#95 From Ski Design to Bio-Based Innovation: Matt's Journey with Forefront, Checkerspot, and Wnder Alpine

Latest episode of the Be Better podcast. As ever, thank you to our regular listeners, both of you. I don't know, hopefully there's more than two of you. I do keep meeting people who say that they've listened to the podcast. If you're just being nice and saying that, I appreciate it. But if you have genuinely listened, that'd be super cool as ever. If you like our content, I mean, it's refreshing. I listen to some pretty big podcasts and even they are begging for likes and reviews. So I don't feel bad with me with my little podcast begging you all as my listeners for a like and review. If you could find your way to do that, that would be much appreciated. Anyway, without further ado, we will get our guest into the mix. So with Meat today, I, I have Matt Sturbin from, well, from two companies. He's being, he's being very cheeky. He's got two businesses that he's sort of representing. So check a spot and wonder. Alpine. So Matt, as I will, as we would say in New Zealand, K. I'm also part Welsh, so I always like to go with a Shamai. So there you go, you've learned some Welsh today. That's hello in Welsh. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Right on. Thanks for having me, Tim. Stoked to be here.

No worries, man. Right on. Is. That's the, that's the local lingo from Salt Lake City?

I guess so. Yeah. Yeah, we're heistic.

Yeah, man. I do, I do like America. I was saying to, to Matt just before we, we went to the States in January for a holiday. I just, I do just like the general positivity and the go gettedness of your average American. Sometimes New Zealand can be a little bit like, oh, you know, calm down, let's not think so big. You know, let's not get ahead of you. Let's not get in front of these skis. Whereas, yeah, I just like you like your vibe in the States. But anyway, so for people that have not heard of you, Matt, or the, the companies that you're representing, just tell us a little bit, a bit about who you are. What do you get up to?

Sure. Appreciate that. So.

Yeah, I guess if I were to be sitting in the middle seat.

I would, I would, I would represent myself as a skier, as a lifetime skier and kind of a peculiar background in becoming one. Growing up in the plains in the States, the Midwest as we call it. It's, it's kind of dead center in the continent where, you know, we don't have A whole lot of topography. So a little bit of skiing we have is equivalent to like, you know, just a beginner slope in the mountains, but cold enough that it would hold snow for several months a year. And I think it was just the right mix between team sports and being able to do my own thing and express myself in a way that was still athletic. That got me just hooked at a young age and I allowed it to completely own me. Moved out west. First, first destination was Truckee, California. Beautiful north Lake Tahoe and skiing what is now known as Palisades Tahoe as my home hill. And that just totally, you know, blew me away with it, access to terrain and the lifestyle. But it also brought me pretty square to like the fact that it's a very privileged sport and you know, you can work parking cars in the parking lot for so long, but you can't really build a lifestyle. That I was seeking off of that. And I pursued professional skiing and was fortunate to, you know, find skiing at a point in time, kind of an inflection point, if you will, where it was to. Desperate for a new identity, Snowboarding had kind of grabbed a hold of youth participation in the 90s and for good reason. Skiing was very rigid, very competitive, very speed focused, and snowboarding was everything but that. And so most of my peers obviously drifted away from skiing in favor of snowboarding. But I felt like, you know, even only being a teenager, I had a lot of time invested. So I stayed with it and caught on this new wave of, of free skiing that was emerging luckily out of the western states and, and into Canada at the time.

I had a decent freestyle skiing background, conventional freestyle mobile skiing from my Midwest roots to kind of lean into. And I was fairly, I was fairly fearless, I would say, willing to try new things. And this predates airbags and you know, water ramps and all that for the most part. So it was kind of a school of hard knocks, kind of hope for the best on a few, few maneuvers. But eventually kind of found my, found my, my, my footing in skiing and was able to take to the world as a slope style park skier.

And yeah, was able to start to create a career out of that. I, I got an opportunity to design skis for Fischer, an Austrian ski brand that I was lucky enough to get connected with early on in my career as a sponsor and brought to market one of their first true kind of park oriented skis. And then as I obviously wanted to continue to pursue ski design.

It was beyond their, their aspirations at the time as a freeride brand. So I started my own brand, and this is around 2002 now. So we're getting into sport, having a little bit of foundation. We're in the X Games, we're being recognized as a peer to snowboarding. And so I thought, you know, we should have a brand that, that holds this thing together. And so I started a ski brand called Forefront. And the whole goal there was just to try to bring a platform to pro skiers and to not be at the.

At the disposal of ski engineers, but rather make the athletes the engineers and surround them with smart people who can, you know, create geometries out of their narratives, the needs that they had athletically. And that was certainly my case, and I saw that in many of my competitive peers at the time. And so Forefront was a rider owned, you know, rider inspired brand that brought a bunch of, like, signature shapes to the market and really cemented the movement of free skiing and forced all those speed brands that are, you know, at the time, nearly a century old to pay attention to what was going on. It was undeniable movement. And while they all became, you know, a little late to the party, they all eventually came. And I think it's largely because we banded together as athletes to show the world that, like, this is the new, the new identity of skiing. And, yeah, I just got the bug, you know, with the business. I was fortunate to go to college straight outta high school, prior to moving out to California. And it gave me a little bit of confidence, academically speaking, as to what I'd be up against to start a business. And we got it off the ground with a fair bit of piss and vinegar and a little bit of startup capital, a hell of a lot of elbow grease. And for about 17 years, I ran that baby and we kicked ass. It was awesome. We won the Olympics. First ever men's half pipe in Sochi. We won that on skis we built right here in Salt Lake. We, we won the X Games, we won the DO tour, we took podium at every Red Bull event they could throw at it. And we felt very, you know, rewarded for effort and.

Kind of moving into the, the present focus for me was, you know, we had accomplished, you know, challenging the norm of, of what the identity of modern day skiing was. And one thing we always struggled with, now that all the brands have come over and saw and have seen the light as we did, was how to differentiate ourselves as a brand. You know, if. If you want to design a pair of skis or snowboard, it's an open. It's an open Book test. You just need to pay attention to what's on the market. Go ski some skis, figure out your geometries and, and build it. How can you build a ski that's, that's world class but made out of something different? And that was always a big challenge, especially as a small brand, you know, how do you, how do you differentiate yourself, you know, when you're an underdog, you know, in a marketplace that's just dominated by, you know, these goliaths. And.

That'S where I saw the new opportunity was to introduce unique materials and work within a resource that gave me access to bio based technologies and eventually leading to opportunities to connect, you know, with you Tim, on B Corp and how that has paved a way for us to do this because we didn't have a point of view around betterment for people and planet in our previous business initiative. We were just trying to stick it to the industry, show the world that like no, there's a much more rad way to do this.

And we proved it and now it was like can we do it? And also lean out some of the carbon intensity and how we're doing it and allow those process updates, those unique material integrations to help differentiate who we are today and continue to build world class skis and have all time experiences in the mountains. So yeah, psyched to be here. Quick update on my background but hopefully that helps ground the audience a little bit on who they listen to.

No, that's super cool. So, so forefront the first brand. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't. Do you, do you know much about the backstory to, to how B Corp even came about with the co founders from and one becoming the co founders of B Corp. Is that if you.

Connected to that story? No, no.

So the guys who founded the B Corp movement, J Co and Gilbert, Andrew Cassoy and Bart Houlihan, they were three of the co founding team of Ann. One the basketball Grant and almost very similar vibe in that, you know, and one was this like we're just going to come and get you Nike. We want to be cooler, we want to be fresher, we want to connect with this younger demographic but at the same time they went on a bit of a journey to go, hey, actually maybe we should be looking at our supply chain. Maybe you know, they were based in Philadelphia. Hey, you know, there are some pretty poor kids in and around where we're based. What if we could help them get off the path to the justice system and get them into something more meaningful, you know and they were really looking after their employees and, and all of the good that they were doing in AND one when they, when they eventually sold and one and basically sold to the two to Wall street and had to strip out all that goodness, they said, look, why don't we start a new business but this time we'll bake all that stuff in. And then they thought, well no, why don't we go bigger? Why don't we create a movement of businesses that bake all this stuff in? So I think it's interesting there's very similar parallels between a bunch of dudes kind of like, yes, sticking it to the, to the big brand. But as part of that journey they go, oh, hang on a minute. Part of the differentiation is not just the brand and the vibe, it's actually what sits underneath that. So.

