We had been living the lives of your typical entrepreneurs: spending our waking hours closing deals, scheming, finding ways to finance our leveraged buy outs; spending our sleeping hours dreaming of corporate takeovers and boards of directors bending to our will. Fueled by sweet visions of short term gains and driven by a desire to win at all costs, we barely had time for OD’ing on coffee and business dinners.
But two weeks ago that all that changed. We met Yvon Chouinard.
For those of you who don’t know, he is the founder of Patagonia, and he was in town recently to give a lecture at Lewis and Clark College, and to promote his new book “Let My People Go Surfing.”
He covered the whole deal. Patagonia’s evolution. Design choices they have made. The environmental crisis. Tough decisions. Capilene underwear. Zen. Oil.
Wow.
After the talk, we joined a crowd of people edging in on his every word and pushing forth books to be signed. When it got to be our turn, we told the good word about sweetpea bicycles and that we could only hope to follow Patagonia’s example. He graciously nodded while signing our book, and asked me a couple of quick questions about the build process. I mentioned that it was actually Natalie who was wielding the welding torch. He excitedly looked up at us both and with a smile said “That really takes a steady hand.”
We left the talk (and subsequent reception) barely able to contain ourselves, I think because we found a model of business that seems to make a lot of sense, and all of a sudden we did not have to make the compromises that we thought we must have to make to run a business.
We feel so lucky to be in the bike business. Not because we are super hardcore racers, but because bikes are fun and help people get out of their cars. Our bikes are clean, designed to last a lifetime, and 100% recyclable. It is fun being able to build bikes for everyone who wants to ride one, but it is also nice to know that what we do is part of doing it right.
