Rise & Glide, Episode 4: John Hibbard
TRANSCRIPTION:
Maddi Leblanc: Hello, all of you awesome paddle enthusiasts! Thank you so much for coming back to the Rise and Glide podcast, hosted by myself, Maddi Leblanc, and my co host Holly Pye, founded also by the awesome paddling app called Paddle Logger. We're stoked this week to have our special guest John Hibbard on with us, but before we get into the episode I just always want to know, Holly, how the heck your week was and what you got up to, because it seemed like there was a lot of cool things going on in your neck of the woods this week!
Holly Pye: Yeah, hey Maddie, so this weekend was super cool. I didn't get much paddling in but I went to the Isle of Wight for a few days and I watched the start of the Fastnet! Which is an offshore sailing race. It's about 700 miles. It starts in the Isle of Wight in the UK, they go over to Fastnet Rock in Ireland or just off the coast of Ireland and then back to France. So it was really inspiring actually because we had quite good weather in the few days up to the start of the race when all the guys were training and preparing the boats. They had light winds and sunshine and it was great but the forecast for the day of the race was... or the day of the start of the race was awful. They had mega winds, pouring rain, it was horrendous and it was actually not the best weather for spectating but I couldn't really complain because they were the ones having to race in it. So I think there was several hundred boats that entered but over a hundred pulled out in the first few hours. Some of them were de mastered and there was injuries and that's not so cool. But there was loads of really bad things going on because the weather was awful and I've seen some videos of the weather on the boats. But it just it was really inspiring that these guys were just going out into it anyway, do you know what I mean? I don't know, just, and I'm now wow, I need to stop being so soft when I'm "oh, I need to go paddling, but it's a bit rainy". I'm like, oh gosh, what a wimp!
Maddi Leblanc: I think it's so funny because it's so true, right? Like us, like you paddling in the UK and me paddling in Canada, we're not in easy locations where the weather's always nice or it's kind of mild. It's sometimes like you do just have to suck it up to go out or else you're not going out. It's not happening!
Holly Pye: I know. I was, scrolling through Instagram a few days ago and how nice would it be to just - when it gets cold, just go somewhere warm and keep training. Yeah, but then I also think... that's kind of what toughens us up. There's lots of things that, that toughen us up, and the weather is just one of them. If we have it too easy, if training is really easy, and life is really easy, and the conditions are always really easy, then, if ever we get to a hard race, it's we just don't have that mental toughness. Yeah, I was thinking that actually with my own training. So when I'm racing I seem to do better in conditions that are considered quite difficult. I'm not fast, but I'm able to just put my head down and keep going and I really enjoy them. I get bored when it's like, everything's too nice and too easy when the water's flat. Don't get me wrong, I love a flat water, glassy paddle, when the board's just gliding along, when there's a nice sunrise or something. But if it's too easy, if it's perfect weather, no wind, nice flat water, you keep paddling and it's "okay something interesting needs to happen now". But I actually, yeah, training wise, I think I really enjoy it when things are a little bit harder, like the wind, an upwind, downwind training session or in the waves or doing some technical skills that I'm not very good at and I have to figure it out. I find that kind of the most rewarding or those the most rewarding sessions and that kind of just, yeah, it just was all one of those moments where everything just clicks and I was like, yeah, if we do have things too easy - we just get bored and then we don't do it. You have to have that kind of... it has to be just hard enough that you're progressing, but not so hard that it puts you off for life. These guys sailing, it it really hit home a little bit where that was brutal. There's no way there was like 40 knots of wind and it was torrential rain. It was really stormy. It was awful. There's no way you'd be able to paddle or even, wing or kite stuff or anything in that. It was just way so strong. But it just made me think yeah, if you do have things easy I think you end up not doing so well in the long run because you just, yeah, you don't have the mental toughness that it takes to then go out in those conditions when you need to. That's my speech of the day.
