Brynn Putnam sold her innovative, interactive fitness device, Mirror, to Lululemon in 2025 for $500 million. While she didn’t set out to become a serial category creator, she is consistently trying to solve significant problems that others struggle with. First, she built a wall-mounted fitness mirror while seven months pregnant and turned it into a $500 million business. Now, she’s back with something radically analog in an era of relentless screens: a digital-meets-physical game console called Board, designed to get people looking at each other instead of down at their phones.
As a longtime ballerina, her first foray into entrepreneurship was Refine Method, a boutique fitness studio she launched to bring performance-based training to busy New Yorkers. As Refine Method grew, her inspiration for Mirror came from what she noticed inside her studio. Putnam noticed that the mirror-lined walls didn’t just reflect form—they fueled motivation. People pushed harder when they could see themselves. She thought, “What if that same energy could follow people home?” While pregnant with her first child, she built the prototype of what would become Mirror—a sleek, interactive fitness device that streams live and on-demand workouts into people’s homes. By 2020, Mirror was everywhere. The company generated $150 million in revenue and was acquired by Lululemon for $500 million. Brynn stayed on through the transition. But even as she scaled a category-defining business, her internal compass began to shift. “Mirror was about motivating the self,” she says. “But I kept wondering: What about everyone else in the room?”
“After selling Mirror, I wanted my next chapter to be about something bigger than fitness. Play and gaming have a way of touching everyone, no matter their age or background, and they create joy in a way few other things can. With Board, the vision is personal. I wanted to create something that brings people together face to face, around a table, the way I love spending time with my own family and friends. Now I have a blended, Brady Bunch–style family with five kids ranging from two to twenty-one, so I think a lot about experiences that can connect people across generations. Technology often pulls us apart, but I wanted to build something that does the opposite. At the same time, I am excited about creating an ecosystem where others can build on top of Board, launch companies, and bring their own creativity to the table. For me, it is about more than a product. It is about laying the foundation for lasting connections and new opportunities,” shared Putnam.
In the wake of the pandemic, she watched tech promise connection, but deliver isolation. Families sat side by side, each behind their own screen. Conversations turned into text threads. Game nights became solo scroll sessions. Brynn didn’t want to build another app to patch the problem. She wanted to rethink the relationship between people, play, and presence. Now, with two children, she decided it was time to build something new. Board is a screen that brings people together. There are no controllers, no logins, no setup rituals- just your hands, a few beautifully designed plastic pieces, and a touch-sensitive screen that transforms into a shared, interactive playground.
The games are built from scratch for Board—short, spontaneous, and designed for everyone in the room. One game might take 60 seconds. Another might turn into a full-family, post-dinner competition. You can tap, race, team up, or playfully sabotage your siblings in real time. Putnam calls it “together-tech”—technology that invites people into shared presence instead of pulling them deeper into personal distraction. “I saw two big white spaces. The first is couch co-op. Playing together on the same screen used to be a core part of gaming, but today almost everything is networked and solitary, even when it is technically multiplayer. The second is what the iPhone did for casual games. It opened up gaming to a much wider audience, making it simple, approachable, and fun for people who never considered themselves gamers,” explained Putnam. “With Board, we want to bring those two ideas together. We want to revive the joy of playing side by side and create a platform that makes gaming accessible and inviting for everyone. Hopefully at the same time, creating a new category of entertainment that opens the door for a whole new generation of players and creators.”
Early testers have called it “surprisingly emotional.” One parent described watching their two kids laugh together like they hadn’t in months. Another said Board felt like “a reset button for family time.” And this is just the beginning. Brynn’s team is building tools that will let And this is just the beginning. Brynn’s team is building tools that will let anyone—especially kids—create their own Board games, turning players into designers and turning the console into a creative platform, not just a product.
What makes Board different from mobile or tablet apps is the 24 inch screen designed to sit at the center of a table so everyone can see and play together at once. Secondly is input as iPads can only detect about ten fingers, but Board recognizes unlimited touches as well as physical pieces. That means hands, objects, and gestures can all become part of the play. Third is gameplay intended for its single use. “Most iPad games are pass and play, where people take turns on a personal device. Board games are designed for multiple people to play simultaneously, face to face, around the same table. That combination of large shared screen, unlimited touch, and physical pieces creates experiences that are not possible on mobile,” added Putnam.
Board launches with 11 original games, spanning fast-paced mini-games to 45-minute collaborative quests—built by award-winning designers from Diner Dash, Plants vs Zombies and 7 Wonders Duel.Games are competitive and cooperative, solo to unlimited multiplayer, and span strategy, puzzles, simulation, and reimagined arcade hits. Some of the games include, Chop Chop, a Co-op kitchen chaos with knives, spoons, spices, and sponges, Board Arcade, four reimagined arcade classics in one, Cosmic Crush, robot-powered match-three mayhem and Mushka, a magical digital pet you can wash, brush, and play with.
At the heart of Board is its advanced piece technology, which replaces traditional controllers with real- world objects that players use to slice, pour, push, or build—blending physical and digital play in a way that’s intuitive and joyful for all ages.
