Products
One-On-One With Mike Collins, President of Tenjam
When it comes to creating an inviting and comfortable poolside environment, Tenjam is fast becoming a leading choice for consumers shopping for high-quality pool furniture. The firm has carved a niche for itself by seamlessly blending functionality, aesthetics, and sustainability in its designs. With a commitment to creating durable and stylish outdoor seating and lounging solutions, Tenjam has become a go-to choice for resorts, hotels, waterparks, and homeowners looking to elevate their aquatic spaces.
To learn more about how Tenjam has been making a splash in the pool and spa sector, we spoke with owner and CEO, Mike Collins, on the Pool Magazine podcast.
PM (Pool Magazine): When did you launch Tenjam and what first motivated you to start this company?
MC (Mike Collins): I launched Tenjam in 2013. Back then at the time our focus was soley on outdoor education furniture. And through that, we ended up getting into roto-molding and launched our first roto-molded products in 2015. We launched our product line called the Splash Series back in 2020 and have been off to the races in the in-pool furniture market ever since.
PM: There are some negative connotations in the minds of consumers about plastic furniture, but your product is very different. Can you talk a little bit about what differentiates your product line?
MC: It’s funny you bring that up, because our dealers will say, ‘Hey, you guys make plastic furniture’, and they’ll put a sample in front of somebody, and they’re always just blown away by how robust it is. The look on their face when they actually sit on it or grab a hold of it, they’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this isn’t just plastic furniture. This is just industrial toughness.’
If you go to the store nowadays and you see a really high-end cooler – that Yeti might be $300. Well, you can also find you can go to a discount store and find a cheaper blow-molded cooler that you can buy for $30. There are plenty of Styrofoam coolers you can get for $6. But like anything else, you get what you pay for.
With our roto-molding manufacturing process, we’re making ultra-strong products, with real wall thickness. We also integrate top-of-the-line UV color stabilizers into every color we make. These extra things are what make roto-molded products more expensive just in general.
PM: We like this tagline about your products. ‘Bring on the salt water, the sand, the sun, the rain, and snow. These products can take it.’
MC: We’ve thought this through extensively in our product line. What happens if it snows on your product? Do I have to put this in storage during the winter? In Florida, consumers get a lot of airborne salt and sand. Is that going to affect it? What’s the sun going to do to the product? What’s the rain going to do?
We’ve thought through the materials and processes we use and have come to market with products that can take on the sand, the salt, the snow, the rain, and anything you’re going to throw at it. We had every confidence in the material and knew it could handle salt water and chlorinated pools with incredible performance.
PM: Can you walk us through your in-pool furniture and outdoor living furniture product line?
MC: So we have the Splash Series, and in that series are all the products that can live and work 24/7/365 days a year in the pool. Those are all engineered to work on tanning ledges and sunshelfs. Each product has its own depth rating.
We also have the Session Series, which was our original line of roto-molded products that can go in an outdoor living environment and stay there through all the seasons.
With the Splash Series, dealers told us they wanted to see products that were easier to get in and out of the pool. They’ve had experience with furniture where you need to remove plugs, and turn them upside down.
Other brands of furniture were difficult to get in and out of the pool. You’ve got to sink them and then try to get the water in the core. Then you put the plugs back in and the furniture becomes ultra heavy and near impossible to move.
Our furniture is designed so you simply just pick it up, put it on the tanning ledge or sunshelf, and then when it’s time to take it out of the pool, you lift it, it automatically drains itself and you can use it again on the patio. And really that’s what dealers and consumers both wanted. Pool furniture that’s easy to take in and out of the pool and still looks great on the patio.
Ergonomics is a big factor. So we have chairs that are very comfortable, they have armrests and cup holders. On our Shayz In-Pool Lounger in particular, we spent a great deal of time focused on ergonomics, not just for a single person, but for people with children. We’d find people of all weights and sizes and make sure that everyone was feeling comfortable on this same lounger.
If you miss the ergonomics, you really create a super uncomfortable product. So we focus on that big time, and just prototype, prototype, and prototype til we had that dialed in so that people of all sizes feel comfortable using the product.
That product has been a big success because instead of having different loungers for different pool depths, we have one ultra-comfortable lounger that has this patent pending snap-in riser system so you can adjust different riser heights based on your pool depth.
Then we have our Moon and Mibster chairs with armrests and cup holders. Those have been huge for us. You can easily set them up in the pool. It takes about 10 seconds for them to sink down into the pool and about 10 seconds to pull them out of the pool. It’s super easy. We also have a lineup of tables that do the exact same thing.
PM: Where can builders, distributors, and suppliers learn more about Tenjam?
MC: We have five rep groups that cover the entire United States. In every local market, we have a field salesperson that they may already know if they’re a distributor or even a retail store so we can connect them with our local reps.
We do a lot of Zoom training calls with different distributor branches as well as tabletop shows. I think the best solution would be if people were to contact us at [email protected] and just let us know what they’re looking for. We’ll connect them with a local rep, give them training, go through pricing, and everything they need to get set up.
Want to learn more about Tenjam? Listen to our entire conversation with Mike Collins on the Pool Magazine podcast.