About Per Johansson

I like products that do one thing really well. A product does not need to be complicated or packed with features. In fact, I often believe the best products are the ones you understand immediately.

If a product does not solve a real problem, I would rather not sell it. I always try to think about how a product works in real life. Is it easy to use? Will it actually make a difference? Is the price reasonable in relation to the benefit it provides?

These are questions I want answered before a product becomes part of the Hippo Outdoor range.

Waterline Design was founded in 2010, but the idea behind the company started many years earlier.

It all began with a cold beer on a boat.

A cold beer tastes especially good when you are sitting in the cockpit on a warm summer day. For years, we used an ordinary diving mesh bag to lower a few bottles into the colder water beneath the boat.

After a while, I started wondering why no one had made a bag specifically for this purpose — and, perhaps more importantly, why no marine store sold anything similar.

I drew a simple mesh bag and found a supplier who could make it at a reasonable cost. I then brought the product to the Stockholm Boat Show.

The bag became a bigger success than I had expected.

People used it not only to keep drinks cool, but also to hang behind the boat and wash potatoes in the moving water. Since then, more than 30,000 bags have been sold.

As customers and retailers began asking for more practical boating products, the range grew quickly.

Over the years, Waterline Design developed around 40 products, including blackout blinds, mosquito screens, leather spreader protectors and other simple solutions designed to make life on board more comfortable.

By the time I sold Waterline Design in 2021, the products were sold through around 20–25 distributors worldwide, as well as through Amazon and our own online store.

After the sale, I continued working as a consultant for Boatsystem Group. My role included helping to secure the continued production of Waterline Design products and further developing the Amazon business.

After selling Waterline Design, I started Hippo Outdoor.

The idea was not to build the same company again. Instead, I wanted to continue working with new ideas and new product areas without competing with the business I had sold.

This became the start of Hippo Golf, Hippo Fishing, Hippo Eyewear and Hippo Marine — all brought together under Hippo Outdoor.

The products are different, but the basic idea is the same:

To offer simple, affordable products that solve real problems.

It might be a golf towel that can be unclipped from the bag and carried onto the green, a pair of magnifying glasses that can quickly be used when tying on a fishing fly, or a reinforcement patch that helps prevent a grommet from tearing out of a tarp.

Most of the time, it is not about creating a major invention.

It is about making something a little easier, a little smarter or simply more practical.

A product should ideally:

• solve a clear problem
• be easy to understand
• be simpe to use
• have a clear purpose
• be durable enough for its intended use
• offer good value for money

The biggest or most advanced solution is not always the best one.

Quite often, the simplest solution is.

On Hippo Stories, I share experience, ideas and practical advice about topics such as:

• golf
• fishing
• boating
• tarps and boat covers
• product development
• small practical outdoor products
• simple solutions to common problems

Some articles are based on my own experience from many years of product development.

Others begin with a question from a customer or a problem I have come across myself.

My aim is to write in a clear and straightforward way, without making things more complicated than they need to be.

Do you have a question, an idea or a problem that you think should have a simpler solution? Read more about Hippo Outdoor

You are always welcome to get in touch.