Drummers are obsessed with finding the right tone. To get it, they apply substances like gels and adhesives to the drumhead to alter the vibration and sound. Daniel Kushner thinks drummers deserve better, so he launched Tandem Drums. The brand’s product, called Drops^™, is a tone-sculpting drum accessory. These weighted felt pods control overtones while letting the natural intonation of the drum come through. In short, they help drummers dial in their sound. And they attach with a molded silicon tab, so no sticky mess.

As a drummer, Daniel always wished something like Drops existed. He’s not the only one. The brand’s 2023 Kickstarter campaign raised $47,441 from 627 backers—more than eight times its original goal. Crowdfunding was part of Daniel’s plan to achieve an ambitious goal. “Can I, as one person, build a global company?” He challenged himself to bootstrap Tandem Drums and make it profitable from Day 1 with no outside investors.

Tandem Drums launched last fall, starting where any great band might: the garage. “I had three tons of product coming off a FedEx® truck. I had to move the cars out.” Before packing the first 2,000 orders himself, Daniel made sure his product and packaging were in rhythm—with some help. He didn’t know which packaging to use, so his FedEx rep sent him several options to try. “I got an amazingly attentive person on the FedEx side who was super helpful,” Daniel said. “It was like I had a head of operations.” Thanks to positive experiences like that, Daniel relies on FedEx for all his shipping. He’s able to offer a fast and affordable 2-day delivery for all of his domestic customers with FedEx One Rate. “The rates are important. The delivery time is important. So, the FedEx® One Rate program is critical for us,” Daniel said. FedEx also makes it easy to import and export his international freight to 25 countries/territories.

Daniel has gone solo thus far. Now, as a 2024 FedEx Small Business Grants Program recipient, he plans to add team members in the brand’s second year. Looking further ahead, Daniel hopes the brand can make an impact that reverberates through the work of other artists. “I want to invent products that unlock creativity in people, and that lead to music that otherwise wouldn’t have been made.”