That'S super cool. It's quite common. Like the more we, we interview people particularly I think that there's a real correlation between disruptive brands and B Corp. Because B Corp is, it as a concept is disruptive. So I don't, I guess I'm not shocked that there is this quite common overlap between disruptive brands, disruptive mindset and people who find B Corp. Because whole thing is disruptive itself.

Absolutely.

For people that aren't as avid skiers, maybe as, as you or myself, what is traditionally, what's a typical ski made of that would make you want to think that you would make it differently? Like what's bad about a normal pair of skis?

Sure.

Well, there's process that can be pretty.

Impactful on the planet. Because if you think about skis or snowboards, I may, I may talk about skis, but I mean, all due respect, I'm talking about both applications. Skiing or snowboarding, I see them as the same.

But if you think about a ski or snowboard, it's anything but uniform in dimension. Right. Like they're not, they're not all the same width from tip to tail, at least not the skis we're using. Maybe the skis on the wall at the chalet with the, you know, the leather bindings, maybe in the animal hide on the base. But you know, modern day skis, there's, there's quite a bit of shape, right. So we've got different dimensions. Tip, waist and tail, they all vary, you know, within a centimeter in different lengths, but they also like vary.

Minimally uniform in terms of thickness. Right. So we want thin tip and tail of our skis so they flex and they provide that kind of response and change in snow condition, but we want stiffness and underfoot, so the skis needs to be thicker. And so if you think about it, you're building this very unique kind of hourglass shaped product from an outline geometry and then it has kind of like a bell curve thickness, if you will, in terms of side profile. So there's a lot of uniform dimension material that goes to waste in building these non uniform dimension products. So we always look at it like maybe for every pair of skis you built, there's a third ski equal to in, in weight of waste. And that's pretty, that's like, that's something, right? That's not something just to blow past. And throughout, you know, my learning of how to build skis firsthand and just the wastefulness of the gloves and the chemical bot, not to mention all the excess laminated flashings that come with, you know, the process of, of building these unique geometry products. Like you get into a manufacturing setting and, and every factory I've been to is more or less a big steel building surrounded with dumpsters. And you know, you can be as diligent as, as possible, but you can't get away from the fact that these things are just not uniform. And there's no easy way to re knead the dough from a baker's point of view. You know, you're pulling uniform dimension rolls of material into cutting out all these different parts that go into skis and snowboards. So waste was, was definitely one of the biggest triggering things that I wanted to see how to solve or at least lessen the burden and, and find usefulness. And working with new materials that helped strip away some of the wastefulness and uniform material that we've been depending on for many years. And also like identifying a use case for the waste, you know, because it just falls outside the metal edge. What's inside the metal edge we pay upwards to $1,000 for, but outside the edge we, we pay, you know, the cost of a dumpster to haul away for us and so lessen the impact of landfill and open up the aperture around raw material integration. And so those are a couple of key components that inspired me to want to pursue, you know, a new brand after all those years with Forefront and to integrate maybe a little bit more clever point of view around how to, how to work with modern bio based technologies.

Yeah, it's, it's cool because yeah, when you, you know, when you sort of look at, I don't know, as a skier, when you look at skiing, you kind of go, it's not that Environmentally damaging. You know, I'm out in the mountains, I'm not really causing any harm. But then you go, well, hang on a minute, I've got to drive to the ski field. Typically you have to buy your skis. I mean, in New Zealand there's a, there's a handful of local ski bike, you know, ski manufacturers, but the, there's not that many. So you've got to import your skis, you've got to drive to the ski field. You then are relying on typically a generator powered contraption to get you up and down the hill. And then you kind of go, oh yeah, there's also that, that wax that you put on your skis. And your skis are made from plastic material. And then you put a synthetic.

Petrochemical based product on the bottom of those, which then basically is being stripped away on the snow and maybe the rocks, depending what time of season you're up there. And then, and then you're sitting in a building that's being plonked on top of a mountain which is just full of people leaving waste and food scraps and all the rest of it. So you kind of go, actually, yeah, it's not perhaps as environmentally friendly as you first think. And then, then you start thinking about the like, say, product selection. I mean, I'm representing my two pairs of skis here. You know, they, they're, they're all made from, yeah, a mixture, I guess, of carbon fibers and poly by petrochemical based products. But like I say, when you look back at the original skis, literally some wood and some leather. So it's interesting how we, in a lot of, in a lot of the world, we seem to be going full circle back from where we started originally. Let's just use naturally based products. Let's go through this arc of using chemicals and plastics and all these modern crazy things to suddenly. Hang on a minute. Is there a more natural solution here? Because, I mean, there's products like this, bamboo cores you can get in skis now and a bunch of other stuff that, you know, it seems to be, at least there seems to be more people thinking about this. But, but yeah. Thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think we all want to live a life well lived, you know, and we are going to create impact on the planet. We want to try to tread as light as possible. In doing so, I would argue that, like, the type of skiing that's available to us today because of the technologies we've been able to develop have really accentuated the experience.

You know, wooden skis and leather lace up bindings. I mean largely used for transportation for, you know, wintertime hunting and gathering. You know, it's kind of a different lifestyle than, than now. And yeah, there's nothing more sustainable than taking a piece of hickory and steam pressing a shovel on it and then lacing up some animal hide from some wild game that you, you know.

That you've been able to extract a bunch of nourishment from.

So I think what you're getting to is like there's a balance that we, there's a couple of things. There's sustain, there's sustainability. And how can we create things that are.

Both.

Designed with a more.

With.

A leader impact sustainability message and not sacrificing performance? You know, how can we maintain that high level of performance without incurring this heavy carbon tax with it? Like, that's definitely something one which we need to solve. But there's also the point of like the take make waste. You know, the consumer mindset right now, it doesn't really have a whole lot of.

Accountability to repurpose, recycle its consumption. There's, it's almost lawless and developing a mindset around like a more circular consumer behavior, you know, where what you consume has an end of life use and continue to benefit future product that comes to market to support the same or different activities with value. And so a shift of the take make waste consumer paradigm as well as like thinking about sustainability and performance as a metric and not one versus the other.

Totally. And I think that, you know, that's, that, that's the dial, the needle that's being moved in every industry. There's, there's just increasing awareness from all, you know, employees, customers, investors, supply chain partners that hey, hang on a minute. Actually, no, I think it's, all of this is very reflective of the inner journey that people are going on and need to go on more of. It's like when you actually just pause, reflect and self assess for a second and go, oh, hang on, are we the bad guys? Oh, hey, it turns out that we actually might be partly the bad guys here. Okay, well that's interesting to reflect on. And I think more people are having that moment to go, oh, hang on, maybe, maybe we are contributing to this. It does, it feels like we are just in a slightly more of an awakening phase as a species, particularly in the west, where it's mainly us that have been causing a lot of the damage environmentally and socially that we're, we're having this sort of like, okay, hang on a minute. And I think what you said is so true. Like you can have your cake and eat it. You don't have to lose performance or, or style for sustainability. And, and if anything, you can argue that you put the two together, you actually, you know, the sum of the parts are better than you, what you had before. So, yeah, it's, it's a really, really interesting time. So, so let's, let's get into this. So. Well, actually, before we get to this, what, what did you study at college? What was your major in?

I wanted to, I wanted to be a pro skier fairly convincingly since like I was probably 16 years old. So I studied marketing and just about double majored in fine art. I was super, I was super caught up in the urban lifestyle of Minneapolis and was really taken back by a lot of the local art. And I think I maybe inherited that from some, you know, family bloodlines. But I knew I wanted to be a brand in my own right to be able to accomplish what I sought to do in skiing. And so, yeah, business degree, I guess you could say.

Yeah. Smart. And when did you go to college?

