Welcome to Poolaroo!
I started in the pool supplies industry 15 years ago, when I joined an online retailer as a senior web developer, and gradually shifted into a marketing/tech hybrid role, and eventually CMO. In about two years, we'd doubled revenue, and our company was acquired by the largest pool supplies retail chain, where I served as VP of Digital Marketing, fine-tuning the online experience for a customer base of millions.
In 2015, I co-founded a search-marketing agency with fellow Ecommerce veteran Shilo Jones. After a decade of helping other online stores grow, I realized the time was right to build a new site to support pool owners in an innovative, service-minded way.
One of the things that stood out as an indicator of that opportunity was the lack of a clear leader in real world photos of products, so we built our own photo studio from scratch to bring reality to a world awash in AI slop.
And now, Poolaroo is live. With the lucky addition of another experienced Ecommerce expert co-founder, Dieter Davis, we got to work building a store that makes pool and spa maintenance easy, backed by real humans who’ve shipped, marketed, and supported these products for years.
Curious about the journey or the people behind it? Check my LinkedIn profile, or drop us a note on the Contact page! I love to talk shop.
- Roy Steves
Behind the Scenes: The Studio
Launched in 2025, Poolaroo was built to modernize Ecommerce for the pool and spa industry, building exciting new technology to serve the changing needs of online shoppers.
In the age of Artificial Intelligence, we expect that it's going to be harder and harder to trust online brands. To counter that, we're investing extra effort into transparency into our organization, behind-the-scenes content, and the best product photography we can create.
As an example, here's the process of building our product photography studio, starting with the first time I arrived at our new space, brimming with potential!
Moved In!
Once we ordered and assembled the photography gear, we started to bring in the material we would need to build the backdrop cyclorama.
This shot is from up on top of the bathroom, which is oddly also where the cable internet port was, so good thing we had a ladder!
Construction Began!
First, we put MDF panels on the floor and wall, to make it easier to putty, sand, and paint--especially repeatedly over time, as wear and tear is inevitable as we grind through thousands of products.
At this point, we hadn't bought the thin plyboard that would need to bend to fit the curve of the cyclorama, so there was some experimentation to find what radius would balance the usable floor space with the practical limitations of the material.
No skateboarding allowed!
With the thin plyboard pinned into place, we puttied up all of the seams and gaps as best we could. This would be only the first of several rounds of puttying between rounds of sanding.
Ready for action!
With a few finishing touches, we were ready for our first industry rep visit! We're a remote team, from all over the country, but this is our physical base of operations, and we're proud of how it came out.
And from here on, the quality of the product presentation of our site should improve a bit more every day!
Would you like to know more?
Obviously, we needed a name that was memorable, unique, and relevant. After sifting through dozens of alternatives, it was clear that "Poolaroo" was all of those, plus it had the kind of playful sound that fit with the summer fun we aim to support. While many have noted the similarity to "kangaroo," that's a coincidence, as we're based a few thousand miles from Australia. Rather, the repeated 'o's are intended to have a rhythm with the 'o's in 'Pool'. We think it sounds a bit silly, but trustworthy--just like us.
We're a remote team, but our founder is in Salem, Oregon. That might not be a major pool supplies market, but where there aren't many pool supplies stores, having a good online alternative is all the more critical.
This also allows us to bring on the best talent from wherever they live. Maybe a former pool equipment installer lives three states away! We're tech-savvy enough to make that kind of thing work, and we think we're stronger for it.
There are three reasons we might not carry every pool supply product you're familiar with.
- Manufacturers have to protect their brands from knock-offs and metaphorical scalpers, so they don't offer online stores all of the exact same products they offer to brick-and-mortar stores. There are often similar alternatives they do allow online, though, so we will do our best to ensure we have the right tool for the job.
- Freight (or LTL) shipping requires quite a bit more support to be sure customers are ready to receive their shipment, so for now, we're focusing on the vast majority of products that can ship via typical parcel carriers.
- Maybe we should! There are hundreds of thousands of individual products in the pool supplies niche, and it takes time to source, photograph, and curate them all. If we're missing something, let us know, and we'll see if we can source it for you through the dozens of warehouses across the country that we're partnered with.
While generative AI is a powerful tool, we feel it isn't appropriate in every use case. As a result, we use it for programming stuff, process automation, design elements, lifestyle images, proofreading, and other situations where the output is essentially decorative.
But we do NOT depend on it for specific details or facts about our products, as we take our responsibility for accuracy very seriously. Anything AI touches gets a human sign-off, or we don't use it.
Further, we never feed any of your data to AI agents in a way that would allow them to train on it.
Nope! Although our name isn't related to Kangaroos, there is a similarly named pool service business in Australia. If you're in that market, read more here.