resort get theirs? Do you ever did you ever find that out?

Karen
Theirs was custom built, it was actually larger, but we wanted a plunge pool and we loved the tile was what really got so it was this gorgeous dark, dark tile. So that's part of what, when we developed our pools we were we wanted a beautiful, elegant tile. Brian just said about coming up with a product that would be you know, not 150,000 just for the pool, it would be something that would be the pool itself would be affordable to the to somebody who had really good taste, but didn't maybe want to spend that much money on a small pool. And we developed the first prototype in our yard in Mabry that was actually 2013, when he did that, and tested it out for a couple years and then said, you know, let's take it to market. So I did that, because Brian had a job. So I took it on the road for a few years and, you know, just built the company from there.

Angelique
When you went on the road, where did you go? What did you do?

Karen
You know, I started in New England, and I called every landscaper in New England. And I just said I have this product that I think you would be interested in and they were so wonderful and receptive and warm and everyone loved the idea. But I think because we were really new, you know, for someone to take a chance on us and install one or spec one right away was it didn't happen right away. We didn't sell any pools that first year, not one. So I went on the entire year. But I made a lot of great connections and met a lot of great people. So the following year, when we went kind of direct to we decided we'd have to open this up to the consumer market. That's when everything came full circle. Consumers wanted our product. Homeowners knew who we were, and we started to get some traction, you know, in 2016.

Angelique
That's interesting. So you actually appealed to homeowners before landscapers and maybe that's because they didn't know if there was enough of a market to install them. I mean, I didn't know the concept, you know, until I read about it was like, oh, yeah, you know, just to sit and you know, it's just to sit in, it's not to swim, it's to hang out and or jump in.

Karen
Exactly right. And the plunge pools are a household term now, but they were not at all a household term in 2015. So we were a little ahead of our time and our plan was always to go through a landscape channel. And the nice thing is, that's kind of where we've come back to. But in order to get there, we needed some homeowners to take a chance on us and to buy some pools. And we worked with landscapers. And it just kind of went in this sort of interesting, the adventure and the journey was not down the path, we originally thought it would be down. And then we have now come full circle. And we are now on that path, which is really kind of cool.

Angelique
Great. Well, where are you mostly sending the plunge pools to what states? Are you? Is it mostly local New Hampshire? Or is it all over the country?

Karen
Yep, it's all over the country, we've delivered only one pool outside of the country to Turks and Caicos. All the rest of the continental US. And so yeah, we have little hotspots around the country based on really based on where we have great landscape partners, for instance, Denver, Colorado, somewhere where we have an amazing landscape partner who I know that you're familiar with Singing Hills, yes. A lot of pools with them every year, it's just great synergy. And we know the project will go well, they know they're getting a quality product. So that's one example of a city that's not in New England that we do a lot of business in.

Angelique
Okay. Well, I can imagine. I mean, I've had a design and build landscape company, but I've never installed pools because it was in Scotland, so it was a lot colder. And, you know, to actually start installing pools as a service is quite a big leap for a lot of companies. Do you build them in your warehouse? Is that right? off site?

Karen
Exactly. So I think your question is a good one or your thought about it being intimidating for a landscaper, maybe originally tune in style pool if they're not accustomed to it. But our whole model is to make it very simple. Anyone can install theses.If you can dig a hole and make a level base, you can install this pool. And that's been, you know, I'm making it I'm oversimplifying it a little bit. But the idea is because we, to your point, we do make the entire pool here in New Hampshire, we precast it in our own forms, we bring it into a controlled environment. And then we have a whole crew of tile artisans, that tile the inside of the pool, all the plumbing is set, you know, when we when we pour the pool, so when it arrives in Colorado or Minnesota or you know, New York, that pool is done. So it's set in the hole. It's a lot of fun. Landscape teams love working with us, because we've been told, like, you know, we're giving them this canvas, they outside of that pool is their canvas. Have fun with it. Yeah, they're finishing that pool in any way they see fit, or that matches the landscape.

Angelique
And so yeah, this the size of the pool, so you just, you do everything, and then you just lift it into place. So it has to fit on a 18 Wheeler bed. Is that the limit of the size? Or what is the biggest ones that you've done to date?

Karen
It's a great question, we do our pools all fit on a standard flatbed. So a seven by 13 pool, that's the inside, that's the waterline dimension is just about just under eight by 14, so it will fit on a flatbed. That's our largest pool. And the other reason we limit our pools to that size is the weight. So at that size, that 22,000 pounds, you know, so a little over 11 tons. And to get that lifted, or any distance with a crane can require a pretty large crane. So we all know we're passionate about small pools. So when someone asks us, are you going to make a larger one, we say, well, you know what we make small pools, we love small pools, we're passionate about it. So if you want a large pool, that's not us. The other reason we don't make large pools is that in order to get them really big enough and liftable you'd have to cast them in pieces or you know, have seams and we don't really have a model that we believe is a good one. So ours are all monolithically poured. So it's one concrete piece.

Angelique
Okay, and so what's the, the normal size or the most common size of plunge pools?

Karen
7 by 13.