Yeah, University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. So Minnesota is like northern Midwest and it's on the Mississippi river and it's. Minneapolis is a twin City to St. Paul, which is the capital city of the state of Minnesota. And it's, at the time it was one of the largest, you know, student bodies in the country for post secondary college education. And luckily I was growing up in Wisconsin at the time, so I was able to go to Minnesota State school for the same price as the most expensive in state Wisconsin school. So. Right. It wasn't a huge cost detriment to being able to spread my wing a little bit, but it was just enough to really get, you know, catch the bug of that city's unique culture and the art and the sports and everything around it. So it's actually a pretty hardcore ski community up there too. I mean, they get long winters and they got to keep themselves busy. So if you're not ice fishing, you're playing hockey or skiing for sure, which is just ran.

We went to the, the Grand Canyon in January and it was pretty cold. It was like minus nine Celsius, which I still can't remember what that was in Fahrenheit.

Yeah.

But there was a couple on the tour bus. We did like the sunset tour and there was a couple behind us. And I mean, I was wearing my, you know, puffer jacket, beanie, everything, the guys in a T shirt. And I'm like, are you from like, Minnesota? And he was like, yeah, how did you guess? Like, you work a T shirt. It's like minus nine. He's like, that's pretty, pretty tepid today. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. I know. Yeah, I know. I mean, even around, even around the city, people run shorts year round. It's just there's. They're just different up there. They've got that Viking blood in them.

100. Yeah, I have, I have. I, I do. I prefer the cold. My wife hates skiing and hates anything to do with the cold. But I'm very much, I think, I mean, I ultimately do have Viking blood in me. Having done the old ancestry dot com, I don't think that Viking blood is strong in me because I am that guy taking the dog for a walk in the middle of winter in shorts and a T shirt. When it's like, yeah, zero or whatever, it's like, that's cool. I'm not sweating. It's good. It makes a change.

I don't. Have you seen. I don't know whether it would have been aired in the States, but it was, it was over here. I mean, it's an American based documentary, but it was all about Shaq and his like a bit of a documentary on his life. It's like a four or five part series. And it's interesting again, like your marketing thing that, that was, I thought this was so cool because he did a marketing degree and he talks about in the documentary how they had to do a project. And the professor was like, okay, right, you all need to create a brand and just, you know, just high level, create a brand and pitch it to me and, you know, kind of like come up with a brand, you know, design architecture type thing. And he came back and had made, I think, I think it was like his first iteration of the Shack slam dunk kind of logo. And he said, well, I'm the brand. And the professor's like, don't be ridiculous. You're not a brand. A brand is like, you know, Pepsi or Coke or whatever. And he's like, no, I am the brand and I will be the brand. And it was like one of those defining moments when he was just like, you know, stuff you like, I'm going to show you. And yeah, that was a really big, that was a really big interesting thought for me was he's, you know, and how he's run his business now where he's like, yeah, sure, I'll be a brand ambassador, But I want 10% in the company as well. It's like because he understands that. Whereas he was saying how, you know, Michael Jordan was the first kind of international brand ambassador where he got a small cut and some. And some shoes named after him, whereas he was like, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna make and design my own shoes, and I will be the brand. And I think there's, again, there's some similarities between how you were approaching, because I would. I mean, what was mum and Dad's, you know, impressions when he said, hey, mom, dad, so I want to be a pro skier when I grow up? Was it kind of like, roll their eyes like, yeah, sure, son. Great. Whatever. Or were they like, hey, yeah, that sounds amazing. Go for it.

Yeah. No, I mean, I, you know, I.

I. I know I represent some ancestry in my. In my passion for skiing, but it's not found in my immediate family. So it was. It was something that definitely caught them off guard. And, you know, my relationship with my father, it. It became a contractual agreement that I would pursue and complete my degree ahead of going out and pursuing my passion. And.

I'm grateful for the discipline at the time, but it sure felt silly to me having to come up with an agreement with my father to allow me to chase my dreams. And now I'm a father myself, thinking about the dreams that my kid wants to go after. And so it's cool. It's cool. I wouldn't take it back, but, yeah, I'm impressed with.

With the trajectory Shaq certainly has accomplished building a brand around himself. And I caught that film Air, which talked all about Air Jordan as a brand, and the hard negotiations that the Jordan family had with Nike at the time that set up probably the most.

You know, beneficial royalty contract in history. So it's. It's. It's cool to. To see how other people have navigated these ways.

Yeah. But I think, yeah, taking ownership of the brand is. Is the ultimate. Is it because you're in control?

Yeah.

You're not, you know. Oh, well, hang on a minute. Hey, what's Matt said on social media? Oh, bloody hell. We've got Matt. You can't say that on social, dude. You know, all of that kind of stuff. It's like, well, I am the brand, you know, And I think, again, a large number of the B corps that we hang out with and have helped and connect with, you know, they're typically smaller or small to medium businesses where the owner, founder, CEO, like, the values of the company are. Is them, you know, because that they. They have kind of put the. Put the rod in the. In the sand and gone or put the line in the sand and gone. This is, this is who we are. This is what we stand for. So yeah, it's just, it's just kind of cool unpacking a bit of that.

Yeah, I see that. I see that for sure.

Yeah. So let's, let's get into some of the real geeky material stuff. So. Because your skis are quite different in terms of how you make them and so, so I guess what, what's different about them? Oh, sorry. Skis and boards. I keep, I keep not saying boards because I have like just a real mental block against snowboarders, but that's, that's mine to get to get over with the. Yes. So what, what's different about them? And how did you come across the technology?

Yeah, totally, yeah. And I had a preface saying skis too often as well, because that's my first like, love, whatever. But of course we always speak of both applications equally in respect. But.

When I was exiting forefront, I wasn't sure exactly the direction I wanted to go. I was thinking of pursuing, you know, a alternative process in building tires, thinking about bio based solutions and tires. And then I got this call from the founder of Checkerspot, Charles Dimler, who had recently exited an industrial bio based company and was seeking to bring a new approach to biotechnology, focusing around materials to market and thought consumer product goods would be a great play to kind of seed and animate the technology capabilities of the platform and furthermore, like go after and challenge winter sports. So it definitely caught my ear given my background and where I was at in transition after having been given the opportunity to sell my original brand. And of course I'm a brand person. So your previous, you know, point around owning a brand and being a vocal voice in that brand is always like something that's really been important to me. So the idea of being able to potentially start another brand in a space that I'm familiar with, but with the use of a technology platform that I had never yet had the opportunity to interact with, was something extremely appealing. And so I joined the company CheckerSpot in 2018 and we quickly started to identify use cases of the platform's capabilities in the construct of Wintersport products. We knew we had a really rich and versatile platform. Our platform is built around.

