Cold plunging isn't exactly a new concept. In fact, it's quite an old one: Cold water immersion has been practiced in various cultures for thousands of years, and professional athletes have long braved icy tubs after competitions. But recently, it's been making bigger waves than ever — rippling out to people beyond the big leagues, like Ryan Duey and Michael Garrett.

"Mike and I, we both have health and wellness backgrounds," says Duey. "We played sports, but are we the highest-level athletes? No. Our interest has been on holistic health — mind and body." They've now turned that interest into a groundbreaking and market-leading home cold plunge company, Plunge.

Before starting Plunge, Duey and Garrett were in similar boats. Each ran his own float spa therapy center — Garrett in San Francisco, Duey in Sacramento. They connected through the industry, launched a successful fundraiser together and became fast friends. So when, in early 2020, the pandemic forced them to shutter their businesses and drain their pools, it made sense that they would potentially pivot together.

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Duey and Garrett had become fascinated with the ice-bath trend, led by charismatic figures like Dutch motivational speaker Wim Hof, and touted for its benefits by podcasters Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. And with their wellness experience, Duey and Garrett were better prepared than most to dive right in.

With time — and tubs — on his hands, Garrett got to work building out an initial prototype. The design needed work, but the concept was too strong for Duey to pass up. He jumped in alongside Garrett, and began building out a brand that could bring strength to their groundbreaking new concept. The first question he wanted to answer: What were they going to call this thing?

"At the time, the term was 'ice baths'," says Duey. "We did our research on Google Trends. Sure enough, 'ice bath' was searched about ten times more than 'cold plunge.' We decided we were going to bet the house on 'cold plunge.' We bought the domain coldplunge.com, and immediately were on the first page of Google search results with no spend in the first........

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