Ostrava brothers built a 40-million-crown jump rope business

Ten years ago, brothers Tomáš and Marek Vaněček from Ostrava were simply filming videos on how to jump rope properly. Today their venture Švihej turns over roughly 40 million crowns a year, and they've introduced skipping to more than 150,000 people.

It all started in 2016: the brothers had long been into sport, and skipping was part of their training routine. They began posting instructional videos online, gradually building up an audience. Finding that the ropes available on the market quickly wore out, they first tried importing ones from the US and China before deciding to design their own model and start selling it. Sales took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were looking for ways to exercise at home en masse.

Today Švihej is about more than just selling gear. The company started out giving away free PDF training plans, launched an online portal in 2023, and rolled out a mobile app this past March. According to the brand, more than 70,000 users are registered on the portal.

The app is built like a game: users earn experience points, level up, complete challenges and compete on leaderboards. “We wanted to create an environment people would keep coming back to — where confetti pops up after a workout, you earn a badge, you can upload a video of your first double-under or some other trick, and the community tells you you're awesome,” says co-founder Marek Vaněček.

The app's basic version is free, with full content available by subscription. Support for Garmin smartwatches is planned (the app currently works with Apple Watch and Android watches). Beyond Czechia, the brand is already present in Slovakia and is now entering the Polish market. “I'm genuinely curious to see how it goes,” says Tomáš Vaněček.

What began as two brothers has grown into a team of seven, joined by freelance staff and around thirty ambassadors, and the company recently began working with MMA fighter Jiří Procházka. The company has no outside investor — they've financed all of their growth themselves.

The brothers' ambitions haven't changed: “We want skipping to become as ordinary as running. We want people to say ‘I'm off to skip’ as naturally as they now say ‘I'm off for a run,’” says Marek Vaněček. For the company's tenth anniversary it released a weighted beaded rope — all of its models are designed and made in Czechia. “Our competitors mostly just resell other people's products. Developing and producing our own moulds is expensive, but it gives us control over quality and a lot more flexibility,” explains Tomáš Vaněček.