I must admit I love the Skullcandy story, but I think the story you shared about inventing the strapless snowboard binding is better! Pumping your college money into the promos that ended up causing the worn fingers that were the genesis of your binding invention is classic entrepreneurship! It’s such a good story I’m sharing it below.

Your passion for creating products that are useful and cool at the same time make them winners.

Rick Alden, the founder and CEO of Skullcandy, shares his entrepreneurial starts when he launched the Snowboarding Jam Event Series back when he knew everyone with a snowboard on a first name basis. While having to replace defective binding straps, Alden had the inspiration to invent a “strapless” snowboard binding. Alden shows off his first prototypes and tells about his first ride without straps. Later he sold the company to Ride Snowboards for 50 percent cash and 50 percent stock.

This presentation is a keynote from the 2007 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Salt Lake City where Alden shared his passion for starting and building businesses. Also watch a second recording where Alden talks about the genesis and brand creation at his latest company, Skullcandy.

Other interviews with Rick Alden are available on RockyMountainVoices.

Twitter is still interesting to me, but there is so much self promotion and people trying to figure out how to use the medium that it’s getting tiring. I do like keeping touch on people and their efforts. Personally, I need to use the medium to get more information back rather than shouting out.

Recent Videos and Marketing Power
I’m really happy that the video I produced for Footnote.com‘s launch of the Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been well received. Footnote used the video to attract attention with “old media” newspaper and television companies. It was cool to see my video I created being used inside a news piece on MSNBC.

I was able to meet Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic and the person behind, WordPress, the same software you are using right now on House of Baldwin.com. Matt is a great guy. He has a lot going for him. And at 24, he has a lot ahead of him. It’s always fun to share a moment with young entrepreneurs that are changing the way we interact and communicate

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“It’s been a busy few weeks,” Matt Mullenweg said with a grin in response to the question about Automattic’s recent $29M funding round. Interestingly enough, this funding trails the initial investment of $1M that wasn’t fully expended.

Mullenweg talks with Brad Baldwin while visiting Park City, Utah (shhh…remember Matt you promised not to tell anyone about how great it is here) about their development team, projects, the open source community and revenue models at Automattic. Mullenweg shares some of the features and enhancements that will appear in WordPress 2.5 to be released in March 2008.

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Bluehouse Skis with Bamboo Core

Today’s skis are a blend of high-tech construction and art. So to hear that Bluehouse Skis had implemented a ski core based on bamboo seemed a bit “old-fashioned” to say the least.

Adam Hepworth and Jared Richards determined their dream job would be to build and run a ski company. So the former college roomates, designed the new skis and incorporated bamboo inside. This is is all by design since bamboo used in our cores not only gives extra pop but allows the skis to take on many of the same stiffness and durability qualities of carbon fiber at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, the bamboo was lighter weight and gives backcountry skiers a wide ski for extreme powder but shaves off a pound and a half off their load. Bluehouse Skis are ideal for the A/T skier, a park crew taking it to the backcountry, or a novice skier who is looking for an exclusive ski to flaunt on the mountain.

Marketing and sales are online through the Bluehouse web site. The team is active with their blog and has already incorporated community feedback in their latest skis.

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This video shows cutout head of the new TaylorMade SuperQuad and Burner drivers. You can see the system to manage weight distribution. Vincent talks about use of aerospace engineering and casting to create modern clubs. Pretty cool stuff considering the metal wood was introduced by Gary Adams of TaylorMade at the PGA Merchandise Show in January 1979, just 18 years ago.

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I learned that Sean was the guy behind the product, business, and marketing plans to create and launch the R7 driver. As he said in the podcast, he arrived at a European tour event on a Monday night with drivers in hand for testing. By the end of the next day, 32 tour players changed to the R7. Many of these players broke contracts to play the R7 because it worked.

He also talks about the “triangle of influence,” the strategy that was created by Gary Adams, the creator of the first metal wood. He also told me, “there’s 25-30 more yards [distance] that we [TaylorMade] know about today.”

Enjoy the show. One of my favorites.

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• Eric Smith � Control4
• Bruce Law � Sprout Marketing
• Roland Whatcott � Symantec
• Senator Orin Hatch � US Senator from Utah
• Coleman Barney and Willy Donahue � Cogito
• Paul Ahlstrom � vSpring Capital
• James Divver and Thomas Lund � Zions Bank
• Mike Levinthal � Independent Venture Capitalist
• Congressman Chris Cannon � US Congressman from Utah
• Senator Bob Bennett � US Senator from Utah
• John Valentine � President of the Utah Senate
• Richard Nelson � President, Utah Technology Council
• Clay Olsen � Timeline Films
• Ken Knapton � ContentWatch

Jennifer Napier-Pearce interviewed Tim Kapp, Kip Meacham, Cydni Tetro, and good’ole me for her Inside Utah Issue #62, Friday, 10/27/2006. You can check it out on her site or listen below — Rocky Mountain Voices is covered beginning at 20:08 into the podcast.