A $99.99 Surfboard Upends the Industry
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
As Signal have shown, you can make a snowboard out of just about anything once you have the machinery (which is where the high initial investment happens i suppose): http://signalsnowboards.com/shows/ett/season-1
This area is not ripe for disruption, new shred stick shapers pop up all the time and there is gear for every price range.
(Also the price floor is higher than surfing because if your gear breaks mid-mountain you can easily die.)
Should they cost _that_ much more? I don't know.
You can find bare boards for $75-$100, and bindings and boots for around $50.
So yes, to some extent it's already happening in the snow industry. I doubt it is going to get too much cheaper than it is now.
Ski shapes were evolving rapidly but have started to stabilize a bit so maybe we'll see costs go down but we're also seeing a push into lighter weight materials (and for the boots and bindings more mechanically complex designs) as backcountry touring gear is the area seeing the most consistent sales growth of late.
I guess the board rental part of the market currently takes the place of a low cost gear for beginners alternative, and if you're only spending a few days a year on the slopes you might not even be bothered about buying your own gear.
Other savings i made last year was by following the local ski club around, giving huge discounts on race days.
Of course, the tourists get charged quite a bit more...
Data? From the article, the number of surfers is growing at 1.7% annually, yet this company now sells 5 times more boards than anyone else. The majority of those sales were taken from other companies.
If this isn't a disruption story than I don't know what is.
once you're beyond the beginner stage, outside of small wave or 'fun' sessions, a wavestorm is the last thing you're going to want to surf. a 'hard' surfboard (fiberglass w/ epoxy or poly resin) is pretty much mandatory. the lowest cost 'hard' surfboards are 'pop-outs', made in overseas factories (think ~$300 for a shortboard). these are generally frowned upon by surfers. what surfers really want, and usually buy multiples of, are hand shaped 'hard' boards from local shapers or a couple bigger name brands that still mass produce surfboards, but at a higher price and quality point than the overseas pop-outs ($400-$1000+ depending on size, shaper, color, etc). wave storm is killing it, and definitely disrupted the soft top beginner market. selling through costco with their return policy was probably a very large part of their success too. though, there definitely still is a very large market for performance surfboards in the ~$500 and up range.
This particularly matters in surfing, where a crowded wave is frustrating and dangerous. It's annoying when some dumb dickhead who doesn't know what he's doing (and doesn't care to learn) ruins a wave and endangers your life.
Buying a board hand-shaped by a local shaper indicates a knowledge of the community and a commitment to its values. Shapers are generally making boards because they are obsessed with surfing their local breaks and have spent years or decades honing their craft. They live for surfing and their surf community. They do not, as a rule, get rich.
One easy way to spot poseurs is by the board they ride.
Beyond the cultural reasons, hand-shaped boards by long-time shapers tend to be:
- better made
- more interesting
- more beautiful
- particularly suited to the breaks that shaper surfs (and where their customers surf)
- most importantly, support the people most committed to the sport and its values
They're making boards for the love of surfing, not for a profit motive.
But mostly it's so people know you're not a poseur.
If you're a kook with a $100 soft top the others will work together to keep you at the back of the lineup. Whether it's a matter of safety or subculture is besides the point, dedicated surfers don't want you around.
Surfers have no inclination to promote surfing unless they have some kind of sponsorship. Promotion is a corporate venture that has nothing to do with surfing and everything to do with making money. Mo money, mo problems.
The serious risks in surfing are relatively low provided you're at a sandy bottom beach break with waves under 5ft. No one is taking these soft-top boards to the Pipeline and endangering lives, they're mostly just showing up at mellow low-risk breaks.
Yeah it's annoying when someone bumps into you, and yeah you might get a bruise in the worst case scenario, but no one is dying or drowning in 3ft waves because of too many surfers.
haha, you pretty much hit the nail on the head here. surfing is really bizarre. when you start out, the guys who are better and probably have more expensive boards are the dick heads in your mind. when you get better, you slowly become one of the dickheads, and of course, you're not a dickhead, so the other guys who you once were become the dickheads in your mind.
i personally try to keep it at a balance... i'll help new ppl out, won't freak out on anyone in the water, tell a new surfer to go if they're in better position, etc. that said, i will burn you (snake you or back paddle) if you've missed a couple takes offs and we're going for the same wave as long as it's not a critical take off or anything like that.. i know, i know, shitty thing to do. though, i don't discriminate based on board type in these situations. i don't care if you're on a foam board, pop-out, or custom shape. i'm just kind of a greedy asshole like most dickhead surfers from the perspective of beginner surfers.
so i guess to answer your question, it is about making sure nobody dies, but is less about cheapening the subculture and more about serious surfers getting serious with their equipment. people do go gear head with surfboards, and that can be used by some people to show perceived hierarchy in the surf ecosystem, but like the other guy said, most people surf handmade boards because they are of higher quality and you work with the shaper to come up with a shape that works for you - your style of surfing, how you want to board to surf, the waves you will surf the board in, your weight, your height, design or artwork, etc. there's really nothing better than picking up a custom stick from a guy who you know made it by hand for you, and often, you can get a custom board from a shaper for roughly the same if not less than the heavily marketed big name brand but still not total pop-out companies (the ~$500 high performance boards i mentioned earlier).
