The story of DomeDock began in 2019 in Lubbock, Texas. John Giles was an avid hat collector struggling with a “hat problem” – he owned too many ball caps and had no good way to store them neatly. John, a natural tinkerer, decided to craft a solution for his own use. He built the first DomeDock prototypes by hand, creating a wall-mounted rack that could stack caps on top of each other, keeping them organized and accessible. His wife, Chelsea Giles, immediately saw the broader potential of this clever fix. At the time, John and Chelsea already considered themselves a creative team who “like making stuff [and] painting stuff” in their everyday life. With that creative spirit, they realized John’s homemade hat rack could solve a problem for many others, not just himself.
Chelsea took charge of testing the product’s appeal in the market. In 2019, she began by selling the early DomeDock units at local weekend community markets in Lubbock. These in-person events allowed the Gileses to gather feedback and see firsthand how people responded to the “reinvented” hat rack. The response was overwhelmingly positive – customers loved the simple, space-saving design for their caps. “They just sold like hot cakes. It was great,” John noted of those early sales, indicating that demand quickly outpaced their small-scale production. Encouraged by this initial success, the couple expanded sales beyond local markets. They set up an online shop on Etsy (a popular marketplace for handmade goods) to reach a wider audience. This move proved fruitful, as more hat enthusiasts discovered the DomeDock solution online. By addressing a common clutter problem with a neat DIY invention, John and Chelsea had unknowingly laid the foundation for a viable business.
Rapid Growth and Scaling Up (2020–2021)
As word spread and orders grew, DomeDock evolved from a casual side hustle into a booming small business. The year 2020 marked a turning point. The Gileses saw the potential to transform their home-grown project into a scalable product company. To prepare for growth, they shifted into “high gear” and took several key steps. First, they secured intellectual property protection by filing for a patent on the DomeDock design. (That patent was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in March 2021, solidifying DomeDock as a protected invention.) With the design patented, John continued to refine the product’s form and functionality, while Chelsea concentrated on expanding the brand’s reach online.
Around the same time, the founders launched an official DomeDock website to complement their Etsy store, creating a dedicated online presence for their product. Perhaps the most pivotal move in 2020 was their decision to pursue large-scale manufacturing. Initially, John had been hand-making each unit – a method that couldn’t keep up with surging demand. To scale up production, the couple turned to crowdfunding. In mid-2020, they ran a successful campaign on Kickstarter, aiming to raise funds for developing a custom plastic injection mold. This mold would allow DomeDock units to be produced in bulk instead of one by one. The crowdfunding effort drew significant support from backers who believed in the product’s promise, ultimately raising enough capital to bring mass production to life. With an injection-molded design, DomeDock could be manufactured efficiently in larger quantities while maintaining quality and consistency. By the end of 2020, the Gileses began transitioning from making each hat rack by hand to producing them at scale in a factory setting, all while keeping the production 100% in the USA (a point of pride for the company).
The successful patent, website launch, and Kickstarter campaign all laid the groundwork for rapid growth. As a result, DomeDock’s sales and visibility surged entering 2021. The company fulfilled its Kickstarter orders and continued to attract new customers via its website and online marketplaces. Reviews from early buyers were glowing, often noting how the DomeDock rack was a simple but game-changing organizer for cap collectors. With a steadily growing stream of orders, John and Chelsea carefully managed the transition from a two-person crafting operation into a more structured business. They handled everything from overseeing manufacturing runs to customer service, essentially wearing all hats (pun intended) in their company. This intense period of growth tested their abilities but also proved that DomeDock had graduated from a niche idea to a sustainable product business.
Going Full-Time and Family Business Life
By 2022, DomeDock was thriving to the point that John and Chelsea Giles made a life-changing decision: they left their day jobs to run the venture full-time. Up until then, the pair had been juggling DomeDock on the side of other employment. Thanks to the strong revenue and momentum generated in 2020–2021, the founders felt confident enough to devote all their working hours to their growing company. Becoming full-time entrepreneurs was a significant milestone – it meant the DomeDock business could support their family financially and deserved their complete focus.
Running DomeDock as a full-time family business also gave John and Chelsea new flexibility in how and where they lived. Since most sales were happening online, they realized they were not tied to a particular location for a storefront or office. “We decided that if we were running this business online, we could live anywhere,” Chelsea explained of their mindset. The Giles family began to dream about relocating to a place that fit their desired lifestyle. They settled on Marble Falls, a scenic town in the Texas Hill Country, after taking several weekend trips through the region and falling in love with it. In 2022, they moved to Marble Falls, seeking a beautiful environment and a supportive community in which to raise their two children while operating DomeDock remotely.
