Up Close With Motorbunny Founder Caleb Thompson

LOS ANGELES—In the expanding world of personal action thrusting machines, one well-established brand has grown heads and dildos above the rest. And that brand is Motorbunny. Caleb Thompson, who founded the company in 2013, realized there was a need for a product to bring pleasure to his wife while he spent many nights on the road while being employed in a completely different industry. “My background is working in corporate technology, specifically in the banking software field, where I ran a consulting practice for 17 years,” Caleb said. “I traveled and lived all over the world, working with different clients, and constantly building out my consulting practice.” He continued, “My wife and I were living in London, and I was on the road non-stop, and eventually realized our intimate life began suffering for my continued absence because of my job.” Caleb began searching for a product that could pleasure his wife when he wasn’t around. “I was often contemplating why there wasn’t a decent machine, so I set out to find the absolute best one and wasn’t overwhelmed with what I saw. It became a kind of obsession with me, thinking ‘What is going on here? I’m willing to spend money to make a purchase for my relationship and sex life, and why can’t I find something that is awesome?’ "Meanwhile, my brother-in-law [Brooks Butler], who’s a successful serial entrepreneur who’s done everything you can imagine, talked about working on something together. We were thinking medical device company or a couple of different tech platform types of things.” His journey began similarly to many unique products that are invented in the pleasure products industry. The idea for MotorBunny began percolating over a night of drinks with Brooks, when they started sketching ideas for a ride-on, thrusting machine. Their concept kept evolving for about a year as they worked on the design, evaluating the market for a product similar to theirs, and how theirs could be better. Finding a manufacturing partner and building the prototype took two years, 2014-15, and then moving onto the first batch run was “super expensive and super scary! It was our money going into it!” Caleb chuckled. “When we first started selling them directly to consumers in February 2016, I was on the road with my consulting job and as I watched the first few sales come in, I knew it would work," he said.  Caleb and Brooks had found an item that people needed, wanted and best of all, were happy to spend their money on, yet both he and his brother-in-law were still working their full-time jobs. But with sales proving their concept was a financial success and the consumer demand was there, Caleb left his job at the end of 2016 to dedicate his time and energies to expanding the MotorBunny enterprise. Based in Alabama, Caleb shared his thoughts on what makes this industry so different compared to his “suits job” in the corporate world. “This is such a unique business and industry and has all these challenges, while society builds these high walls around the topic of sexuality," he said. "As many of us have faced, it was hard to get into and, of course, we were turned down around legal issues and banking, but those high walls that have been created have also protected and isolated us from the bad progress, such as what has happened in the banking industry.” Reflecting on his previous career in tech, Thompson expounded, “In general, there is no institutional money in this biz, no private owners, no boards, or shareholders, and people can do things they are passionate about. The suits haven’t taken over! We still have companies that are based on people with wholesome motivations and intentions.” MotorBunny offers two styles: the original ride-on model, and in 2018, the company added the MotorBunny Buck, which has slowly been outpacing sales of the original.  The Buck offers more versatility than the first and functions furiously while on its side. “I’m sure it will outsell the original soon,” Caleb said. “We’ve also partnered with Bad Dragon, who created their top fantasy dildos to be compatible with the MotorBunny, and those special dildos have been great sellers. We also have a dual density, silicone, realistic dildo, the MB Real.” He added, “We’ve been partnered with Doc Johnson for quite some time, using their Vac-U-Lock adapter which fits dozens of their toys. Customers ask for different shapes, sizes, colors, diversity in the attachments, and we’re always responding to their requests.” MotorBunny also hosted a web series, "Do It On A Bunny," which were SFW videos of people riding a MotorBunny while completing mundane tasks, such as reading a book. The videos, posted on their YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers, was active until YouTube decided the series didn’t fit their guidelines. Caleb announced, “We’ll be re-releasing them on our own website to get them back out there. We’ll have them on our own website and release the videos through our social media accounts and newsletter.” When it comes to personal pleasure, Caleb shared that his ultimate passion, besides family and friends, is anything that has to do with water. “Boating, snorkeling, free diving, which I learned last year, swimming, you name it. In fact, I even have a 16’ Dinghy, which in this business, can mean anything!" he joked. "But it’s about one of my boats I especially love.” On the land, he is passionate about music and is in a community chamber choir. “Music is another thing that brings me joy when I have time for that.” Here's to spreading the joy of music, water, and especially the MotorBunny! MotorBunny is on FetLife, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok MotorBunny_official.