Skullcandy CEO, Rick Alden, Invents Strapless Snowboard Binding
Rick Alden, the founder and CEO of Skullcandy, shares his entrepreneurial starts when he launched the Snowboarding Jam Event Series back when he knew everyone with a snowboard on a first name basis. While having to replace defective binding straps, Alden had the inspiration to invent a “strapless” snowboard binding. Alden shows off his first prototypes and tells about his first ride without straps. Later he sold the company to Ride Snowboards for 50 percent cash and 50 percent stock.
This presentation is a keynote from the 2007 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Salt Lake City where Alden shared his passion for starting and building businesses. Also watch a second recording where Alden talks about the genesis and brand creation at his latest company, Skullcandy.
Skullcandy: The Genesis and Brand
If anyone knows his target customer, Rick Alden does. With seven years of promoting snowboarding events and the invention, launch and sale of a snowboard binding — and company, Alden has “hung out” with extreme sport athletes for 20 years. Now he’s built the successful Skullcandy brand with audio and cell phone accessories.
Alden shares the genesis of Skullcandy, the products and the importance of brand.
This presentation is a keynote from the 2007 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Salt Lake City where Alden shared his passion for starting and building businesses. Also watch a second recording where Alden talks about his inventing the first strapless snowboard binding and sold the product to Ride Snowboards.
Great Time at SlopeCast with Robert Scoble
Great day today at the SlopeCast with Robert Scoble, the Scobleizer. Robert gave a good preso on Living in a Google world. It was cool to see how he starts his day and determines where the hot news is coming from. He also discussed how Social Media and blogs are changing the way customers interact with their customers and prospects. Today the social media network provides a huge number of brand impressions (good or bad) for a company.
Robert reinforced how important it is to “listen” to the community. He suggested subscribing to a Google Alert for your company or product and add “blog” to the search so information comes to you and you see what people are saying. Google’s new Blog search (focused search inside the blogosphere), Technorati, and Digg were highlighted.
RSS and RSS News Readers like Google Reader were highlighted as a way to get focused information in a simple view (also with ability to post to your blog). More importantaly, Robert talked about how RSS feeds can provide a stream of content to your customers or interested parties. Services like Feedburner offer distribution, tracking, and reporting services and help you get started quickly.
Great turn out, especially considering commuting this morning was a real pain with a big snow fall from 6:00 – 9:00 AM.
Cafe Trio food was great too.
Thanks Robert!
Special thanks to two sponsors who provided cool give-aways.
Rick Alden and Jay Dutton from Skullcandy offered three groovy pairs of headphones with their iLink technology and camo print. Congrats to Jay Burke from Solitude Mtn Resort and Barbara Dorris from Trustworks.
Phillip Chipping and Robert Pedersen from ShieldZone offered two InvisibleShields to product a favorite gadget without adding the bulk and UGLY factor. Congrats to Alex Koritz from Sprout Marketing and Russ Wilding from Footnote.com.
Skullcandy Links Cell Calls and Music
Rick Alden, CEO and founder of Skullcandy, created a lifestlye technology brand that integrates cell phone and audio switching so the active lifestyle can easily switch from tunes to voice calls. The patented Skullcandy Link(TM) is available in Skullcandy-branded products and is also integrated into Giro helmets, Camelback packs, Burton headwear, Sessions snowboard clothing, and more. Rick’s 15 years of snowboard event and protour planning allowed him to understand the psychographics of the Skullcandy target customer and create an authentic alternative and lifestyle brand. Alden discusses how the company name was created out of a need for a memorable web domain.
Skullcandy hosted Supernatural as a booth attraction at CES. Supernatural holds the world’s record for the longest a freestyle rap at over nine hours. Check out the video of Supernatural working the CES crowd and CEO Alden rocking with the crowd.
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