Surfing regularly is a terrible hobby. Time-consuming, expensive, cold (depending on location). Wetsuits are annoying. Waves are crowded. People are jerks. People are dangerous. The ocean is dangerous. Injuries are fairly common.
In a two-hour session that starts just before first light (waking up at 4:30am in summer) I maybe get 5-10 decent waves to myself that last a minute, maybe two.
The fact that people still do it tells you just how amazing it feels to ride a wave.
I guess my point is there really is not a problem to be solved by making a cheaper board (other then the economic/business reasons obv). The simple fact of the matter is very few regular surfers will own these boards, and mostly kooks will buy them. However, that is not to say either set of skill levels of surfers, and which boards they own, are mutually exclusive.
It's not that they're made overseas -- it's that the basic method of manufacture he mentioned, "pop-out", in the industry implies using a plastic shell and then pumping foam into it, and a few other similar methods of manufacture.
For shortboards, it's pretty terrible. The boards are very heavy for a surfboard, with poor rigidity and flex, and in fact they don't even attempt to target the "real shortboard" market, where extreme light weight, stiffness and a very delicately balanced flex work together to form something that lets you nimbly glide along a decent-sized wave on a board slightly shorter than you are.
Basically, the best form of manufacture for surfboards is a core of either high-quality rigid foam (not the heavy, flexible foam used in wavestorm/some pop-outs) or air, covered in substances like fiberglass and/or carbon-fiber fabric and minimal amounts of epoxies (sometimes using the same vacuum techniques as other carbon-fiber manufacturing to minimize weight). I said 'foam or air' because for a while people have been predicting that we'd move to hollow carbon-fiber boards, and there are/have been some of those boards, but they have their drawbacks and are often expensive.
Can performance surfboards be disrupted? It's already happened, to a certain extent. Channel Islands and other surfboard brands use automated milling of the foam blanks, and other automated processes as well.
Too, any overseas contenders have to worry about shipping. Surfboards are huge -- you could fit 20 boxed iphones in the footprint of a single boxed shortboard. At the price points mentioned ($300-$500), overseas shipping would probably eat into your margin. Shipping is even an issue for domestic producers; often shipping a board halfway across the country can cost $50-$100. Which is a nice bit of extra margin for a local shaper and his customers.
When will good surfboards get cheap? Probably when great carbon-fiber bikes get cheap, ie, when carbon-fiber manufacture is so well mastered by man that designs in any shape can be pumped out like Lego.
What about mid-level(those you graduate after wavestorm) - being manufactured in mexico via automated processes , using wavestorm like brand for cheap marketing , and being sold in costco ?
Surfers making a conscientious effort to improve their performance -- bigger waves, steeper drops -- are going to break or otherwise 'use up' at least one board per good season. Given that, a lot of people would rather buy a used CI board that has had a small repair, or some minor dimpling, for $200-350, and then surf as hard as they can, and if it breaks it breaks.
... okay, that's just what I do. But Craigslist has made the used market a force to be reckoned with!
The one thing that I am not sure anyone has brought up, is this is a relatively small market. You are talking about big box stores, along the coasts of tourist rich surfing areas.
I'm not saying they're bad - they are great for beginners, but the market for custom boards isn't really going to get hurt all that much by these.
Are you talking about sponge boards in general, or Wavestorm boards specifically? Not like anyone's going to win the Eddie on a Wavestorm, but they're WAY better than previous sponge boards.
> the market for custom boards isn't really going to get hurt all that much by these
Agree 100%
I agree. And let me say, I know nothing about surfing, and am basing my discussion on this one article.
I think it's inevitable that the lower barrier to entry will allow the sport to grow, and be good for the "high-end" in the long-run. That's good. But in the meantime, this sort of breakthrough puts pressure on the existing system. I have to assume that shops used to sell more $300 boards than $1000 boards. Now they might be selling zero $300 boards, which have been replaced by the Costco special. So, small shops close. Low-volume producers go out of business. That's exactly what technological disruption is.
I say this because my local mom and pop surfshop on the beach doesn't even offer in-stock brand-new surfboards. You can however custom order from a local shaper through them. They focus heavily on surf apparel and used surfboards.
Here is a real data point, the best-selling waveform 8' board is considered a "long" board. Easy to catch waves and ride them into shore but hard to turn and do tricks on.
Most surfing literature and culture focuses on riding "short" boards (5'-7'). This is the type of surfing done on the professional circuit and shown in lots of magazines videos etc.
I'm not a surfer but I've been a whitewater kayaker for decades. Many people who buy a new whitewater kayak + gear do not go on to become life-long paddlers. And we're talking about $1,500 worth of gear, easy.
Without knowing the underlying numbers, sure. It's possible.
