Jakob Esterowitz and Jonah Dickson were doubles partners on the Boston University men’s tennis team before they ventured into a new kind of partnership: co-founding a startup.
Esterowitz, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, and Dickson, a master’s student studying global marketing management at the BU Metropolitan College, founded their startup, Orobor, during fall 2024.
Orobor collects used tennis racket strings and recycles them into high-purity polyester yarn used for clothing manufacturing.
Esterowitz described how the initial idea for the company stemmed from his experience running his own clothing brand, after coming across sustainability issues regarding production.
Polyester accounted for 57% of total global fiber production in 2023, according to the 2024 Textile Exchange Materials Market Report.
As a member of the tennis team, Esterowitz said the “ridiculous” amount of string they used became the solution he was looking for.
“I wanted to find something in my life that I could turn into clothes,” said Esterowitz.
“There’s over 20 million pounds of polyester string thrown away each year in the world, and it all ends up in landfills,” he said, adding that the strings can take more than 500 years to decompose. “We’re trying to give the new waste new life.”
Esterowitz reached out to professors across the country, including Jay Park, an associate professor of plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who assisted Orobor with the initial production of the recycled fibers.
Within these fiber constituents, Orobor can turn them into actual articles of textiles.
“Provided there is a constant supply of them, we can make a case for being able to turn them into wearables or even other recyclable products,” Park said.
When reaching out to brands to pitch their product, the founders contacted Erick Mathelier, co-founder and chief product officer of FURI Sport, a tennis brand based in New York.
“We thought it was super interesting and innovative to take a product like polyester strings, which normally gets discarded, and to find new uses for it,” said Mathelier.
Mathelier said his background in tennis was something he, Dickson and Esterowitz connected on.
“We’ve always talked about creating sustainable products,” he said. “For them [to be] doing it already off the gate, the synergy makes sense for us… It’s a natural alignment.”
Dickson, who also serves as Orobor’s chief operating officer, said the skills he learned through tennis have helped him through difficulties in the business.
“Tennis, especially reaching division one level, is just a lot of dedication and hard work, even on days when you don’t want to do it,” he said. “I think that applies to working on Orobor because some days are trickier and more difficult than others.”
Despite the work, Esterowitz said their business venture is more fun than stressful.
“We both are really interested in everything that we’re doing regarding it, so we can just have fun with each other while we’re [making calls] or working on presentations,” Esterowitz said. “It doesn’t feel like we’re doing a problem set or homework.”
The company recently expanded its string-collection efforts internationally.
Esterowitz said they are expecting to have nearly 1,900 collection locations globally in partnership with tennis clubs and nonprofits next month.
“We should be collecting around 600,000 pounds of string each year, and our goal is to work with as many brands as possible,” Esterowitz said.
Orobor’s recycled yarn has quickly gained traction, with six activewear and tennis brands including Athleta and Soulcycle expressing interest.
“We’ve been playing tennis since we were three or four and we’re going to be playing for the rest of our lives,” Esterowitz said. “We want to make it more sustainable and have a better impact on the world.”
