Go Build Anything: The Story Behind GOBA

It started with a broken cooler.

I had an Arctic cooler I used all the time. Fishing, hunting, job sites, whatever. Then it broke. I reached out to the company, figured they would make it right. They told me my warranty had run out. Two weeks. I was two weeks past the window, and that was that. Nothing they could do.

So I went looking for something better. Something tougher, built for people who actually put their gear through it. And I could not find it.

Everything on the shelf is the same thing

I looked everywhere. Went to a dozen Home Depots. Went to a bunch of Lowe's. Looked at every bottle, every cooler, every pack. And it hit me: they are all the same. Same shape, same insulation, same everything, with a slightly different lid and a different tag on the front. The only thing anybody changes is the lid, so they can call it their own.

And none of it was built for the working person. It was all for TikTok and soccer moms and the weekend crowd. Which is fine. That is a real market. But it is not my market, and it is not the people I come from.

Stanley used to be the blue collar company. That was their whole thing. The contractor's brand. Then one video of a Stanley surviving a car fire went viral, they blew up overnight, and they walked away from the trades completely. They went straight to the flowery prints and the lifestyle crowd and forgot about the people who built the brand in the first place.

Nobody was left making real gear for the people who built this country. So I decided to do it myself.

Where I come from

I am a Jersey construction guy. My father started our roofing company back in 1973. He always told me he did not want me in the business. Called it blood money. Then the day after I graduated college he called me up and told me to get home and get on the roof. So I did. I started at the bottom as a cleanup guy and spent years learning it from the truck up.

And my family is not just contractors. We are cops. Military. First responders. Entrepreneurs. That is the whole blue collar world, not just the guy on the job site. I always thought blue collar meant construction. It does not. It is everyone who does the hard, unglamorous work that keeps this place running.

Those are the people I wanted to build for.

Go Build Anything

The name took me months. I went through hundreds of them. Trademark walls, lawyers telling me no, one brand company that pitched me back a name I already owned. I was ready to settle.

Then I was driving one day and it just hit me. GOBA. Go Build Anything.

I loved it right away. Because that is the whole idea. It could be a business. It could be a family. If you can dream it, you can build it. It is not just about a bottle. It is a mindset for the kind of people who make things with their hands and do not wait around for permission.

That is what GOBA is.

What is coming

I am building this the right way. Not white labeling somebody else's bottle and slapping my logo on it. Real designs, real patents, real gear built to a standard the shelf brands gave up on years ago. Bottles that are heavier duty, with features nobody else is doing. Built for the job site, the firehouse, the truck, the boat.

The product is coming later this year. I am self funding all of it, no investors, because I want to build it my way and get it right.

And I am building it in public, out loud, the whole way. The wins, the losses, the factory fights, all of it.

If you want to follow along, get on the list below. It is a weekly note from me called Clock In. No sales pitch. Just the real story of building this thing from the ground up, and the gear and the people that come with it.

We are just getting started.

Go build anything.

— Tom