As a student at Dartmouth College, Bob Mighell and his roommate were hardcore skiers in the mountains of New Hampshire. After completing his graduate degree in engineering in the mid 1980s, Bob and his engineering student buddy were introduced to the emerging sport of snowboarding but they was underwhelmed with the quality of the snowboards at the time which couldn’t handle the hard pack conditions on the east coast.
Bob and his friend decided to design a snowboard along the lines of ski with sidecut, steel edges and bindings. The called the company Edge Snowboards. It didn’t take off as Bob believes he was too early in the market but he learned valuable lessons about starting a business from scratch. He went to incredibly diverse career of entrepreneurial ventures but got his start in the snow sports industry.
Bob now serves as the entrepreneur in residence at the University of Oregon and he recently sat down for wide ranging interview that is well worth the watch if you’re interested in starting a business of your own.
“The first business I started back in the mid 80’s involved making snowboards and was called Edge Snowboards. These prototypes show the rapid evolution of design that we were working on at a time when most ski areas wouldn’t even let snowboards on the hill.
Our big idea was to put steel edges on snowboards like used on skis at a time when all of the other snowboards had skegs like on a surfboard. You can see the skegs on the first board on the left at the bottom. The board on the far right built over 35 years ago is remarkably close to the shape and size of boards currently on the market. It also has parts of a releasable binding I was working on that still doesn’t exist in the market.
I also love that these boards are a perfect example of the “Move Fast and Break Things” business model I love. In fact, the board on the left is completely cracked right down the middle!”
images from bob mighell linkedin