Maddi Leblanc: Honestly Holly, it's so true and watching your performance at the ICF distance race in Poland last year, that's where you can tell, like that kind of mentality, it pays off, right? I think more than half the pack did not finish like there were so many DNF's and you were up there like in the - you finished it, and I think it is those races where sure, maybe okay, you're not the fastest, but you're not the slowest, but the fact that you even finish a race that is that difficult is, that's a win all in itself and there's a lot of aspects to life and paddle boarding that are like that, right? Sometimes it's you gotta go through the hard stuff to get to the good and then the good is pretty dang good at the end of the day, you can really pat yourself on the back and be like, "wow, I did that". So I couldn't agree with you more.
Holly Pye: But it's so hard to remind ourselves of that when it's at the middle of January and it's dark and it's freezing cold and you really just want to do anything but go outside at six in the morning to go paddling before you go to work or something. Or go to and do a hard gym session or whatever it might be. Maybe I need to make it my lock screen or something make it a reminder that you can do hard things and it is worth it. Yeah, because you're so right, it makes the good things so much better.
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah, I have a little mini whiteboard in my room and the title on top of it says "motivation for the week" and then every week I just change what my motivation is. It keeps me I feel like on top of my goals, or at least the vision I have in mind, and even if I don't hit that for the week, that's okay I take it easy on myself I'm not beating myself up at the end of the day, but sometimes it's nice to have that intention when it is hard, when you do have those days where you're like, "oh my god" even right now in Welland, okay, it was thundering I'm not gonna go out in thunder, but it's still raining, and I don't hear the thunder anymore, so I'm like "Okay, I think I'm good to go for a paddle in a bit", but I'm also like, "do I not wait for the sun?" It's so easy to get caught in that mentality for sure!
Holly Pye: What's your motivation for the week this week? I'm interested!
Maddi Leblanc: My motivation for the week this week is to strengthen my core through breathing. I've been learning a lot about kind of the posture of my body and when I paddle.
I've been learning that my ribs flare out a bit. I have a condition in my low back that's called "lordosis", which a lot of people have, and there's a regular, kind of normal curvature that you can have in your back, but then it could be, like, super extended, and mine's just a little bit more on the super extended side. So it causes me to flare my ribs so this week, basically, after paddling I have to come home and do these breathing exercises to tuck my ribs back into a good position that allows me to breathe properly, which helps to strengthen my core, which is the foundation of my house! So that's my motivation for the week, is to just actually have a little bit of a better posture so that it strengthens everything else.
Holly Pye: Yeah, it's really interesting you mention that because I'm sat here right now with really bad posture. But that's exactly what my back injury was based on. That kind of hyperextension of the lower back. And I didn't realize, I honestly had no idea I was doing anything wrong. I thought I had, none of us are perfect, but I thought, particularly when I was paddling, that my posture was quite good. But it turns out I was just using totally the wrong muscles. I wasn't using my core at all and, it just got to the point where I was just in excruciating pain. So definitely keep up with that because you don't want to end up, honestly, the pain was so bad. I would do anything to anyone please. If anyone's listening to this podcast, which hopefully you are, strengthen your core! Do not do what I did and assume that just because you paddle a lot, your core is probably quite strong because it's not, it's simply, put very simply. So no, I'm glad to hear that we're both, we're probably both doing the same exercises!
Maddi Leblanc: I bet. I bet. Yeah. We should be comparing our rehab notes like our physio notes! Like "what are you doing!?"
Everyone laughing.
Holly Pye: But interestingly, I can feel the difference now with my paddling, which is really cool. It's taken a long time. Which I think is expected when you're just strengthening those little like muscles and trying to put it into practice as well. But I can definitely notice my, notice the extra kind of stability when I'm with every paddle stroke. And I feel like I'm much more efficient with my stroke. So it's... It's definitely worth it. Like you say, it's the foundations of your house.
Maddi Leblanc: It's so true, and I think actually, I remember we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago... you were saying, or I was saying that going back over the techniques and the basics again, after you're strengthening and your rehab through like injury, makes you feel like you're a brand new paddler again because you've taken what you used to do and you've remolded it into something else that essentially allows you to have a better performance. The first couple weeks I just really was like, "whoa, okay, this feels so weird I feel like, okay, here I am, like, pausing at the entry phase of the stroke to I have good power when then I pull through and then what does my exit look like", like, all these pieces has made me feel like, wow, I'm a new paddler all over again. It makes you feel humbled and starting from like new beginnings, but I think it's cool to feel that way again, and I'm sure we have a lot of people on the podcast that are new paddlers which is pretty rad. Honestly, if you are listening and you're brand new, just really focus in on your technique so you don't have to do what Holly and I did relearn it over again.