Creating microbial oils. Specifically we engineer oil for microalgae using fermentation. So just as you brew beer and feed sugar to yeast to get alcohol, we feed sugar to algae, certain strains of algae in fermentation tanks. And we're able to extract a significant amount of biomass that we can net up to 80% in oil. And that oil is extremely pure as a result of the process of fermentation. There's no external impurities that compromise the structure of that oil. And that oil can come in and just be a better, a better ingredient to build modern day polymers. You know, I don't think we're going to get out of the dependency that we have with the point of view we have around performance in eradicating plastics from our lives. They're, they're very performance centric, they're very durable, very resilient, especially in the elements. And so we need to figure out a way to work with it, not against it or to eliminate it. And it starts with a better source of oil. And this is the, this is the kind of the, the, the basis of the platform that was really inspiring to me and knowing that we could find a variety of different use cases of that oil, given the dependency we have on petrochemicals and designing modern day high performing skis and snowboards. So we went to market straight away, within like six months. Went to a trade show. You know, we had the viola oil derived from microalgae to show and, and we started talking with product designers and we were just over their head. They hadn't yet fully understood how the basis of oil plays such a significant role in the performance of products. And I don't think anybody was expecting that to show up as a differentiator either in terms of how their product could be uniquely positioned against their competitor's product in the market. So we knew straight away that we needed to be the ones to kind of like improve the fluency, animate this technology for them to see if they can then interpret it in a more worldly way. And so it became known at that point in time that we were going to start our own brand. And so we came up with the term Wonder Alpine. You know, something about the awe of nature, integrating elements found in nature to deliver unique profiles of oil that go into these unique products. Skis and snowboards to start moving into apparel next. And so Wonder Alpine started in the summer of 2019 with some skis. And our point of view around the positioning of the skis was backcountry skiing, because we thought, you know, the backcountry space could use a leader. There was a lot of lightweight technologies and a lot of conversation around the sacrifice of downhill ski performance for the ability for lightweight long travel like expeditions. But our vibe was much more around. We just want to like ski killer snow and have less competition for it. So we're willing to walk up and go get it. And we thought the backcountry space was right for a brand with that point of view. So we still built freeride skis. They weren't necessarily the lightest skis because we wanted them to perform really well on the way down, but the fact that we were integrating an element found in nature to build them initially with a, with a rigid polyurethane foam core for light weighting was something that I thought really connected with the end users. And as you're, you know, making your way up the skin track and immerse in thoughts as your heart rate is elevated and you're taking in all this periphery, you're this highly stimulated and thoughtful about your surroundings and knowing that you're walking on something completely new. Potentially the first use case of an ingredient bioderived introduct introduced to the world is what's under your feet. That's a pretty cool experience. And so wondering wonder. Alpine became this really immersive backcountry point position brand. And obviously we've expanded into a variety of different ski widths. And now entering into our second season commercially with snowboards, it's been really fulfilling to have a variety of community stakeholders experimenting a couple different use cases of our unique microbial oil technology platform, Obviously the rigid foam and the cores. And then we pivoted the same base molecule derived from microalgae to develop a polyurethane cast for sidewall and. Or I should say a cast polyurethane for sidewall, which led to a huge transformation in manufacturing technique. And we can dive into that, I guess, as we get further in the conversation. But most uniquely, positioning us in the space is the use of these algal oils in form of polyurethanes across thoughtfully designed collection of backcountry skis and snowboards. Split and solid.

Nice. So.

I'm presuming it wasn't a knock it out the park first time you, you, you pulled this material out and made a set of skis. What, what were the. What was, what was it like? What was the. What was that journey like? And totally like, okay, this is, this is not going anywhere. We're just going to, like we've done here. And I mean, there must have been those moments, or was it like, actually, we just nailed it first time?

No, I mean, he's like.

Yeah, do we want the podcast to be about what we made or all the things we failed at doing?

Well, I Think it's just interesting, you know, I think people forget sometimes that you can't, you're not going to get the thing first time. And there's plenty of people. Yeah. And there's some great examples I think about the big corps. Like there's Ethique, which is a Christchurch based company who makes solid bio, health and beauty products. You know, Brianne, who founded that company, she started literally working in her bathroom at home like and in her kitchen mixing potions and trying to nail it. And you don't nail it first time. And I think for people who are, I think people who are listening to this podcast are either in an organization thinking that they might try and do something for themselves, they want to try and do something along a B corp framework and, or they are entrepreneurs themselves who are running a company that might be a B corp. And it's just, it's always good to remind yourself that hey, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. You know, there's, there's dead ends, there's misfires, there's. But that's all part of the journey. And so I think it's good for people to hear, let's not have all of them but you know, a couple of them and then, then hear the success at the end of it.

Totally, yeah. No, I mean like, I mean the foam was always something that was top of mind for the founders to pursue. It was originally thought to interrogate the surf industry. It's a fairly low cost foam.

Raw ingredient. You know, people are buying, you know, significant blocks of foam to build boards and therefore the net result of the material and the finished good is like 98 foam. And so we thought, well let's start a little bit more modestly with that integration and vertically laminate, you know, the foam as like stringers in the core and, and it came together fairly quickly to be, you know, and I'm being totally honest, like with my background in ski design and.

Members of my team at the time, also with their accredited industrial experience in the space, we were able to bring skis to snow fairly quickly. And to no surprise, they skied well.

They did deliver a unique feel which I think caught us off guard, which gave us some real enthusiasm about the go to market strategy. Knowing that we had found a sensation. Not only was the foam light waiting the ski but also because of its cellular construction as a foam by comparison to wood, it was insular to the vibration and so it actually added as like a damping mechanism which was difficult to find in skis. Trending towards lightweight, they oftentimes end up feeling a bit hollow and a little bit jittery. And we were actually able to deafen out some of that undesirable characteristic by integrating this type of foam. So that was actually something that we kind of lucked into. But I think some of the real challenge came when we looked to pivot, using that same base polyr resin, if you will, for the initiated out there to create a poly, a cast polyurethane for sidewall. Because it was that sidewall that was an area of constraint in the production process. It started as a uniform extruded sheet of plastic that would have to be machined down. And it didn't take, you know, the type of LCA data collection that we do today to identify the fact that like the bulk of that material was being wasted. And there was no good use case for the waste coming from the process of having to machine down these sheets of plastic to mirror the side geometry and thickness of a ski. So we wanted to move towards a liquid polymer that we would in mold with the wood. And the thing is about cast polyurethanes that like, you don't have to dig too deep in your research to identify that like this material, this type of polymer is not suitable to interface with wood like that is in the literature, like in the forward of the book of cast IR things. And here we are going after integrating it as a core in integral material on our construct of our product that we seek to feature as a unique use case. And the odds are stacked against us on page one in the book of cast urethanes. So we had to like really suffer in the front end of how to get through identifying all the areas in which the sensitivity comes and interfacing this material to the wood. But the end result.

I mean outside of the time and, and money investment to, to learn what we know today, is that we've been able to actually improve the integrity of the ski. Because what's happening is that this, this liquid polymer is coming to cure with the wood. And once it cures, if you can get a nice, you know, clean bond line, you've actually improved the strength of the construction of the ski. Because now this material has come to natively join with the wood. And that was an area where we kind of broke through and not only being able to now control the ingredient inputs using our algal oil as the base molecule for the polyurethane. So we've introduced a 65% bio based material, whereas previously there was none available. There's no other non petrochemical based plastic for sidewall available. Still to this day, we were able to introduce a net 70% biocomposition material. We've also been able to improve integrity within the construct of the product because it's now fused natively with the wood. We're not having to rely on really rigid, complex manufacturing tooling when we go to laminate the skis so that the stick of plastic stays close to the core. And we've also been able to work with the cast polymer in a way that we've been able to dramatically reduce the waste because we only pour as much urethane in those core channels as we ultimately are going to end up using in the finished product. So we don't have this copious waste stream where we're, you know, landfilling the bulk of the material mass. And the combination of these activities is actually what gave us the encouragement to go for B Corp. Certification. And so I think it was in 21 we became successful in applying and earning our B Corp. Certified grade, if you will, just north of 80 points. I mean, grant, we still had a lot of waste from the process and we hadn't fully shown like, you know, there to be.

Any, any, any real noteworthy impact in the market yet. But we had shown both a use case for bio based materials where the alternative was none. And we were able to show a path to dramatically reduce waste.

And those two things were not talking points. They're starting to become talking points in modern day ski marketing, but for the most part nobody was talking about it. And I think largely because they didn't have a solution to the problem. And so we were identified as being a bit bold in that we were talking about these things and trans and being transparent and transposing some of these issues that we face in the manufacturing space because we felt like we had identified a path to reduce some of the impact that has held our space, our sporting goods category, back from being truly innovational or innovative, if you will, in modern times.

Yeah. So did you write a letter to the polyurethane people? Dear sir or madam, it has come to our attention that page one of your brochure is actually incorrect.

