Unconventional Entrepreneurs: Float On

Float On offers the experience of you. Photo © Heather Zinger

To put it plainly, we give businesses money when they sell us stuff. But not all businesses sell stuff. Many keep the lights on by selling us experiences. Amusement parks sell us thrills. So do circuses. Performing artists sell us the present, this very instant. Cinemas sell us a way to escape ourselves.

But there are a growing number of Portland businesses run by unconventional entrepreneurs who, while seemingly selling us goods, services or experiences, are really selling us something more abstract and harder to define.

The Product is You

Float On, the West Coast's largest float tank center and Portland's only official one—Common Ground's Everett House, a day spa in the northeast, has two tanks—sells us figuratively, and almost literally, The Void.

Float tanks (sensory deprivation or isolation tanks) are comprised of five elements: water, magnesium-based epsom salts, darkness, soundlessness and you.

You enter the tank, float and wait. After 30 or 40 minutes of waiting, you'll most likely have relaxed into the theta state, that no man's land between consciousness and sleep arguably more imaginative and inspiring than even dreaming.

But to get you there, the tank must "disappear." That's why there's no light or sound. That's why the water is "invisible," regulated at the skin's exterior temperature of 93.5 degrees. Because of the salts, even gravity seems suspended.

All this is an elaborate deception to sell you things you might not even know you have, like your own protean limitlessness. But perhaps, more than anything else, Float On is selling you "me time." More specifically, they're selling you the singular experience of your own self. Their product is you.

The Business of Doing Business

Float On opened last October, but co-founder Christopher Messer was so turned on by his first float in 1977 that he built his own tank by hand, filled it with water and used water wings to stay buoyant enough to let his mind walk itself.

"Every kid's gotta have a hobby," he says.

It shouldn't take a leap of faith to figure out that the people at Float On are not your conventional business people (see: website, bunny ears).

In fact, they've set up a rather intriguing system of bartering. For instance, volunteering at the center for four hours earns you a free float. "One of our customers came to float with us for the first time about two-and-a-half weeks ago, and since then he's floated 14 times," says co-founder Graham Talley. "He volunteers in the shop and trades us fresh baked bread and pastries every morning in exchange for his time in the tank."

But it's their artists' plan that might please many Portlanders most. In exchange for the promise of one float-inspired painting, Float On offers painters and visual artists two complimentary floats.

Float On "wizard" and part-time magician Burke Giordano says Float On plans to publish later this year a bound collection of 100 of the more than 200-plus paintings so far inspired by artist floats, which they hope to use as a means to spread the gospel about the latent creativity unleashed after floating.

Cynically, one can view this as a shrewd business maneuver to profit on the works of others, using those works to build a larger clientele.

But that's unlikely (see: website, bunny ears).

Besides, Messer says, while some artists do seek out floats, most floaters are the curious or the already turned-on. At more than two dozen 90-minute appointments per day, Float On's schedule is often maxed out.

The Intangible Goods

Of course, floating benefits more than just the inner self.

"I've always floated for spiritual reasons," Messer says, "but the health benefits are off the charts."

Messer says a good float relaxes us so deeply that we are stripped of our conceptual, self-made stresses (parking tickets, mid-terms, missing the bus). A float slows or stops our bodies from producing cortisol and releases into our bloodstreams endorphins, like dopamine.

A float also stretches the body (Messer says we grow an inch longer in the tank) and, because of the suspension of gravity, Rolfs our muscles (without the accompanying pain), relieving chronic pain and speeding up the the rate at which we recover from injuries. The salts are good for our skin, and they're kosher, too, so they've been blessed.

But it's the inner journey on which Float On really stakes its claim.

By renting you a space, they're providing you with the tools and the encouragement to discover, uncover, recover and explore what's always been a part of you.

What You Should Know

With the exception of a hair dryer, Float On provides you with everything you need, including towels, robes, slippers, ear plugs, shampoo and body wash and a shower to wash off the salts.

Prior to a float, be aware that the water can sting if you have open cuts or a fresh tattoo. Also, don't shave prior to a float, don't drink caffeine, allow time for food to digest, and take out and store your contact lenses.

Float On is located at 4530 SE Hawthorne Boulevard. To schedule a 90-minute float in one of their four tanks, call 503.384.2620, or visit them online at www.floathq.com. If a tank is available, they also accept walk-ins.