Holly Pye: And, yeah, we'll probably have to, I think it's an ever evolving thing, right? We'll probably always be working on our technique. I don't think there's anyone out there who's an expert, and even if they are, so many people run clinics for technique and and things like that. I've been to some before but we're all so different, we all have different heights, different strengths, different weaknesses, different arm lengths, different leg lengths hip widths. There's no one right way to stand on a board and paddle because... it's two people of the same height. One might have longer arms than the other one so they can do something slightly different. Or somebody might have really strong legs and they're able to use their legs more and yeah it's definitely, I think it's always going to be a work in progress, but you're so right. I think focusing on your technique is... Way it I was gonna say more important than fitness, but maybe not like it's just really important. I think for injury prevention, but also if people are wanting to get into racing It just makes you so much more efficient as well. Yeah
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah absolutely, and you know what? I think It's cool to segue that into our guests that we do have this week. John Hibbard of Red Paddle Co. because, if anybody out there is interested in buying a Red Paddle Co. board there's boards of all different widths, all different lengths and sizes for different purposes of paddling. But I think even on a Red Paddle Co recreational leisure board which I think is their most popular selling board just having a good technique can actually go a long way in terms of being able to paddle a further distance and really enjoy the most amount of time on the water with outputting the least amount of energy for like just making sure that you have a good time and you're not like usually paddling and then, after an hour you're like "oh, my arms are sore" but it's "Oh, hey, if you actually lean forward a little more", and as we mentioned, use your core, you could keep leisurely paddling for two hours or three hours and bring a picnic and have some fun!
Holly Pye: Yeah, if you want to get into touring or just exploring more you can go a bit further you can paddle further up the river than you've ever explored before or you know around the coast or wherever you might be you can go the full way around the lake rather than just A little bit a little bit longer, maybe not quite the full way around one of your lakes.
Okay, that would be a long way one of the Great Lakes in Canada. But, yeah, you can just go so much further with the same energy. And whether you're into racing like we are, whether you're into just chilled out social paddling, whether you're into touring, whatever it might be, you can just, you can do more with less, which is really cool. I think Red Paddle Co. have really honed in on that and focused on that market so well that they're now, I think, probably the leading SUP brand. But it was really cool chatting with John actually, and hearing all about how he got into developing stand up paddle boards.
Maddi Leblanc: Today we are so stoked to have on the show, John Hibbard from Red Paddle Co. He once was a competitive windsurfer, traveling all over the world, having a very successful athletic career, and also was around in the early stages of the boom, of stand up paddle boarding, when the industry started to take off and John saw a gap in the market and was able to fulfill it with his company Red Paddle Co. So John, we are so happy to have you here today and welcome to the show!
John Hibbard: Thanks, Maddie. Yeah. Thanks for inviting me along. It's great to be here.
Maddi Leblanc: Honestly, we're so stoked to chat with you today and to learn about not just Red Paddle Go, but everything about, the man behind it and how you came up with the company and how your innovation and creativity have just taken you to where you are today. I personally would love to know, like your beginnings of your windsurfing career, how you got into that and where you started off in the world of water recreation sports.