But the bigger point is that these small surf shops that sell both mid-priced soft-top and expensive hard-top boards are no longer selling the soft-tops, because an equivalent board can be had for $99, exclusively from Costco. That has to put pressure on the industry, and the supply of higher end boards.
This site seems to have some decent notes: http://www.thesurfingsite.com/Surf-Spots-Southern-California...
One thought - if you are a beginner or just starting out, don't paddle in with where the crowds are if you can help it. Find a spot a bit away that has waves suitable for the type of surfing you are trying (long board, short board). A long board will let you catch smaller (even junkier) waves easier.
Rule 1, don't get in the way.
I started at Sunset, just up from Santa Monica. With an experienced buddy. Good times.
Fly fishing has similar cheap gear at box stores, yet still has a healthy eco-system of specialty shops.
Oh and I lost 32lbs (mostly fat) in the process. Best $99 I spent this year.
Just curious!
Congrats on the weight loss!
Best advice ironically is to buy one of these $99 boards and try it out. Watch other people. Check out beginner videos on YouTube (I know do exercise routines for surfers from there).
Ah, and super important, is to find a beach that fits your level of expertise. Go online and look surf reports of beaches around you. For a board like the Wavestorm (that floats a lot and is easy to paddle in) in a beginner setting, you should look at waves around 1 to 3 ft for the first months. It will just be fun to fall (and don't be discouraged if you don't catch anything the first three or four days you try).
I go at least once a week now (sometimes three, but I have reduced that a bit since shark season started).
Have fun!
I would definitely suggest taking a couple lessons to get started. There are some non-obvious things that someone explaining will help you not get frustrated. I promise you, the first time you ride of the face of a wave you will be hooked.
The higher-level the marketing, the more expensive a component.
Put into perspective, Have you ever been to a grocery store and seen store-brand cereal at a fraction of the cost? They're often (but not always) just as good as their name-brand counterparts, but the cost discrepancy, more than anything, is the marketing budget.
compare this to snowboarding. your first time on a mountain, you will absolutely "snowboard". there's a lift that carries you directly to the top of the mountain.
surfing is like going skiing or snowboarding without a lift. you'd have to hike up a mountain every time you wanted to ski. think of how many people would end up being proficient.
that is why this $99 surfboard has really taken off. there may be 2.7 million surfers as the article states (which i find highly doubtful--this is way too high a number), but there are many more times that inland people that try surfing on their holiday and then never go again.
I'm a snowboard instructor, and I surf.
To expand on your explanation, the other main difference is that when you fall over skiiing or snowbarding, you can settle yourself for 10 seconds, then stand right back up again and get more quality practice time. "Falling" down the mountain for your first time might take 30 minutes, of which 25 minutes is good practice time standing up.
So you get a high ratio of "stand up practice time" to "time invested learning", which means you can pick it up in a short about of elapsed time.
In contrast, when you fall over surfing, you're at square one again and have to spend all the time and energy getting back out to the waves. In your first 30 minute session, it's likely you'll only spend a maximum of a minute or two on your feet practicing.
This makes the ratio very low, so you have to spend tons of elapsed time to learn.
The same applies to wake boarding (wait for the boat to come get you), kite surfing (untangle the kite) and a few others.
I often think about the fact that I might spend 2.5 hours in the water, but my total standing time might only be 5min total. And that's on a good day!
Heres the math: ~3.5min paddle out, ~10min waiting for my wave (more time if it's crowded), ~30 seconds setting up and paddling to catch the wave, 30sec wave ride time (assuming a good wave). Rinse and repeat from step 1. Roughly about 15min per 30 second wave (assuming again, a good day). Or about 2min of riding per hour.
Of course there are lots of variables here and lots of ways to be more efficient with time/energy, but I think the gist of it is there.
I assume you've never lived in Southern California? You'd be astounded at the number of casual surfers (by that, I mean someone who surfs at least once a month) who own surfboards. And that's just one high concentration surf area.
That's a really good point, I always forget about the safety aspect. There's nothing like getting slammed in the back of the head by a 9'6" fiberglass school bus.
I never gave it much thought, so it's very cool to learn the business story behind it.
http://reviews.costco.com/2070/100114919/keeper-sports-produ...
$179 shipped. Shipping is almost same price as the board. http://www.costco.com/surfboards.html
It's also not really disruption because Wave Storms are considered entry level boards that if anything drives demands for more expensive boards once someone actually makes it a hobby.
When I read the article I was hoping for a stylish mass produced fiberglass board. Now that would truly disrupt the market.
The only problem is profit margins from the companies that actually are able mass produce boards.
(In Europe) You can today pay 800 Euro for a chinese-made electric bike that sorta works, or 2000 Euro for something built in Germany that really works (with a drive engine made by Bosch taking most of that profit margin).
I'm pretty sure the difference in price isn't down to the cost of the raw materials, but rather the know-how. This know-how will become common knowledge soon...
It's a 75+ year old idea called called Creative Destruction.