According to Forbes, Brynn Putnam sold her interactive fitness company Mirror to Lululemon in 2025 for $500 million after the business generated $150 million in revenue by 2020. The former ballerina first built the Mirror prototype while seven months pregnant, inspired by her boutique fitness studio Refine Method. Now she’s launching Board, a 24-inch touch-sensitive screen designed as a digital-meets-physical game console that sits at the center of tables. The platform launches with 11 original games created by designers from hit titles like Diner Dash and Plants vs Zombies, featuring unlimited touch recognition and physical pieces that replace traditional controllers.
The pivot from self to together
Here’s what’s fascinating about Putnam’s journey: she went from building a product focused on individual motivation to creating something entirely about collective experience. Mirror was all about that solo workout energy – you pushing yourself harder because you could see your own form. But after scaling that business and selling it for half a billion dollars, she started asking a different question: “What about everyone else in the room?”
That shift in focus feels incredibly timely. We’ve spent the past several years drowning in personal screens, even when we’re physically together. Families sitting on the same couch but in different digital worlds. Putnam’s basically saying: enough with the isolation disguised as connection. Board is her attempt to build what she calls “together-tech” – technology that actually brings people into shared presence rather than pulling them apart.
Why this isn’t just another tablet
The technical differences between Board and existing devices are actually pretty clever. Your iPad can only detect about ten touches at once – Board recognizes unlimited touches plus physical objects. That means multiple people can interact simultaneously with both hands and game pieces. And the 24-inch screen size is specifically designed for tabletop group play rather than personal use.
But the real innovation is in the gameplay design. Most tablet games are “pass and play” where you take turns with a device. Board games are built from the ground up for simultaneous, face-to-face play around a shared surface. You’re not handing a screen back and forth – you’re all playing together in real time. That changes the social dynamics completely.
The business of bringing people together
Putnam’s playing a long game here, and it’s smarter than just selling hardware. She’s building an ecosystem where others can create games for Board, turning players into designers and the console into a platform. Think about what that could mean – kids designing their own games, independent developers building for a new category of social play.
She’s identified two huge gaps in the market: the death of couch co-op gaming (remember when you actually played video games side by side with friends?) and the need for truly accessible gaming that doesn’t require controllers or complex setups. Board aims to bridge both gaps simultaneously. And honestly, after years of remote everything and screen-mediated interactions, the timing feels perfect for technology that actually gets people looking at each other again.
The early tester reactions are telling – parents describing it as “a reset button for family time” or watching kids laugh together “like they hadn’t in months.” That’s the kind of emotional response you can’t engineer with better graphics or faster processors. Putnam might have just found a way to make technology feel human again.