John Hibbard: Yeah, sure. I think a little bit like paddle boarding, a lot of water sports are pretty addictive. Especially if you grow up doing standard sort of team sports or field sports through school or whatever. For me anyway, I was looking for something a little bit different, something that my friends didn't do or that everyone didn't do and there was an element of excitement and, it's ultimately driven by a bit of a, a passion to do that, but also to have that kind of excitement. Exciting sport that just delivers you a different experience and wind surfing I think for me was probably a natural option in that - I lived on the south coast of the UK in the county of Devon, where we don't get a huge amount of surf. Obviously really wanted to get into surfing as well, but surf was pretty junky, but it always seemed to be windy but I started wind surfing in 1991, I think when the sport was already got involved quite a lot into a kind of fast paced adrenaline fuelled sort of sport. It'd gone past it meandering days on a lake, so I being, whatever I was then 13, 14, it really looked exciting and I think that's what I wanted to try and to achieve. So yeah, I just, I threw myself at it really. As soon as you start going, you just - I just got more and more addicted to it and wanted to spend all my time windsurfing and that's really, that's the basis of the start of my story. It was just an addiction to going out on the water. And I think I still have this with paddle boarding that particularly if you windsurf on the ocean, on the sea, you can windsurf out half mile or paddle, half mile out, mile offshore or whatever you're doing, you look back at the land, a completely different viewpoint that at that moment, pretty much you're the only person having that view. So I'm not a big lover of busy crowded places, for example. So where everyone's sharing the same experience, sometimes that's nice. You can see a favourite band or something at a concert, but otherwise it just feels a bit busy. Whereas out in the water you stand back or you fall in normally when surfing and you look, you get up back up and you look back at the land and you go, wow, no one else is seeing this view that I'm seeing right now. I remember that from a very young age being cool and captivating and that, that space that it gave you. So that was something that stuck with me actually from paddle boarding. Quite often I was thinking earlier today I was working at the desk and thinking, "Oh, so I'm just going to grab a board, paddle out and adjust".
I can picture the scene already. I was going to, I know what it's going to feel like. And I was going to look like, and it's, it's going to be nice and calm. There's no wind today. So that was part of my, part of the draw for me. So windsurfing, yeah, it's just an addiction. So I just had to find ways of fuelling that addiction. I often wonder if I hadn't got into windsurfing and if that kind of addictive personality if I would have ended up being addicted to something else not so healthy maybe. I don't think so. But it I needed obviously something to pull me along and to captivate me. Yeah, I windsurfed every single second I could. It wasn't that easy actually when I started to convince my parents to drive me to the shore or the river to, to go and go windsurfing. As soon as I could get a car, learn to drive, I saved up my money. It was about 300 pounds, which is not a huge amount buy a car and when I wasn't repairing the car, it was windsurfing basically. Each step I took, I got more and more engrossed in it to the point where I became an instructor. I got a job after university in a windsurfing shop and school, which again, just immersed me in the industry and that was really good from a paddle boarding industry perspective. Although we didn't know what paddle boarding was then, you start to learn, whether it's, retailers or brands, you start to network by just by default and that's how I picked up a lot of my sponsors. By early or late nineties, I was nine years after starting windsurfing I was basically on the cusp of turning professional, mostly because I just keep wanting to fulfill this or feed this passion, addiction.
I spent six, seven years competing on the international circuit. Which I did the wave sailing discipline. So that's wave sailing, so wave jumping, surfing, riding waves. Amazing. A great life. I don't make any money out of it, but it was it was I've seen some amazing places, I've windsurfed in incredible locations and conditions and yeah, to the point where being on the water, standing on a board felt like a comfortable pair of slippers when standing on the land, particularly in, more formal settings, really uncomfortable, actually. So I was really comfortable on the water, which is actually ultimately how I ended up setting up Red Paddle is that as I navigated towards the end of what the natural end of my windsurfing, professional windsurfing career, partly due to injury, partly due to the crash of 2008, the credit crunch, the financial crisis and struggling to get more sponsorship or maintain enough sponsorship. I thought, "Oh, I better get a job" but the idea of actually going and get a real job in inverted commas did scared me and I was like "I don't want to go and do that, I must find a job in in water sports" and by that point I was already paddle boarding. Yeah. That's a very quick potted history of how I ended up in, on a paddle board really I suppose.
I used paddle boarding for rehab as well because I had quite a bit of ankle injuries in windsurfing because your feet are in foot straps and obviously doing jumps and things, crashes are quite hard. So yeah. I never broke any burnings, but I had lots of ligament issues. So paddle boarding was like of being on a constant wobble board, basically on the water. But I hated going to the gym and I hate training for training's sake, so I'd rather go do something and paddle boarding was a great way of rehabbing those injuries.
Holly Pye: That's really interesting. What got you into competitive windsurfing rather than just going out and having a great time in local spots?
