JEFF LOGOSZ: CEO 7-NATION / SLINGSHOT SPORTS / RIDE ENGINE
COVID-19 has impacted all of us and our families. Kitesurfing Magazine publisher John Bryja caught up with some of the leading CEOs in the sport to find out more about the impact of COVID on the kitesurfing industry.
Jeff Logosz: When we went into COVID access to beaches stopped worldwide overnight. That was a show stopper. We quickly felt the demand crash, we knew it would come back strong, it was more of a matter of when. We felt riders for our sports had prohibition mindset. When you take something away that they love, they want more of it when they can get it. That happened, however we did not predict the demand surge from regular consumers looking to double down on outside socially distanced sports. Overall there was a ton of volatility. We had to manage the business through this spectrum of volatility, no demand on one side, too much demand the other side. The volatility manifested as chaos in the business, retailers, and customers.
We learned there is bad chaos and good chaos. As an industry we fell on the lucky side of things with the pandemic. We’re all grateful for that. We have a great team with years of experience, so we just doubled down on the good chaos and cut out the bad chaos. This led to more investment in our product development teams to get our market assets organized earlier. That was important because the supply side was negatively affected in a lot of ways. We partnered with our factories to provide them with financial support to help them mitigate any risk they may have been fearful of due to material shortages, material hoarding (car companies) or labour shortages. I feel we have done a great job getting our products through manufacturing. Unfortunately the demand surge impacted most consumer goods categories worldwide. The demand wrecked the shipping industry. It has been a complicated mess for everyone. We are planning further out and with more precision than ever. We have our best line of products coming out ever, more people than ever are connecting with our sports, so it’s all good.
