KOTA Longboards Leads Longboarding Industry + Q&A With Founder

 

When Mike Maloney saw a longboard skateboard in a local bike shop several years ago he was instantly intrigued but saw several things he would do differently on the design end. As an engineer, it was a natural instinct. And perfect timing as he had just lost his job as CEO of an energy company. “I quickly realized that the economy was in such bad shape for traditional jobs, my only real choice was to start a company and I began to research the longboard market,” says Maloney, who is founder and CEO of Denver based KOTA Longboards. “I came to believe that longboarding was well positioned to explode into the mainstream action sports market – given the right product.” With that, Maloney was making longboards in his driveway . “And voila, KOTA rapidly emerged from that,” he smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more photos from KOTA Longboard before we hop into the Q&A Head Here 

Q: Tell us a little about your professional background.

I began my career in the military as an F14 fighter pilot, was a graduate of the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) and participated in tours in Iraq and Somalia. I also am an engineer and later in my career I became CEO of an energy company.

In reality, that company was very similar to KOTA in terms of being a rough and tumble start up.  It gave me great experience in running a fast paced, early stage start up.  KOTA is the first company that I’ve started on my own nickel – which is infinitely more terrifying!

 

Q: What is the biggest challenge of running the business? And biggest reward?

Running a start up is like hand to hand combat on a daily basis between my intellect and my instinct.  From 1 AM to 5 AM every night, all my intellect will do is calculate down to the minute when we run out of capital (I can predict our costs but I can’t predict our revenue.) But then I walk into our factory showroom and think, “We’ve built all of this in barely 2 years.  Now what would make me think that tomorrow we’ll slow down or derail this company?”  That’s when your faith kicks in and you realize that you’ll never know where your next sale is going to come from, you just trust that it will.  It’s a very entrepreneurial conflict between head and heart.

So in terms of challenges, trusting your instinct, avoid making the big, devastating decision and trying on a daily basis to make your good decisions far outnumber your bad decisions.  That’s about all you can do.  Move fast, affect the outcome and execute.

The biggest reward is knowing that you built this.  Your whacky idea of making longboards in your garage is now a real company, brand and product that add value to people’s lives.

Q: What makes you all different than others in this category?

Three things really stand out in my mind with the overarching theme that our buyer/rider is broadly between 35 and 60 – or even older.  The heart of our ridership is age 40-50.

First, the artistry of our boards.  We developed a truly clear, gloss grip finish, we call it KOTAgrip, that is unique in the marketplace.  That allows us to eliminate the need for grip tape and, thus, move the primary art surface to the top of the board.  This gives the buyer/rider much higher value as this piece of their athletic gear is now an expression of their personal style.

Second, the performance we engineer into our boards in terms of the camber/concave combination.  This allows the rider to be in control of the board and control their speed by carving and traversing much like a downhill ski.  The turning performance enables the rider to turn rapidly enough to maintain a comfortable speed.  It’s a very agile, fluid and athletic motion (and low impact).

Third, our brand.  The KOTA name and brand stands for Knights of the Air, a group of early air force pilots who flew planes into combat. They embodied a code of Honor, Integrity, Courage and Esprit de Corps that exemplifies every aspect of our operations, production and product line.  It really resonates with our clientele.

Also, Being a United States military veteran I knew I wanted to develop KOTA in a way that could give back to the veteran and active duty military community. Therefore, KOTA has strong ties to the military and designs custom boards for military units and gives discounts to members of the military and is active in charitable donations to military and veteran non-profits.

Q: What is something readers would be surprised to know about you or your business?

I think the most surprising is the demographic that buys and rides our boards.  We reach an age demographic of 35 – 60 which is split between male and female.  We recently did a polling of our clients and something like 60 or 70% said they didn’t ride until they bought our product.  That tells me that we’re successfully influencing people to add longboarding – with our product – into their action and adventure sports regimen.

Q: What do you like best about your line of work?

Seeing that you’re providing a brand, product line, activity – and even workplace – that adds value to people’s lives.  We focus a lot on value.  I’m always saying, “Money follows value, value never follows money.”  What I mean by that is that if we focus on bringing value to the marketplace in everything we do under the KOTA brand, wealth will follow as a result of that effort.

Q: What has surprised you most about owning a business?

How quickly the marketplace has responded to our brand.  It’s quiet apparent that we have struck a chord with the action sports participant.  They understand the essence of our brand and want to be a part of it.  That’s incredibly satisfying and bolsters us in the darkest, most stressful days.

In terms of the entrepreneurial start up – it’s the stress.  As a combat Navy pilot I was trained to handle stress – and develop a high tolerance for pain.  However, even that training is barely adequate to deal with the stress of a true entrepreneurial start up.

Q: If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow where would it be and why.

Today Hawaii.  Tomorrow, Paris.  We’ve been lucky enough to travel the world during more stable times in my career.  We’ve spent a great deal of time in Europe and the Alps in particular.  We still have many wonderful friends whom we interact with all to rarely these days.

Q: If you could give a shout out to one person who has helped grow your business or an employee who has gone above and beyond who would that be?

The veteran.  While this represents many people, the veteran community has really embraced KOTA, promoted us, bought our product and provided undying encouragement and support.  This is a very strong and loyal family – at KOTA we are truly honored and humbled by the way veteran’s have taken us under their wing.  That also includes the law enforcement community – our men and women in blue that walk that thin blue line every day.

Q: What do you most love about Colorado?

To me Colorado has always been a place of rugged individualism, freedom and openness.  I’m a mountain guy more than a beach guy.  Something about the rugged beauty, the challenge of living in this environment and the character of the people that embrace that way of life is what makes this place special.