Yeah, no, I mean, we've been, we continue to become challenged. I mean, there's different species of wood that harbor different moisture levels. And obviously moisture is part of wood composition. Some, some woods harbor, you know, higher levels of moisture in them than others. And so that does make it a little more tricky. But, you know, working vertically with material science and molecular biology within our Organization. We have just been putting in the work to figure out how to create moisture tolerant formulations that work with wetter woods. And, and we've been able to crack that code and it's, it's a huge accomplishment by the team. And it wouldn't have been something that we would have focused on had we not had this biological resource and had witnessed this, you know, really beautiful, sporting, good category that was just desperate for innovation. You know, you go to the ski wall at any of your favorite ski or snowboard shops today, and what differentiates boards from themselves is like outline geometry and some aesthetics, but I mean, for the most part, they're all made out of the same stuff. Yeah, the raw material supply chain that feeds the factories that make all these boards. I mean, there's far more brands than there are factories, I can assure you, globally, supporting the category. And they're all shopping out of the same catalogs. And there's only so many skis and boards made per year and that number is not exponentially growing. So Most of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier category competitors have fallen off. And so you now have a monopolized supply chain providing the same plastics to the world's brands. So how do you use that as a point of differentiation at the retail wall to say, yeah, we're doing so people talk about some things, you know, and it's fair, right? I mean, they're, they're working with renewable energies, they're working with some recycled materials. And that's all valid and positive and forward thinking, but the industry as a whole is still desperate for innovation. You know, skis are very technical. They need to match the sports car. You know, it's, it's a lot like a road bike or a set of golf clubs. Like, there's a lot that goes into them and people want to latch on to that unique performance characteristic. And it's hard to find if every brand's making the skis out of the same stuff, especially if they're making things in a way that's not transparent and has now been publicly exposed and being known to be highly wasteful.

Yeah, it's very much like, I used to be more into road cycling than I am currently. But I remember when the veil was kind of lifted and someone in one of the shops said, yeah, to be honest, those two bikes are both made in the same factory. Just that one's got a different logo to that one. And you're like, really? Because yeah, you imagine all these brands have got their own little factory with their own R D team. But yeah, I think, I mean, I used to sell medical devices and it's kind of the same like there's the brands that are being sold in the hospital, but they're all, the manufacturing is all outsourced to probably the same company behind the scenes. And it's that, yeah. Illusion of choice that the consumer has. And it's interesting. Yeah, I mean like you said, it's not belittling stuff like, oh, you know, we've maybe got solar panels on our roof, you know, but it's, it's, it's, it's almost incidental to the, that the elephant in the room is actually the big thing is like you say the input material and the waste, like that is the big thing. But at least companies are on the journey. I mean, I certainly noticed that, you know, in a couple of the local ski shops that I go to in town here, you know, I think there's a Fisher ski that's got, you know, sustainably manufactured or something, one of the labels and, and there's obviously brands like picture in the clothing world. Patagonia is obviously, you know, well known B Corp in the outdoor skiing world. So there definitely seems to be more in the last couple of years, you know, like three or four years ago, if you're looking to buy anything ski related, there was, there was very little apart from you guys, you know, there was very little other options. Whereas now like, so you got faction skis, you got yourself your picture. So this, this definitely seems to be more awareness and so hopefully, you know that the combination of you trailblazing and showing the way that look this, it's possible it can be done. And I think, you know, historically in any industry the, the, the true disruption is done by small players.

And then ultimately the, the big players are the laggards who have got a massive machine that they've got to retool and all the rest of it. So yeah, you know, I think it's been really cool to see what you, I mean, on that. So is, is your plan, do you ultimately want to like. Because obviously you've got Checkerspot that's got the, I guess like the IP on the material side of it. Like is your vision that, that, that you become a supplier to every company or do you guys see that you guys want to just dominate and become the company that nails this and like. Yeah, expand wonder, you know, to a global level. Is there a tension there between how you see that happening at all?

Yeah, I'm glad you, I'm glad you bring that up. I mean, CheckerSpot was structured as a, as a benefit corporation from the get go, which is in something completely disconnected from B Labs, which is the B corp we know and that we talk about on this pod. To become a benefit corporation in these states, you get taxed a certain way. That's not out of line with other corporations, except for the fact that you have articles of incorporation that speak to doing good for people and planet. And one of the primary pillars of our articles of incorporation as a benefit corporation in the states, speaking on behalf of Checkerspot is the democratization of innovation. The intent was never to do anything from a proprietary point of view with the exception of our, you know, molecular biology work, developing strains of microbiology that we can harvest in fermentation for oil. So the business has always been mission driven to be folks around cross industry collaboration and wonder. Alpine is largely to show the world what's possible and invite the world in. So we don't see.

Competitors in our industry, we see partners.

The big picture is the collaborative nature of B Corp feels very aligned with our own mission. We're a community regardless of the industries we play in and we're going to continue to honor that as a personality going forward. Because honestly, this innovation cannot thrive through proprietary interests. Sustainability is not exclusive. We need adoption.

We're challenging petrochemicals, there's an oil refinery in every major metropolitan city in the world. And to be able to develop biomanufacturing facilities as, as available as we have oil refineries would be a massive industrial revolution. A brand alone cannot create that scale. We need adoption. We need brands to vote with their dollars. We need consumers to vote with their dollars. And as many partners as we can get to pull into this business, the better the economics are for everybody. So I'm glad that you bring that up. It's something that's really important to our, our company morale and the type of, the type of way that we see the, the opportunities in the world.

I, I was hoping and not surprised that that was your answer.

I kind of think, you know, that's the thing. It's something I've talked about a couple of times this week. You know, this, the idea of if you're truly purpose driven, your competitor is not actually your competition. You know, it's not do we sell one more set of skis compared to Fisher or Augment or another board, you know, over Burton, obviously Burton themselves a B corp. It's how do we com, how do we combat the bigger battle that is waste or environmental Degradation in the sport. We all love that. I think most people who are into outdoor sports of any kind, you, you, you recognize the benefit that nature gives you and the, the symbiotic relationship you have with nature. So it's counterintuitive that you would want to be having any part of the activity that you love be destroying the thing that you're in and getting the benefit of. So, yeah, the fact that you are thinking on that level, and I guess this, this is the challenge you've got, but I mean, it looks like you've nailed the material challenge. Like you've got the, you've got it. It's working. It's, it's got the result. It's now a, I guess a hearts and mind battle, a consciousness battle of some of these larger companies that are still in that shareholder primacy. Maximize revenue mindset. Like, we actually just want to sell one more set of skis than everyone else this year. So we can say we were. I mean, is that still the general mindset of the broader industry? Is it, do you feel like it is? It's that that's the hurdle to overcome or is it lack of awareness or. Yeah. What do you think is going to be the trigger point for the mainstream adoption of what you've got or something similar? Sure.

I think there's obviously some real loyalties that will need to be broken in how we have deferred to supply throughout all these years. You know, it changes character, it changes manufacturing technique, it challenges the norm.

The winter sports industry struggles a little bit with radical, innovative, like, thinking.

But.

It'S been around long enough to deserve credit for how, how it operates and I respect it for that. So, yeah, we do, we do struggle with a little bit of adoption just because it's, it is something that is, is quite unique and it's not what we're offering is not just a drop in replacement.

And I say that specifically around the, the cast polyurethanes versus extruded sheets of plastic goods. It's a pretty different technique required to integrate. But you know, all that said, I can't think of an outdoor recreation activity where climate change is any more like, square in focus than skiing and snowboarding. I mean, we look out the window and watch receding, like snow levels on the daily. And like, there is, there is no disconnect with the obvious impact climate change is having on the access we have to recreate. And so.

For as challenging as it may be to adopt a different way of thinking, there's so much reinforcement around us Based on how we're witnessing climate change effects snow that like the industry cannot ignore any solution that comes with decarbonizing the way that we operate. Knowing that like that is becoming mission critical. We are like we are below 22 degrees centigrade and change of losing 50% of our access to skiing and snowboarding. 2 degrees. And if you follow like the, the trends of the warming planet like it's not getting any colder.

So like there's a lot of reinforcement in support of this type of innovation and, and largely why we strategically thought about winter sports as a pioneering use case. But yeah, of course we're gonna struggle. There's challenges everywhere. I mean the path of least resistance is to do nothing about it. Just ride out until you can't ride anymore. But I feel like the passion within the winter sports space is greater than that. It's multi generational and we just need to find the harmony and how we go about it.

