Frends after its freshman season

Have you guys made any changes to product or marketing? 

On the marketing side, there have been many changes, but we look at it more as evolving and learning, rather than just making changes. We continue learning how to not only tell our story, but to also make sure it is being told to the right people. When you’re small like us, you don’t have a ton of marketing dollars, so they need to count that much more. We need to be smarter and make the most of every opportunity. It’s not what you pay it’s what you yield from it that matters.

On the product side, we will always continue to grow and change. We have reengineered the four styles we introduced last year, and added two completely new headphones to the line. The product we will be delivering this year is both functionally and stylistically superior to our first offering. One of the main reasons we choose headphones as our first product, was because we felt like there was so much opportunity for something new and relevant to our consumers.

Most headphones these days are not designed for what we put them through. We now use headphones for everything from riding a subway to riding a snowboard and because of this they need to be built tough. This was a lesson that we learned from our first line, and one that will never be taken lightly again. We are also learning to define our consumer and what they want and expect from us.

I heard you guys had a big gathering in the mountains recently for your "community." Can you tell us about that? 

(Snowboarder) Jack Mitrani and the Frends Crew had their second annual “Frendly Gathering” thanks to Mammoth Mountain, Amp, Nike, Burton, Nixon, Billabong and Dragon. It was always Jack Mitrani's and Frends’ vision to create a music/ snowboarding/camping event where all of the "Frends" and "Frends of Frends" could get together and appreciate the true meaning of “Frendship” and good times.

This year, the crew managed to pull off an old-school snowboard event, with a Led Zeppelin cover band and a crowd of 500 Frends for a wild weekend at a small campground 20 miles from Mammoth Mountain.

This is 100% a Frends Crew (Jack, Danny, Kevin, Scotty, Mason, Luke and Mikkel) concept and production. We’re impressed with what they pulled off and if you want to see for yourself, check out the videos from it on FrendsVision.com. We’ll be following this up with an East Coast Frendly Gathering in Vermont, July 21 to 24.

Anything else new and exciting we should look out for?

Saying a simple yes would be a huge understatement. We aren’t doing this to just create a cool company with some great products. We have seen some amazing companies over the years really bring something special to our industry, or perhaps better said, we’ve seen them bring something special to our lives.

We have always respected Jake (Burton) Carpenter for helping pioneer snowboarding, and his continual drive to make snowboarding official on all levels. Wooly’s vision for Volcom and how a company could encapsulate a movement and tell its story is a true inspiration. We technically have only been in business for eight months, we have not even begun to scratch the surface of our goals and what people are going to see delivered from Frends.