EFX in Mission Viejo Brings Holographics Bands to Athletes, Dolphins

Holographic performance technology company EFX Performance, Inc. started from humble beginnings, selling holographic bracelets locally and quickly working its way into becoming a worldwide product. Now they sell products in over 30 countries, are endorsed by top athletes and are major supporters of various organizations.

“We started about a year and a half ago and we moved into this facility (Mission Viejo) last March,” said company CEO Randon Largent. “Before that, our office was or Coffee Bean or or wherever along the freeway.”

It didn’t take long for the company to progress up the trade ladder, finding people who saw the same results Largent and other EFX employees experienced with the holographic dots.

“For most of us the interest came to our exposure of the product--the fact that we thought it was a really interesting product that people would love to have," Largent said. "We all loved it and most of the people we ran into enjoyed the product.”

The technology behind EFX’s holographic dots according to Largent pertains to how they store data.

“The basic concept is these are holograms, which are like a DVD or CD,” Largent said. “They have the ability to store data or information – in this case electrical frequencies. We program them in ways we believe will be beneficial for people and that’s what our users report.”

How they do it is the secret sauce, Largent added.

Moving away from their initial product, a neoprene wristband containing the holographic dot, the company sought to partner with other companies to help distribute and produce an EFX line of products, only to find out that producing their own was better in the long run. 

“Originally when we got into it, the idea was to approach partners and we would partner up with people like Billabong and license our holographic dots to them as opposed to actually creating our own products,” Largent said.  “What we found was, doing deals like that takes a long time - large companies don’t make decisions overnight and we started making our own products, starting with neoprene bracelets and started branching into other products and we intend to introduce quite a few products in the next year.”

Gaining a strong following, people using EFX’s bracelets wanted something more stylish and streamlined. EFX listened, and out came new versions of holographic products ranging from necklaces, insoles, pet tags, sweatbands and new wristbands.

“A lot of people said 'that’s fine if I’m playing golf or tennis, soccer or surfing, but it’s not something I would want to wear when I go out,’” Largent said about their neoprene wristbands.

Increasing their customer base, EFX started endorsing athletes from all facets of sports.

“We’ve got Adrian Gonzales who was just traded to Boston from San Diego, we have Cole Hamels from Philadelphia and in the NBA we have Deron Williams,” he said.

“Interestingly enough, we did not seek these people out,” Largent said, explaining EFX’s latest deal with racecar drivers Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. “Somebody came to us from NASCAR – they loved the product and were using it. It’s the same way in baseball.”

Besides sponsoring atheletes, EFX also supports various charitable organizations, such as a breast cancer foundation and their latest partnership, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project. EFX made the Dolphin Project a custom band and is donating the first $175,000 of bracelets sales to the project and a substantial portion of the proceeds thereafter.

“That happened through Clear Channel,” EFX employee John Rider said.  “One of their representatives contacted us and was looking for potential sponsors and partners to work with and she went to one of our competitors, got rejected, so she came to us through a mutual friend and sat down and worked out an agreement.”

“We love to work with any causes like Ric O’Barry and Breast Cancer," Largent said. “We love to do cause-related things, because there’s no reason not to.”

EFX, however, has not forgotten their local roots.

“We do a lot of things locally with getting products to kids in a variety of different sports. We donate a lot of product to charity, golf tournaments and things of that nature,” Largent said.

For individuals wanting to try out one of EFX’s holographic products, Largent said that it’s strongly suggested to do research and talk with other users.

EFX’s claims, however, are being challenged by some users - resulting in a legal suit against the company, which Largent said they will fight very aggressively.

“The things that we hear the most often are the balance, strength and flexibility issues,” Largent said. “Those are the things that we're trying to test right now to see what kind of data we can come up with to verify what’s really going on.”

A phone message Patch left with attorneys on the other side of that lawsuit last week was not returned.

“We’ve talked to different groups some of our distributors in other countries have introduced us,” Largent added. “Right now we’re doing a study with a group in England, and that’s being overseen and the data is being interpreted by a professor at the University of Birmingham."

Largent also mentioned that EFX is working with a Southern California company to determine testing protocols for holographic products.