hello, we’re podangle!

We like to do girly stuff, like invent a product. A quarantine brainstorm turned everyday solution, podangle was founded by Juli Stockberger and Shayne Marie in April 2020. 

Picture this; it's January 2020, you're leaving to study abroad in blissful ignorance about the year ahead, and your mom can't figure out how to FaceTime - that is , without holding the camera an inch away from her face. The mother in question, Juli, wondered why there wasn’t an accessible product that stood up her phone so she could talk hands. A lightbulb went off, and Shayne imagined how convenient an everyday phone stand would be for her frequent self timer photoshoots and TikTok use. The girl clearly has priorities . Through blood, sweat, tears, and TikToks, podangle was born. 

Prior to deciding on a name, our #1 priority was creating a sustainable product. After some deliberation, we decided to create our stand out of recycled ocean-bound plastic. The initial product of a flat tripod with multiple angles led us to our name. "Pod" + "Angle" became podangle (it took pure genius to make the "l"  an acute angle, by the way. And we thought we'd never use geometry after turning 16). 

While searching "podangle" online, we learned that "padangle" is actually a slang term in surfing. According to Urban Dictionary, it is used when "the surfer is paddling on an angle in conjunction with [a] wave to get to the point where [they] can ride the wave."

We took this as a sign to begin the journey paddling towards our wave - creating a product that facilitated creativity and had a greater purpose of cleaning up the ocean.