John Hibbard: Yeah, good question. I'm just really competitive I think. I've got a twin brother and he started windsurfing just a little bit after me. I then had a couple of school friends that were also windsurfers. We changed schools around the time we started windsurfing. So I met these two new, two guys, two new friends who were windsurfers and so I just wanted to be better than everybody else. So once I decided I was better than them, I'm like "I'm going to try and be better than everyone else now". I remember actually, it was, I don't remember the year exactly... but I was 17 or 18 I think, 18 and I went to the Youth National Championships, which were back in those days quite a large event in Weymouth and I was doing okay locally. So we used to have a little local racing scene in South Devon and I was fully finishing in the top three or four positions against, men or adults, as I would put them then, experienced windsurfers on a weekly basis "I'm pretty good at this" so I decided I'd go and race at the Youth Nationals and I think I came second to last because I didn't realise quite how fast you had to go and how, exact you had to be, so that, and the same thing happened with paddleboarding, when I first started racing in paddleboarding, I think, "I'm pretty quick" and then you go to your first event and you go, "Oh, no you're supposed to paddle like that, aren't you?".
Competition is great because it really pushes you. It pushes you to get better, and I think that's really what it is. I just try to get better all the time. If that's what you're trying to achieve, if you do that in isolation, then yeah, cool, you can be good in your own fish pond.
But if you get in the ocean... You realise you're not as good. So for me, it was just a way to test myself, challenge myself, and I guess score myself against everybody else or anybody else I was competing against. So yeah, I think that's probably how most people reason to get into it. I definitely didn't get into it thinking that I was going to get rich or anything, or even be world champion initially. That wasn't really my aim. Part of it was, kind of image, and I'm talking back days pre internet. So my monthly fix, literally a monthly fix of windsurfing was to go down to the local newsagents and pick up the windsurfing magazine that came out every month and you'd see all the bright, glossy pictures and all the sale numbers and sponsorship logos and you think, "Ah, that's what I want to do". That's cool. That looks cool. So it was partly driven by a stupidly competitive nature, but also partly from wanting to follow that sort of carnival that looks so, so glamorous, which in reality was way less glamorous, but no one needs to know that. It was yeah, on. I'm saying I got into paddleboarding very early on and I raced and I surf competitions for the same reasons, really.
Holly Pye: Why wave sailing competitions because for any listeners that aren't into windsurfing, is not my, one of my main sports so correct me if I'm wrong... but there's different types of windsurfing competitions, isn't there? So wave sailing, where you're doing different manoeuvres in and out of waves, jumps, that kind of thing and then slalom sailing where you're, around a course A to B, who can cross the finish line first. I guess with wave sailing it's a bit more subjective, like surfing competitions, you've got people judging you rather than who can cross the finish line first. Did that always work well for you or were there any moments where felt like unfairly judged or anything?
John Hibbard: I think the reason why I ended up in wave sailing is it's for me, it was always a progression. You couldn't enter a wave sailing competition when you weren't good enough, you'd just get cleaned up on the beach. So racing is your first place to go, it's flat water generally, or sometimes lighter winds and you didn't, you needed less specialist equipment to start it. So that was a natural progression, partly natural progression and also, so therefore, as you got better, I wanted to go out in more extreme conditions and I wanted to push the technique side of my abilities more, and the other one, I was just sucked at racing, basically. I was tactically, wind shifts and all that sort of stuff, and rules, I'm not a great follower of rules racing rules, I'm like, "what? what do you mean you can't do that?" whereas wave sailing is way more expressive as long as you stayed in a certain area where the judges could see you, pretty much there are no rules you had a certain time. Yeah, it was mostly, it was partly down to natural progression of ability, but down to the fact that I sucked at racing, basically, and it just looked cooler and to go and train for racing, you actually have to go and spend a lot of time on a bike or in a gym, getting strength and stronger actually, training for wavesetting, what you really need to do was go windsurfing. It seemed to tick all the boxes to me.
Holly Pye: That's cool. It's something really new to me. I'm going wing foil racing at the weekend for the first time and I'm having to suddenly learn all of these rules which I've never paid any attention to whatsoever. My boyfriend's a sailor and he's trying to explain them all and I'm just like "I've got no idea". I can't imagine what it was like to do more regularly!