Yeah, no, that, that makes a lot of sense. Like I say it is, it is the most obvious media surfing. It's like, yeah, doesn't, you know, if anything it's like might be. Yeah, great. The sea's warmer. I don't need to buy.

It's not as cold. Yeah.

Winning.

I don't need to wear booties.

Yeah.

I mean are you getting any interest or pick up from smaller manufacturers like other boutique.

Companies?

Totally. There's been, I mean there's been interest since day one.

Yeah.

Like the press release went out that you know, we put a new brand to market and we're introducing bio based materials and the phone rang. It wasn't customers looking to buy our products, it was customers looking to buy our materials.

Right.

And you gotta love the small sector for that. But we've had some recent adoption from bigger brands and that's where we're going to see the, the change in, in orders. You know, it's going to become a lot more familiar of a technology. The bigger we can tap into that market share that exists with the big brand. So it takes time. I think if anything we've underestimated the amount of time that this project would take to commercialize. But it is commercializing and we're thankful to have the support network we do with our investors. And the platform has just continues to produce in a variety of ways. That's remarkable.

Yep.

It has not been a question of is this the future? It never has been the question. The question has been is the future now?

Nice.

You know, and, and that's something that we as consumers have an impact undefining, you know, we can, we can tell now to be the future if we act on it. And, and we feel like we, we, we owe that to the, to the future generations to come. And, and with technology like this, you don't necessarily have to sacrifice performance to allow that to be the case. It all starts with a better source of oil.

Yep. And I think, yeah, you know, the big companies will always take time. You know, they're probably, they've probably already planned five years out what their next five seasons of kit looks like and you know, they've, they've got expensive machinery that they've maybe got or they've got supply chain that has invested heavily in machinery because we've been making skis for this way for the last, what, 20 odd years or however long, you know, brands have been around. So yeah, it's always going to take time for the bigger companies to turn that ship around. Yeah, it's, but it's, it's going to happen. I love that. I think that that's possibly. Give me the title of the. It's not a title for the podcast. It's not. Is this the future? It's, it's the future. Now that's a cool summary of.

Yeah.

And like everything you're doing and to.

Tie B Lab into that, it's like we're using that emblem as a badge of honor, you know, and the more we can create awareness around.

The importance of B Lab certification and.

Proving through third party auditing that the work we're doing is beneficial to people on planet, the more that becomes a desirable emblem for those bigger brands to, to bear themselves. And we hope that that becomes a standard emblem for other brands to look to in helping improve their marketing position. And as such then they'll be obviously informed of alternative methods challenging the status quo, of how they currently operate to adopt new materials and cleaner and leaner processes. And so the whole thing should, should be, you know, harmonized around.

Improving the, the way in which we show up in the world and the way that our future generations look at the work we've done for the time that we had.

Yeah, I think it's a matter of when, not if. And I think I love talking to people like yourself who, who are leading the charge on this because in 10, 15 years time when every ski and board is made of bio algae, you'll just be going, yeah. Was it ever in doubt? Yeah, actually it was a doubt quite a few years. But hey, we're here now. I think it's you know, it's all. It's all part of the journey. And I think you would. You know, you're not. You're obviously a. A natural disruptor. And I think I. You know, I'm the same. You know, I've been talking to people about B Corp since 2014, and it feels like now people, 10 years later, it's kind of like. I mean, I give quite a lot of talks and keynotes, and I'll start off by going, okay, hands up, who's heard of B Corp? And even four years ago, you'd maybe get two out of 100 hands, whereas now you go, who's heard of B Corp? You might get 60 or 70. Hands up. And then you go, cool. Does anyone. Can anyone, like, can you tell me a brand of a B Corp that you purchase? And people go, yeah, I buy this peanut butter, or I use this, and I'll go, cool. Does anyone work for a B Corp? And there might even have be one hand at the back of the room go, yeah, I work for one. So, you know, I think when. When you're on the edge of it and, you know, it's like you're standing on the shoulder of all the giants, you can see what the future needs to look like. But, you know, everyone else is still just like, guys, we got to crank out a thousand set of skis this week to get them to market. You know, they're like, they're just not thinking the same thing. So, you know, don't underestimate the influence that you will have on this industry long term. It just, you know, you got to keep on doing what you're doing, and eventually they'll go, ah, yeah, what's that? That dude, Matt in Salt Lake? Yeah, yeah, Maybe we should get him in and have a. Have a chat about, you know, how we make our stuff. But, you know, totally, yeah.

Yeah, I'd love to have that conversation. Yeah, totally.

Hopefully I'll make sure I send this episode. I'll send an email to all the ski companies that I can find on the Internet. Hey, check out this interview. If you haven't heard of Matt, drop him a note. Yeah, cool. Dude, there's cool.

Yeah, I'm available.

I got some time on my schedule. I can make it happen. Yeah, I have no doubt that, like, you say, this. This is front and center for the industry, you know? Yeah. Is it because. Is it Taos? Taos Ski Mountain is a B Corp. Do you. Have you done anything with those guys?

Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, we've outfitted them with some demo skis and yeah, it's a beautiful organization. We have some ambassadors that ride with us.

Nice.

That are down there with part of that community. So yeah, they're, they're doing great things. I think early adopters to.

Yeah.

Electric powered grooming, which is really significant. Diesel is a huge consequence of, of grooming and there's a lot of, a lot of diesel burned grooming those slopes every night. So yeah, there's a lot of innovation that's occurring and at the resort level and, and we'll continue to improve. I'm sure there's a lot of renewable energy that's already been put to work. So yeah, they're very, they're very thoughtful about it. I mean any outfit that has access to snowmaking knows the cost of climate change. So they'll be continuing to improve the climate in which they operate in. For sure. Yeah, it's going to be a self perpetuating, you know, destiny, no doubt.

Yeah. I think we should have a second, a separate conversation because it has been in the back of my mind of trying to organize like a B Corp ski resort get together, just get a bunch of B Corps and go, let's be corps ski. Let's go to Taos. Let's get you on some wonder, wonder outpoint skis and let's just have a whole bunch of people talking B Corp for three or four do like fireside chats in the evening. I reckon we should make that happen. I'd go. I think you'd go. If we get five, I think we can make it a thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Again like there's there's other big. There's other B Corp certified ski and snowboard brands and I think it'd be cool to curate also like other, other brands that, you know, purveyors of food, nutrition and personal care. I think compare that just to be. Yeah, like a B Corp Winter summit would be great. I'd love to go to that. Cool.

Because yeah, you know, I mean I did see Andrew Chambers. He was in the Facebook community to begin with. I'm not sure if he's still there. So he runs a company called Tsunami Sports. They are all about making like sporting apparel, clothing, so rugby, hockey, soccer uniforms for. Mainly for schools and youth groups and other and senior teams. But they make it all out of recycled plastic and sort of a bit of a similar backstory to yourself. Like you know, when they, they were one of the first to do this, if not the first to do it. Now the industry is kind of cottoning onto it, no pun intended. And it's this challenging arena where, you know, yes, you want other people to do it, but also you're the, you're the first adopter. I think you, you got. If, if Andrew's listening, you should jump in and ask some questions, mate. But if not, I think I'll try, I might connect you to separately because I think you're both in a similar mindset where you're trying to disrupt a mainstream industry and you, you've got that. And I think this is where having some kind of conference of almost like the, the real leading edge disruptors where. Okay. Because there's possibly, you know. Well, you already know there are other industry applications for your, you know, for your core essence of the material. So let's have this. Yeah, let's have a chat about that offline. Make it happen. So. Yeah, so the B Corp journey, that's cool. I love that, you know, badge of honor, I think. Yeah, most, most people who've been through the process would, would agree with that. It's, I like to describe it as rigorous but achievable. Were there, were there any particular sort of highlights or lowlights of the journey or is it all a bit of a blur?

Yeah, I mean, we're starting a business, we're not converting a business. So, you know, I think there's some difference there in terms of experience. But one thing we've been diligent and I think benefited by in honoring B Corp. To have always been.

