Fort Boards wins big in Microsoft Small Business Contest

In the biggest competition Fort Boards founder August Graube has ever entered, he just took home first place and a handsome check for $20,000.

The first thing Graube did? Call his father.

“I could tell he was very proud, but his first response was, ‘Don’t let it go to your head,’” Graube says. “Always good advice.”

Graube chuckles that when he and teammate Neal Mizushima submitted their video to enter the Microsoft Small Business Contest, it was a little “stiff.” And he says his reaction to the phone call from Microsoft notifying them about the award probably sounded just as awkward.

“Even though I was expecting a call from Microsoft and expecting good news, I still didn’t know how to react when the call came through,” says Graube, a WeWork South Lake Union member. “I think I was a little shocked.”

Graube got the news earlier this week. He says the money will go towards producing new products for Fort Boards, a snap-together toy designed to foster children’s creativity. The goal is to launch nine different variations of Fort Boards before the holidays. Currently there are five.

The win has been great publicity for Fort Boards, which has heard from representatives for the reality show Shark Tank and an LA-based television production company called Good Clean Fun.

The competition gave Graube and Mizushima a chance to reach out to the WeWork community, which has been helping to spread the word about the competition.

“WeWork has helped in ways that we could have never anticipated,” Mizushima says. He mentions that when another WeWork member found out Fort Boards had launched a PR campaign, he gave them some great contacts.

“It was the most natural business networking experience that I’ve ever had,” says Mizushima, “and it’s the type of experience that I don’t think you’d find anywhere else but WeWork.”

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