Overnight Succes: How the founders of Kona Bikes saved their company
Spin Cycle
Escape Collective
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2024
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been said that Kona is 'The Smallest Biggest Bike Company in the World'. They’re best known as the quintessential North Shore bike brand, yet their global head office is just down over the border in Ferndale, Washington.
The quirky company stood out with outrageous bike model names such as the Stinky Dee-Lux, Sex One, Sex Too, and, Jackshit, which placed them well and truly as the "alternative" bicycle company.
The business was founded by Dan Gerhard, Jacob Heilbron in Vancouver, BC along with mtb hall of famer Joe Murray as their designer.
With a rich history of iconic bikes and factory race teams, it was all overshadowed by the recent events of their former owners, Kent Outdoors, who were responsible for running Kona into the ground (my words, not theirs) before the original founders bought the company back last month.
Only a few weeks after Dan and Jake bought the company back, I spoke to Jake about Kona’s founding story that dates back to 36yrs ago in 1988, the sale of the business to a private equity-backed company, and what happened that led them to buying Kona back.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think figured out pretty quickly that Kona was not something that that can't |
| 0:08.4 | wanted to continue to invest in and I know when he told people that and then we had the embarrassment at |
| 0:16.9 | sea otter. A lot of people were feeling like oh my goodness this is the end of |
| 0:21.8 | Kona. |
| 0:30.1 | I don't think anybody can really explain what happened. It certainly was very public. |
| 0:32.0 | I don't think anything quite that publicly |
| 0:35.8 | embarrassing as happened to a bike brand since Schwinn announced their |
| 0:41.8 | bankruptcy in the middle of the Cab to show in 1992. |
| 0:46.0 | Chalk went up for Kona as doing something special. |
| 0:50.0 | As a joke I was saying to people, Kent's going to sell Kona, probably going to get a good owner or really cares about bikes. |
| 1:01.0 | But the problem is, like, who would be crazy enough to want to buy a battered |
| 1:06.1 | up old bike company right now? Like it's the worst possible time. From Escape Collective, this is overnight success. |
| 1:23.0 | The podcast about the entrepreneurs, the personalities, and the passionate people who make up |
| 1:27.6 | the sport of cycling and the stories behind the icons they've built. It's been said that Kona is the smallest, biggest bike |
| 1:37.8 | company in the world. They're best known as the quintessential North Shore bike |
| 1:42.0 | brand yet the Global Head Office sits just down over the border in Ferndale, Washington. The quirky company stood out from the beginning with outrageous model names such as the Stinky Deluxe, the Sex One, the Sex Two, the Jack Shit, which placed them well and truly as an alternative bicycle company. |
| 2:01.0 | The business was founded by Dan Gerhard and Jacob Halbrum in Vancouver, BC, along with |
| 2:07.2 | Mountain Bike Hall Famer Joe Murray as their designer. |
| 2:11.1 | With a rich history of iconic bikes and a factory race teams, this was all |
| 2:15.4 | overshadowed by the recent events of their former owners Kent outdoors who were |
| 2:20.0 | responsible for running Coney into the ground before the original founders bought back the company last month. |
| 2:26.0 | Only a few weeks after Dan and Jake brought the company back, I sat down and spoke with Jake about Kona's founding story that dates back 36 years to 1988, |
... |
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