John Hibbard: Yeah, it's fun, it's good, but I'd say that opening a source of finance, racing equipment when you've got better, better at it, you need to borrow more equipment. Whereas wave sailing you could probably get away with a little bit less equipment so I could afford it a little bit easier. I think also I do remember the first time ever doing a jump on a windsurfing board and thinking and I was in the middle of a racing season at that time and I remember thinking, "so that's it, I'm done I'm giving up this racing luck". I actually sold all my racing kit within a couple of months and bought a wave kit because I remember just the flying sensation through the air. I thought, "this is nuts". So yeah, it's just an amazing journey to go on really when you're young and fit and able and plenty of time on your hands and you can drop anything that you're doing to go hunt for some wind or the wind comes up. I spent my whole life looking out the window, looking for wind "is it windy?" I think I'm trying to convince yourself "yeah, it's definitely windy enough, yeah". That addiction actually has, it has some side effects, like all addictions, you missed a lot of things you should have been doing in life because you canceled them because you wanted to go windsurfing, which I almost missed my sister's wedding for that. It was in Denmark and I was like, "I'll just stay a couple of days longer cause the contest is finished". But my mom was calling me and going, "You are coming home, right?" Yep, yeah, definitely!
Maddi Leblanc: I think that's so cool, though. It it speaks to how passionate you are, too, as well, about the sport and I think feeding what I would consider definitely a healthy addiction. I think, Holly, you can probably relate, too, eh? Like... the way that progression speaks to us as athletes and always striving to better ourselves and even when you get to that professional level probably feeling like "nope, I can still progress and i'm always learning" and i'm just curious for you like what does that progression look like now? What's your definition of development or are you striving to progress your company and the products you make or is it still more like "I want to go out on the water and I want to learn this or do that".
John Hibbard: Yeah, I think as I developed through windsurfing, actually to maintain a living, to make a living out of windsurfing, you either had to be the absolute best of the best in the world, literally, or you had to be good at running yourself as a business. So you had to learn how to do marketing, basically market yourself. You had to present yourself, you had to do your own accounts and all those sort of things. You didn't afford anyone else to help you. You had to do your own fitness training, all those sort of things. So as I entered into business world, really, it was, I always joke, just like swapping the board for the boardroom. It's actually a very similar style in my mind, or at least the way I used to do it... you switch from promoting yourself to promoting a product. And that doesn't stop there so as Red Paddle Co has grown and we've become a global brand and we sell in 50 markets around the world and tens of thousands of products you can't stray too far away from those rudimentary things. 40 people working here at the head office, but it doesn't mean that, you don't you stop thinking about all of those key elements. You might not do them all. My former chairman was very good at telling me to stop doing and start directing. There's no prizes for doing everything. Everyone knows you can do everything. That's how you got it to where you got it. You can't be the master of everything. So as we've evolved as a business and the company yeah, I think you still your eyes are still on the same price. You're still trying to innovate and innovation isn't just product, innovation is marketing and messaging service. You're always trying to innovate what you do. You're always trying to find new ways, better ways to do it, whether that's trying to save costs because that's important in a business or you're trying to find a new market. I don't think it really changes. And I go back to my windsurfing is exactly the same I'm trying to find a new sponsor or more time to do something or a different location, or a way of getting more marketing or raising more awareness of a sponsor. It's exactly the same. So it was a really good grounding. I don't think I knew at the time, but it's a really good grounding in business.
Holly Pye: That's really cool and when was it that you were competing in wind surfing? So what year did you finish retire?
John Hibbard: I finished officially in 2008 because I was British Champion in 2007 and I was second in 2008. So they always joke that there was a trend emerging and it was a downward trend so maybe I should stop. Actually I was very close to being the British Champion again in 2008 but I missed it by a couple of heats. So yeah I transitioned out then but I'd already started working in the paddleboard industry. I think I first paddled in 2006 and... was involved in some early promotion of the sport through my windsurfing sponsor but also just off my own back I set up a website called standuppaddlesurf.co.uk which has long since gone, I closed it down, I got too busy basically with Red but it was the first website in the UK. So I was already looking for a transition, I think, at that point, or another string to my bow. So yeah, I officially finished competing in the end of 2008. But by that point I was well immersed in setting up Red
Holly Pye: Ah, so what made you, at what point did you decide that Red was going to evolve and grow? Was that soon after you first stepped on a paddle board, or had you been paddle boarding for quite some time before the idea?