Something which we had desired to be aligned with was that we, we've always kept a, an empty seat in the room for, you know, B Labs to weigh in. And you know, when we talk about strategic initiatives, things we want to go after, we honor that seat at the decision making table to say, well, what, what does sustainability have to say about that? What does betterment for people and planet have to say about that? What is, what is reducing carbon intensity have to say about that decision specifically? Do we, do we attend that trade show and spool up all these emissions to go for what, you know, are we going to print catalogs like just simple conversation where you honor that, that seat at the table has a huge impact on some of the, on some of the ways in which you go about in modern ways. And so I'm psyched to have been able to start a brand knowing that B Corp was always something we wanted to have in alignment with us. And, and that, yeah, there's some blur for sure. Like anything you start up from, from the ground, there's A lot. There's a lot there. Building the team, you know, building your community of consumers and working through the products and the regulatory and everything that comes through the consumer journey to end the life. There's a lot there. But feel, feel. I'm feeling grateful to have had the foresight to know that this was going to be something that was going to drive not only environmental stewardship, but it was also going to cultivate economic.

A shift in paradigm to how we look to differentiate ourselves and ultimately seek.

You know, long, long standing positioning, you know, in a space where it's like you're only as rad as your latest trick, you know, you can be quickly forgotten in the ski industry. You know, you, you, you win today and somebody else wins tomorrow. And it's just a matter of how long does it take you to get back to the top step to gain recognition that you're still in it. And we didn't want to be that as a brand and we hitched on to B Corp and ensuring that these values were going to be baked into our, our brand identity and culture and it's, it's continued to prove relevancy time and time again.

Yeah, that's so cool to hear. I think it's something a lot of, a lot of, you know, more legacy based companies. A large number of the clients that we help are more startup founder led companies. Again, values driven. Already, they were already behaving like a B corp. They didn't know it, but they want to get that recognition. They want to just tighten the nuts and bolts to go, yeah, okay, we're really doing this. Where we do find the biggest challenges are these companies transitioning from the old way of thinking to the new way of thinking. And particularly when, I mean, just yesterday I was bought into a board meeting. You know, the CEO is like, look, I think BCorp can help us with our sustainability strategy. It will help, you know, tighten up a whole bunch of stuff. I think it'll give us some consumer recognition. Like it ticks a lot of boxes for the CEO. But then the board are like, well, does this mean we can't make money? And it's like, no, you can still make money. And that's a really great descriptor. It's like you just need to have a table, a seat at the board table. That's. Well, yes, we could get rid of half the team to make more money next quarter, but actually, is that in the best interest of the long term interest of the company, our other staff and the community which we're based in. Probably not. So is that really our only option? Okay, well, let's. Okay. Could. Could I maybe take ten grand less as, as a, you know, my, my shareholder cut next month. Yeah, I could probably wear that for a month, you know, or for a quarter. So it's really interesting seeing that. And I think it's, it's genuinely and generally poorly done in most companies. And I think again, it's, it's the sort of more disruptive companies and where, where the, the foundation has been. No, we're doing this as a force for good. And I think that increasingly there is a bit of a delineator between almost like B corp light, where it's like, yeah, look, we're kind of. Okay, you know, we're kind of a B corp versus okay, actually, you know, your whole company founded around an impact model and a mission of. No, we are changing a paradigm here. And that there is a real sense of depth and that just comes across in your sort of authenticity as to how you've been doing everything you've been doing, which is, I think again, don't underestimate the impact that, that guys like yourself are having. Because people, people see that there's a, you know, you feel there's, it's a different vibe to the company. And I think people just pick up on that and go, okay, this, this is actually for real. This isn't. Look, we know we've updated our articles of incorporation, but look, actually we can't wait to make, you know, as much money next year as possible. So. Yeah, go you, man.

Yeah, no, it's been, it's been rad.

Nice.

And so I guess, yeah, one question. So, like, have you always been purpose driven? You know, when, when you, when young Matt was kind of like, hey, pro skier, you know, was young Matt mainly thinking beer, you know, fame, fortune, travel, the world gets paid to be a skier.

When did the idea of doing good, you know, and having business as a vehicle for good, you know, when did that pop up or, or was like mum and dad always getting you to contribute? You know, have you always been giving back? Volunteering? Like, it's just always interesting to see where, where that came into your, into your journey.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just a, it became kind of a consumption quota. You know, I, I like boxed so many skis up over the years, you know, container after container every fall, delivering to shops, distributors worldwide, you know, and, and it's great to see a lot of those skis on the hill today, but it was just like, starting to weigh on me. Like, wow, this has been like, I've put a lot of work, like weight and skis on this planet. And to do this again, I need to be far more focused around doing it through a different lens and not just differentiated because of, like, the rad team riders and the likeliness of their identity and the appropriation of their shape or whatever for the style of skiing that we're marketing. But, like, it just needs to come through in a way that, like, it is a vehicle to showcase and future proof a technology that could have a huge environmental benefit to the planet without sacrificing the performance that we've all come to love. And, and so, like, for me, I guess that was the, the awakening of the mission driven mindset.

Nice. And I think, again, it's, it's not uncommon. I mean, I was kind of the same. I had a bit of an early midlife crisis that led me to going, like, what am I doing? Like, I'm fundamental. I mean, I used to sell medical devices and I don't know if you've seen there's a documentary on Netflix called the Bleeding Edge, which is all about the corruption in the medical device world, you know, and almost like the Painkillers series on the Sackler family. You know, I wasn't doing stuff like that, but, you know, the industry more broadly was. And yeah, when you have that moment of realization, like, hang on, there's. I can't remember the name of the comedian. Is it Web? David Webb is one of the guys. He actually went to my old school. Didn't actually meet him. But there's these two British comedians and they, there's this classic sketch that they do where they're, they're dressed as like Nazi officers and one turns the other and goes, hang on a minute, are we the baddies? It's like that realization that, oh, hang on a minute. Oh, we are the baddies. Yeah. And I think it's. It's not uncommon. I think a lot of the people again that we've interviewed and they're in the B Corp moment movement that they've had that moment of, oh, hang on a minute, it's me, like, I'm doing some of the bad stuff too. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Boom. And it's, it's just interesting. Whereas like some other people, quite often there's some faith based people who, you know, it's like, no, the idea of purpose and giving back and, and treading lightly has been something I've grown up with due to my faith, others who just obviously had better parents than you and I, who raised them up to be, to be more purpose driven maybe. But I think there's a large number of people and I think possibly that's people listening to this might be in that situation where they're like, hey, do you know what, Maybe I am the baddie here. Or I'm not, I'm not the bad guy, but I'm working in an organization or my organization is contributing to that. And again, it's very much like the J. Cohen Gilbert moment. You know, he, he had a few existential hits.

Around about 2001 where he lost a few people close to him. And it's like, hey, what am I, you know, what's life all about? Why are we just trying to sell more trainers than the Nike? And I think more and more people are having that, I love that consumption quota I've got. There's quite a few quotes I'm going to be stealing from you, Matt. Hope you don't mind that. But it's like, yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, they get to that point actually just, you know, does the world really need, you know, another one of these things? Well, yeah, probably not and certainly not in the way it's been, it's been currently made. So, yeah, power to you for doing it. So what's, what's the future look like and what's, what's coming up on the radar for either or both of your organizations or for you personally? Anything exciting coming up for the rest of 2024?

Yeah, absolutely. We.

We are about to release another round of apparel using the Algal Oil as a, as a textile finish, which is a critical material application that moves moisture through fabric, especially synthetic fabrics to allow for wicking like evaporative cooling.

We started on this journey last spring and we've been able to make great strides in retooling our supply chain to get even higher, like performing values out of the textile and just showing a year of age and in terms of our maturity and design and intent. So we've got a new spring line of apparel coming out. Hopefully we'll be introducing that to the market in latter part of May or June of this year. Certainly a new collection of skis and snowboards that will debut on our birth date sometime around the first half of July.