Angelique
Seven by 13? It is? Okay. Okay, awesome. Wow. Well, and I just thought, you know, again, I always think of weather concerns and stuff like that when you're doing stuff outside. And so again, pouring concrete in a warehouse, you'll get a more consistent product as well versus doing things outside. No weather concerns. And yeah, I guess it's it's a much more controllable environment for you. That is neat.

Karen
That really affects the project timeline for the landscaper too, because we're with a custom built on site pool. They might be waiting for weather delays or you know the concrete, the tiling, in this case that's done before it gets there, we don't have to worry about the weather. And then that landscape design team can control their project timeline, you know, based on whatever it is they have to do. And they don't have to worry about the pool because it's done.

Angelique
And so when it comes on site, approximately how many days so let's say the hole is dug, ready for you coming? You come and install it, and a day or two, or how long?

Karen
Yeah, that installation can be as little as a day or two and as many as a few weeks. And it really depends on the inspections, how those are lined up, like the inspector, or just the pace of the project. If somebody's doing a massive backyard patio and kitchen, this might be one piece of a big puzzle of a larger puzzle. So that one takes a little longer, but they in general, they can be completed and up and running in just a few days.

Angelique
Okay, wow. That's amazing. Yeah, so instant pool. And I saw so just so our listeners know, we did have the project with Singing Hills on the cover of one of our West publications. Beautiful location in Denver. It just really framed the whole back garden, it was, you know, in the center, next to the outdoor kitchen really lovely. And that particular pool came with a cover as well, like an automatic cover. What else did it come with? Did it have heating elements or anything with it? Or was that not in that particular install? Do you know?

Karen
That had a heater and almost every one of our customers chooses the heater?

Angelique
Really? Okay.

Karen
They use our pools year round. So that's the other thing you can use. Because these are small and efficient. You can use them all year round, even in like Minneapolis, Minnesota or, you know, in any, in any climate, they can be used in winter. And most of our customers choose to use them that way. So yeah, you couldn't really do that with a larger pool, or it would be harder to make it efficient, I think.

Angelique
Well, I think Jake told me that that was the first of the Soake Pools that they installed with you. And he was just like, you know, raving about the coordination with your team, and how smoothly it went. And they didn't normally install pools, you know, and so he thought that as far as a project to promote, for doing things better and differently, you know, for what SYNKD stands for. We're like how can you improve things? How was the industry improving, and it was a great product to showcase, from Singing Hills Landscape point of view, because of that it was a game changer in what they could offer their clients. So, and again, it goes back to what you said, how the customers wanted it. And then it came to the landscape companies. So you know, maybe landscape companies need to get on with the trend and jump right into plunge pools.

Karen
Yes, thank you. We always tell people just, you know, take that plunge. But um, yeah, that's a great example, our team, we were really, really proud of our technical and customer service team. And we treat our landscape partners the same way we treat our customers in terms of wanting that project to go well. So we understand that the reputation of the landscaper is at stake in every project, and so is ours. And so our goal is to make it smooth. And I'm glad that Jake, you know, felt it was and you know, we do have a nice relationship. But when we're working with someone that we've done 10 or 20 pools with, we start to have a lot of fun. Everyone knows it's always the same, exactly know what's going to happen. But when we work with someone brand new, we'd go out of our way to just make sure they know what they need to know before the pool comes. And we're right there with them. Sometimes I remember one time I was with Shauna, one of our technical people. We were at Mohegan Sun at a trade show. And we got a call from a landscaper who was out late trying to get a pool started up. It was like eight at night. And Shana said, I've got this I'm going to call I'm going to walk him through it, make sure that he has the information he needs. And we'll do that kind of thing, because we care about the end result.

Angelique
Yeah, yeah. And what did you guys do before this before Connecticut? or No? Was it Vermont? Where were you?

Karen
You know, I came from a background in textile design. So I always love design and texture and work with the design. I've worked in the design field before but certainly not with concrete. So it's pretty different to work with textiles versus concrete. And I had to learn a lot, you know, early on, especially being the face of the company. So that's been just for me an extremely exciting adventure. And I love learning. So I was on a very steep learning curve, the first couple years, I did everything. I learned, you know, there was nothing that was part of that process that I couldn't do myself so that when we hired other people I knew exactly the process inside and out. And my personal software, he was in a site who was sold software for a long time.

Angelique
Wow, yeah, quite an adventurer to embark on this. And so where are you going next? What are you doing? Do you see yourself entering, you know, a certain city in a big way? Or what do you you see for Soake Pools in the next, let's say, few years? Karen Well, we've gone from being strictly a plunge pool company to a little bit more of even a lifestyle, outdoor living lifestyle company, in terms of just what we've learned is we're not just delivering a pool, we're delivering an experience. And that was always our goal. But that's really what we've been able to focus on. So we also now have a tiny little outdoor bathtub. It's a garden tub for using to bathe in your secret garden. We love bringing water into people's lives. Our focus and our bread and butter is plunge pools, you know, so pools. We're just scratching the surface. Where are we going? We're, we want to work with more landscapers throughout the US. And we really have somebody dedicated to fostering those relationships and answering questions. And when we have somebody that thinks we might be a great fit, you know, making sure we are a good fit for the landscapers model. And so there's no surprises. So where are we going? I think we're, we're looking to grow to continue to grow, but in a controlled way that allows us to work with quality partners and have the experience remain. Excellent. That's more important to us than volume.