John Hibbard: Yeah, so I first went on 2006, I think by and I remember my windsurfing mates, competitors, where they are turning up in the UK with this huge board on the roof of my van "What the hell are you doing? What is that?" No, it's paddleboarding. It's the latest thing there and go on then we watch, nobody wanted to do it actually. So very hard to get anyone to go paddling in the first year, which is funny to look back at it now. But by the end of 2007, I think I had a lot more interest. I'd started thinking about commercial opportunities and one thing that struck me immediately, even without the commercial brain on it was that if I took I had a couple of boards if I take anybody else paddling they all loved it. It was brilliant, but I couldn't convince them to buy one whether for me or not you know, it was they're massive huge heavy. I've got a roof ragged and I can't store it anywhere and unless they were windsurfers from 20 years ago and windsurfing boards with a similar size. They just couldn't comprehend how they were ever going to live and exist with this product, but absolutely hands down, everybody loved it. No one said to me that's a bit boring because I looked at it first time I thought "that looks most boring dull sport ever why would anyone want to do that?" and I got convinced to have a go and I went, "ah, yeah, okay. It's different. I get it". It starts to fire different emotions or different feelings in you and you paddle up a river that you've never been up and wind you out the river or catch a small wave rather than sitting there trying to, smash into it with your arms on a surfboard.
You start to think "yeah, okay, I get it". Start to get it, but you have to do it. Or, particularly back then, you had to do it before you really understood it, because you'd never seen anyone else do it. I think it's once I did, once I was doing that and letting people go and paddling, I realised that was, there must be a problem to solve, and I suppose I'm a problem solver as well. I've got to solve this problem, because it's really annoying that I like this and I've only got one board, so I can only go paddling with two people. But if I could get more people to buy more boards, then we could create something. And I my business brain just started to start to fire off really and that's really what just one thing led to another, and then eventually you end up realizing you're working seven days a week trying to grow something that you never actually planned of doing in the first place. It seems like quite a big task, to get the, I go from getting the idea to designing and producing this product and selling it, marketing it as well.
Holly Pye: It seems like quite a big task, to go from getting the idea to designing and producing this product and selling it, marketing it as well. That's a lot of hats and a massive task. Did you find it quite daunting or how did you get into it?
John Hibbard: Not really daunting, but what I was fortunate, in that I was finishing at a natural end of my windsurfing, I was happy to draw a line at a natural end. So I had a need to do something and also an absolute clear, defined desire that I wasn't going to go and get a quote unquote "normal job", so I thought... starting Red was a good way of combining my passions and my passion for business. So no, I don't think it's daunting. I do remember writing out the initial sort of plan, brand plan and everything and just thinking, "wow, this is this is an opportunity". I don't think you get many opportunities like that in life where you write something down and go, "wow, I can write the future here. I can really see an opportunity to do it". But at the time you don't think, "oh, but now I've got to go and do all the work". You just start going and you just start working and I actually didn't windsurf for two and a half years not because I was giving up. I didn't have time! It didn't even cross my mind because I was so busy on this new chapter of my life that almost that previous passion been put on pause and I didn't notice. So I don't know, I don't think you sit there and go "right now I need to do this, I need to do design and I need to then talk about the legal side and trademarks and patents and wholesale and shipping and logistics". You don't think about any of those things you just go from one thing to another before you realise it, you become immersed in it so I mean I am a sample of one, I've not done it before or since so that's how I did it first time round, I may do it differently second time round but, it's an amazing journey to go on starting a company and business and a brand.
