Experimenting to Find the Ideal Workday Format

Entrepreneur Stephan Aarstol dreamed?Tower Paddle Boards?into existence. After being introduced to?the concept of dreamlining?by reading Tim Ferriss, Stephan put it out into the universe that he wanted to start a surfing business.

Several years later, when a friend introduced him to paddleboarding, something clicked. Stephan knew this was the path for him, and he founded Tower Paddle Boards in 2010. Shortly thereafter, he was contacted by Shark Tank and invited to pitch on the show. He caught the attention of billionaire Mark Cuban, who invested in the business in 2012.

The financial success was great, but Stephan founded the business because he loved the surfer lifestyle. Many of his employees were drawn to the company because they were also passionate about beach life. So when the team often found themselves working startup hours (Read: all the time), Stephan knew something had to change.

He instituted a five-hour workday for his team. Folks would arrive in the morning and were free to leave anytime after 1 pm. This arrangement was great at first. Employees developed rich lives outside of work and enjoyed the perks of essentially working half days.

But then, something shifted. Two years into the five-hour workday experiment, Tower lost a handful of employees back-to-back. Who would ever leave behind such a fantastic work perk, Stephan wondered?

This question led Stephan down a path to discover how he could build a workday that inspires a team to greater productivity, happiness, and passion. He shares the full story on the latest episode of the CEO Campfire Chat.