Angelique
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. How many people do you have in the company just now?

Karen
16 full time employees.

Angelique
Wow. Okay, yeah.

Karen
That doesn't include the tilers um, but yeah, we have a really amazing team. And we have, you know, we try to have a lot of fun while we work, even though some days can be, you know, construction and trucks and heavy equipment. There's stresses, of course, in that, you know, if done it, but we managed to find a way to laugh through a lot of our day to day, we're really lucky.

Angelique
Oh, that's great, great. Well, I just, you know, love making a step change in the industry is hard. It's hard to break in with something new. It's interesting to hear your journey and how it's, it's come about. I think that offering a service like this to clients is just, if you're making it so easy on them it's bound to develop into a lot more landscapers using you for this, even if there is a huge pool on site, and they want a plunge pool as well, you could see the cost effectiveness of having it built off site and out of the weather and dropped into a location.

I guess I would imagine that a lot of the big cities would be a hotspot. Because of the space, you know, you're giving somebody a water enjoyment in their back garden when they have limited space, but it really could be anywhere. Is that what you think? Or is it mostly for big cities?

Karen
It's for anywhere, it's for the the largest backyard, you can still have that small pool can become a focal point and a gathering spot. And the tiniest backyard can accommodate a very small pool. So I think to your point with the landscapers, and we're going across the country, a lot of our landscape partners, you know, they might be out just bidding a patio, the customer calls them and they might not even know they want to plunge pool. But this is a way for landscapers to really increase their revenue and expand their offerings. So if you know if someone's out on a site, doing a patio and this has happened, and they'll say, Hey, have you thought about putting a plunge pool in here? And the customer might say, Gee, no, I haven't. And then that offers that landscaper, the opportunity to or that landscape designer or that landscape architect, the opportunity to draw in and sketching something maybe even unexpected and this wonderful addition, good for everyone and certainly good for the pocketbook of the person installing the pool by expanding that project. So it's not just all about revenue. It's all about the experience and just creating a beautiful space. But that's, that's the really exciting part of this. When the magic happens, and when this, that body of water is there, and the customer calls, whether it be the landscaper or us and says, You just changed our backyard living like game changer, that's what makes us, you know, keeps us going every day, it just makes us so happy to know that.

Angelique
I come across people all the time that have have come into the industry, from other industries. And I love that, you know, you guys, you didn't have a career in the industry. But you've entered the industry in the last eight years. What you said, on your tour of America, the first year, you met a lot of great people. Have you felt supported in the industry? Have you enjoyed joining a new industry? What's it been like?

Karen
Yes, well we actually joined two industries at the at the same sort of join the pool industry. Yeah. But we are intending to join the landscape industry. So by default, we joined both. But when I think of the landscape community, the people have been extremely welcoming and extremely adaptable. I think for the landscape community, it was fun to have something new to offer in a different way. You know, so many people were used to working with pool companies. So they understood they had installed pool decks or worked with and alongside pool builders before. But to have the opportunity to manage the project themselves and to have this be a part of the project that they controlled, was new. And maybe it was scary at the beginning for some of them if it was their first time through. Or maybe it wasn't, but in all cases, you know, by the end of the project, if it turned out and they do they turn out well, that it's exciting. They want to do it again, because it was fun. They understand how really how simple it is. I love being part of this landscape community. I mean, we meet great people every day, we both men and women. I'm inspired by the designs, when I see our pool is traveling out to you know, St. Louis, Missouri, and we get a photo from the landscaper of this. Maybe the landscape materials there are different, it's so exciting for us to see and the community is just it's a really nice, the landscape communities seems to be one that's very good about sharing information, very supportive, and we have been welcomed with open arms. And so for that we're really grateful.

Angelique
Great, great. Well, it's good to hear that it's been a great experience. I look forward to to seeing one of your Soake Pools or jumping in one sometime.

Karen
I hope you do.

Angelique
I know. I don't know about whether we'll get one. But let's see, I'll have to talk to my husband. Well, great. Thanks so much for being on our show. And I look forward to seeing more of your projects in the future.

Karen
Well, thank you very much for having us. And thank you. I'm excited about what you do and reading your publication and listening to your podcasts as well. It's always inspiring to see when you put a new product or you know, some a new idea out there. And I really enjoy reading and listening to the things that you're putting out there too.

Angelique
Great. And you want to tell people the website so they can look it up?

Karen
Yes, of course. Yes. We love meeting new people. If you are listening to this and you want to call us don't be intimidated. We always love to just chat. It's soakepools.com And it's spelled with an E. soakepools.com. And you can check us out there.

Angelique
Great. Our name is difficult to spell too so I appreciate how to spell it. Great. Well thanks Karen so much for being with us and look forward to seeing more projects.