And yeah, the future for Checkerspot as, as a materials innovation platform. We're working on a variety of use cases in the food and nutrition space. We've had some recent announcements that were really Psyched on with respect to the nutrition and food. We've got a startup organization called Algae Cooking Club that's using our algal oil for consumer culinary purposes. We're also launching a commercial culinary line of oils under the name Spotlight for food distribution and restaurants. And in addition we have personal care coming online where we're using the oil as an ingredient in support of a variety of formula related face care creams and SPFs. So.

Diversifying the use case of the algal ingredient is mission critical. Obviously the, the wider variety and spectrum of use cases we can show the greater adoption and likelihood we'll get commercial supply in, in line.

You know, to help just level the economics and continue to show benefit for people and planet. You know, it's the, it's the mission critical and as a startup, you know, we, we don't have time to burn so we go after a few matches a year for sure.

Nice. And so yeah, it sounds like you got your hands full for the rest of the year.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's like as a ski and snowboard brand.

We don't get a lot of downtime. Most, most winter sport brands kind of go quiet, build all summer and you know, and show back up in the fall. We try to keep a very fluid conversation with our audience year round and, and if we're not busy on something pertinent to wonder Alpine, we're, we're grabbing slack and, and making the best of it with what Checkerspot Inc. Has going on from material use case and how we can help popularize that. So yeah, it's a very fluid, very dynamic environment but it's, it's comprised of a bunch of industry professionals, people who are, who are veterans in the space and, and feel a lot of conviction in their work. So it's, it's, it's really inspirational.

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if you've got people banging your door down to come and work for you or.

Yeah.

Are you under the radar that people haven't found you yet? Hopefully we can help more people bang your door down. Yeah, I mean I'd like to come away for you. It sounds pretty cool.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. No, I mean every organ. I mean I would say that we're never not hiring. We could always use really talented people. But yeah, we've had a great, got a great run of building teams and we've had great retention in those teams. So we got some things going for us for sure in that respect.

I reckon that was one question I actually wanted to ask you on material. So I know a couple of guys we help with their be caught from deep down wine. So they're like a zero toxin. Wine is the best. There's a lot of additives that can be added to wines depending on the climate conditions from when the grapes were picked. So they quite often have to add like sulfates and other bits into the wine to sort of neutralize some of the effects of. And is that something that you have to consider? Because obviously with if you're adding your bio algae to a wood, you know, just does the, you know, and you mentioned like the relative moisture but does that, does that come down to like, is it, is it super influential? Because obviously for them like they have to pick the grapes on this day or else, you know, there's no harvest and depending on what the weather was like on that season, that will dictate the quality of the wine. So is that a similar consideration you have with when you're mixing with a wood or is it not so much of an issue with what you're doing?

Yeah, we get fairly stable, if we're speaking specifically about wood cores in our, in our cast polyurethanes, we get fairly stable supply. So we kind of know what we're going to get. It doesn't have a seasonal nature to it like wine would have. I would think like maybe one of the. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think for the most part our material applications are scientifically considered stable.

I think that one of the challenges we face is just in, in our forever pursuit to, to clean up and, and limit the impact especially in the chemical space and what we know about today with pfas per fluorinated chemistries and the impact that those forever molecules are having on freshwater streams.

A space that we're obviously pursuing ourselves. And we're a little early to talk too much about. But you know, we are cognizant of some of these toxic ingredients that don't necessarily show up in our formulations but show up in as a carrier and other brand chemicals that we look to in formulating with. So one of the stronger initiatives that we have prioritized this, this, you know, past 12 months, I wouldn't call it a calendar year, but in the last 12 months or so is to clean up our restricted substance list use case. And, and some of that is being obviously warranted by retail partners and some of it is impacting regulations. But it's, it's not necessarily chemicals that we're choosing to integrate into our materials. It's chemicals that are integrated into other companies, chemicals that we may be relying upon to use. You know, you think of a bill of materials to build a skier snowboard, it's fairly extensive. And everything I talked about at the top of the hour about monopolized raw material supply chain, there's not a lot of variety in some of the materials that we rely on to build skis and snowboards. And it's not that we're unique, it's that we're choosing to, to place an emphasis to eradicate any of the toxic existence in their products so that we don't have to bear that as, you know, a proposition of notification to our end users that hey, there's a trace of some gnarly chemical in our products, not because we chose to put in there, because somebody else uses it in their stuff that we rely on. So we've been able to clean up our RSL this year, which is a huge accomplishment to the team. And I don't scientifically know enough to speak intelligently in detail about all the chemicals that we've been able to eliminate from our material use cases. But that's been a huge focus of ours. And I think less so about the stability of our raw materials, more so about pulling back the layers and covers of other people's materials that we interact with and ensuring that they're clean on their end as we are seeking to be clean on ours.

Yeah, and I think that's again, just testament to the, to the depths of your commitment to this. Because that is typically with everyone that we work on the big journey, we get to supply chain and they're like, well, we buy all our stuff from this really nice dude in Auckland or London or, you know, wherever Los Angeles called Dave or whatever. And he's a, he's a really good guy, but I don't know where he gets his stuff from. And we're definitely seeing a lot of companies now going, okay, actually we at least need to go and have the conversation with them and go, well, where? And again, I think it just shows you that you're really squeezing the lemon here on actually, no, we're going all in on this thing. And again, it's, I think don't underestimate the little ripples of impact that you're having by that conversation now going to some, you know, back end manufacturer who's supplying to probably 50 other companies and they're going like what? Someone wants to know about this? Like, okay, haven't had that one before. But then suddenly there'll be hopefully one of the Other, you know, B Corp ski companies might be also sending that same email to say, hey, I need to know what your raw ingredients are and, you know, what's the toxic makeup of them, blah, blah, blah. So I think there's more and more people putting that pressure on, so it's just going to keep. Yeah, it's just keep making this, this change. Well, mate, I think we're well over time. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I just totally love what you're doing. I mean, I'm biased because I like Skiing and B Corp, but, you know, you genuinely are like just how you're doing and what you're doing and the depth to what you're doing. You are just like such a great exemplar of what, what business can be and how it can be done and, and you can be successful while you're doing it. It's not this mutually exclusive. You know, doing good is going to cost us the business and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, and I just think, yeah, you're going to be set for, you know, more superstardom than you had in your previous life when people actually realize the, the, you know, the magic that you've got at your fingertips here.

Well, I appreciate all that. That's a great sentiment and gives me psyched for sure. It's latter part of a week and, you know, working in a startup, it's good to hear those words and get some encouragement to keep going and that our efforts are being noticed. And, you know, I consider you to be an expert in the space in terms of evaluating B Corp stewardship and so super appreciative of you reaching out and providing the time and this platform to share our story with the audience. And we would be forever gracious to have anybody come over and, and sniff us out atwonder hyphenalpine.com to come have a look at the skis and boards that we've been talking about and checkerspot.com for the material space and just, yeah, drop us a hello. And if you're ever in the Salt Lake area, you must come by. We would love to host a tour. I will show you the ins and outs. Yeah, it's so rad.

I was going say, I got a good mate of mine. I don't know if Matt's tuning into this. So we used to work together in the medical world and then he, he and his family moved to Salt Lake, so we were trying to, to make it to go and see them in January, but it was just a step too far. So like I said, got two reasons now to. To make it a salt lake, so. Yeah, make it happen.

Right on. I'll hold you to it, Tim.

All right, cool, man. You go and rest up. Um, just keep. Just keep, Keep tracking, man. You've. You've got, you know, you've got something really, really special here. And I have no doubt, like I say, in five years time, we'll be looking back and you'll be going, I can't believe that we never thought this was gonna just, you know, go global and be just the thing I've got. It's. It's. Yeah, can't wait to see where it goes.

Thank you.

Cool. All right, man, well, I'll stop the live stream. See you later, Facebook. Andrew did chime in at the end. He said he's keen to connect with you, so I'll connect you guys on email after this. I think you can have a lot of common stories and ideas around stuff, so we'll say cheerio to Facebook and we'll say cheerio to the rest of our listeners. I'm going to stop the recording.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp, how to do more good in the world as an individual, a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.