Main admin on 24 Mar 2008 11:20 pm
The Million Buck Helmet.
When American Julia Mancuso gained the gold ribbon in the super colossus slalom at the 2006 Wintertime Olympic Games, Stefan Ytterborn may have been the only Swedish skier keeping.
But he held a full ground: His inauguration, Poc, intentional the high-technical school helmets that Mancuso and three former U.S. skiers had on as they crossed the coating argumentation.
Nowadays the lilliputian Stockholm-based ski equipment shaper is lurching into the mainstream with its flagship product, the Skull Comprehensive, reckonned the Porsche of ski helmets.
“Our end was to have one Macrocosm Cup skier victimisation our merchandises the first season,” Chief executive officer Ytterborn tells. “Alternatively, we acquired four American and the Swedish downhill ski team.”
He established Poc in 2003 with support from respective concern partners and holy person investors like Swedish Universe Cup skier Patrik Jrbyn. The futurist-seeming Poc helmet hit the market place last twelvemonth but has already tallied near USD 1 000 000 in sales.
Ytterborn’s timing could non be better: The ski helmet market is blowing up. Gross in the Joined Provinces alone has most two to USD 57 000 000 since 1999, and the family is anticipated to keep double-figure growing for the next various months.
Wherefore? Because citizenry really want to be realised having on them. “Helmets are no tenacious only a protection product,” states Ed Wray, Easterly sales and selling director at SnowSports Manufactures The States. “They’re likewise a mode product.”
Non that Ytterborn has cut the refuge facet. He encountered with doctors and neuroscientists to contrive a helmet that would best preclude head and spinal harms.
This ski season, Poc helmets will be traded by as lots of as 450 retail merchants world. Receipts will be eight multiplication what it was last twelvemonth, Ytterborn states, and if all moves as anticipated, the society should be profitable by 2008 and ring up at least USD 50 000 000 in sales by 2012.
“We have a visual sensation to get the No. 1 provider of protection for skiers,” he states. Looks like he’s off to a winging start.