In Marble Falls, John and Chelsea continued to grow their enterprise from a home base, enjoying both a slower pace of life and a tight-knit community. They became actively involved in the local area – for instance, attending a local church and enrolling their kids in a nearby school – all made possible by the flexibility of running an e-commerce driven company. Throughout these changes, the founders maintained a clear vision for DomeDock. They remained hands-on with every aspect of the business: John focused on product development and inventory (ensuring the hat racks met quality standards and iterating on design improvements), while Chelsea led marketing, customer engagement, and day-to-day operations, leveraging her knack for sales that had proven so vital early on. The duo’s complementary roles – John as the inventive designer and Chelsea as the business strategist – continued to propel the company forward. They also kept their family values at the core of the business. The Gileses often credit their faith in God and love of family as guiding principles in how they conduct DomeDock’s affairs. This grounded approach helped them stay humble and customer-focused even as the company expanded.
National Exposure: A Spot on Shark Tank
After several years of steady growth, DomeDock reached a new pinnacle of recognition: an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank. The opportunity did not come overnight. In May 2024, John and Chelsea decided to take a chance and answered an open casting call for Shark Tank entrepreneurs. They knew that pitching their product on national television could dramatically accelerate their business, if they could impress the show’s panel of billionaire investors (known as “the Sharks”). Their application stood out among thousands, and the DomeDock founders were invited to pitch in person. In September 2024, the couple flew to California and presented DomeDock to the Shark Tank panel during a taping of the show. The experience was both nerve-wracking and thrilling – a far cry from the local craft fairs where they had sold their first units just a few years prior.
However, even after the pitch was filmed, there were no guarantees that the segment would air. Shark Tank films many pitches that never make it to television. John and Chelsea left the September session cautiously optimistic but heard nothing for months. “Their appearance on ‘Shark Tank’ was not set in stone, even after they made their pitch,” a local news outlet noted of the uncertain waiting period. By early 2025, the Gileses had “almost given up hope” on ever seeing their episode broadcast, John admitted. Then came the exciting news: in late February 2025, they received an email confirming that their segment would indeed air on an upcoming episode. The DomeDock pitch was scheduled to be televised on Shark Tank on March 14, 2025, in the show’s Season 16 lineup.
As the air date approached, the founders still had to keep the outcome of their pitch a secret (due to confidentiality agreements). Whether or not they struck a deal with one of the Sharks would only be revealed once the episode aired. Nonetheless, just earning a spot on the broadcast was a huge milestone for the company. It meant national exposure to millions of viewers and potential customers, as well as validation that DomeDock was innovative enough to grab the attention of Shark Tank’s producers. The Marble Falls community rallied around the Gileses – their local church even planned a watch party for the big night. John and Chelsea viewed the Shark Tank experience as a surreal capstone to their journey so far. They had been fans of the show, watching and learning from it throughout DomeDock’s development, and now they were part of its history. “I always thought we could do that…I could see us up there,” Chelsea said, reflecting on the realization of a long-held vision, “but to actually be in it is very surreal”.
The Founders: Chelsea and John Giles
Chelsea and John Giles are the driving force behind DomeDock, and their backgrounds shed light on why this venture succeeded. The two are a married couple (over a decade together) who embody an entrepreneurial and creative spirit. Both attended Abilene Christian University in Texas and have been active in creative projects since early in their marriage. Prior to DomeDock, Chelsea dabbled in photography and other artistic hobbies, while John enjoyed hands-on projects and design work – skills that would later prove useful in developing a physical product. In their personal blog, the Gileses describe themselves as a “husband and wife creative team” who love making things and “living life intentionally”. This mindset predisposed them to recognize an everyday problem (messy hat storage) and craft an innovative solution.
Within the DomeDock venture, each founder took on complementary roles. John Giles is the inventor and product designer behind the hat rack – he conceived the original DomeDock concept and built the early models by hand. His practical engineering of the rack’s form (which eventually earned a U.S. utility patent) was crucial to turning the idea into a tangible product. To this day, John continues to focus on product development and improvements, ensuring that DomeDock’s quality and design stay top-notch. Chelsea Giles, on the other hand, is the entrepreneur and operations lead. She was the one who brought DomeDock to market, first by selling units at local markets and then by establishing an online sales presence. Chelsea’s background in marketing and her people skills allowed the business to gain customers and notoriety early on. She now oversees business operations, customer relations, and marketing strategy for the company. In many ways, Chelsea is the public face of DomeDock – for example, she participated in a podcast interview about growing the company from an Etsy side hustle to a booming family business. Together, the Gileses exemplify a balanced founding team: John provides the “form” (the physical product and innovation) while Chelsea provides the “flourish” (the branding, customer experience, and business growth).
Crucially, both founders share a clear vision for DomeDock and a strong set of values. They have emphasized that their faith and family are at the center of their venture. This has manifested in decisions like prioritizing American-made production (to stay true to their quality standards and support local manufacturing) and maintaining direct involvement with customers (often personally handling customer support inquiries).