I was very lucky to start it in collaboration with my windsurfing sales sponsor, which is a company called Tushingham sales. So I had already some font of knowledge I could tap into from the, from their windsurfing experience. So I, again was lucky. It's probably more clever, fortunate move in that way. Lucky that I could convince them maybe, but then again, it's all about convincing them to come on the journey with you. You've got to find those shortcuts and that was a massive shortcut for me. I didn't have to go and find a warehouse. I didn't have to go and find a shipping agent. They already had one. I like to think that's just clever thinking. Otherwise you don't make, always up for making my life easier. I'm never trying to make my life more difficult and if you start a business up, you do want to try and find every single opportunity to make your life easier because there's a lot to do, as you say, and you're not an expert in any of it. It's a long winded answer as always to your question. It wasn't daunting. It was extremely exciting. Quite periods of anxiety through it. I don't want to fail. I think that was my biggest issue or my biggest concern was fear of failure and not being seen as, being judged "Oh hey, that guy, he'd set the thing up. It didn't work, did it?" But that drives you on. So the anxiety drives you on to not fail. For me, anyway, I had so many people tell me, "what are you doing that for? It's never going to work" and yeah, I hate being told "no", or actually I love being told no, because it just fires me up, and I've had to learn over the years to take feedback better immediately.
But when people are trying to pour cold water on your dreams or on your vision that you've come up with, then rather than get all aggressive or depressed about it, I just go I'll show you. There was actually one case when I think it was about 2012 so we'd been going for a few years, but the first couple of years of Red were very small. We sold less than 50 boards. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't going anywhere actually and as Roger Tushington would tell me, as a chap that owned Tushing at the time would tell me, he says "it's not booming, is it, John?" Which is equivalent of someone saying no to me. I was just like, "no, but it will be". But anyway, I was in a trade show in Germany in 2012 with Red and a very famous brand, a chap who worked for them, he didn't run it, but he worked for them. He came up to me and he shook my hand because I'd managed somehow to blag the front page of the show newspaper that they produce every day... and he came up, shook my hand and said "I just want to say congratulations because you've done the hardest thing, you've set up a brand" and all I remember thinking in my head was, "now that's the easiest thing". Set up a logo and, make some product to put on a trade show. That's easy. The hard thing is keeping it going because you've done the hard work, but I would stop now because inflatables are never going to take off. "What are you wasting your time for?" and I didn't, I could never, to this day, I have no idea why he said that to me. Either he said it to me because they were working on something and he was really annoyed that we were slightly ahead of the curve. I probably bet on the second one, probably because the following year, I went back to the trade show I actually was a day late getting there, I had a distributor by that point who had set it up and I was arriving, and I turned up and I walked into the show and the first voice I heard was his voice over the loud hailer, the loud speaker system in the hall, because there was a demo pool that you get at these trade shows, and he was talking about this brand's. I won't mention this brand's, latest range of inflatable paddle boards... and I went straight to the pool and I looked up at the stage where he was on, he looked at me and he clocked me and then just turned away. I remember that to this day, thinking, "ah, definitely the reason why he was telling me a year before is because they wanted to do it and he was annoyed that we were already doing it". But that was the thing that spurred me on more than anything in the world was him telling me that. I mean he probably tell still fires me up when some you, I tell that story 'cause I'm thinking, wow. Who are you to tell me what I've done and what I haven't done and what I can and can't do. Yeah, I don't take no for an answer. And yeah, that really spurred me on.
Maddi Leblanc: I think it really shows too. Red Paddle Co, you guys are pretty much the number one, at least in North America. Speaking from Canada over here. You guys are like the number one inflatable paddleboard company that sells here. So I think that's quite phenomenal to look at the trends that you learned from your athletic career and successful behaviors to get you a really good career to now transitioning to your company. That sells really well, like the product does speak for itself I work at a store here in Toronto called "Surf the Greats" and shout out we sell Red Paddle Co and everyone loves them here in Toronto. They're super dynamic boards, you can store them in your a condo, an apartment it's hard for people to have a hard board here just simply because of storage. It's not really possible in such a crammed city, but can you tell us a bit about some of your boards? Like maybe what's your favorite model that you've created?
John Hibbard: I'll actually tell you a little bit about you mentioned there, they sell well they, they pack down small and actually that's the thing where we started when I started the business and the brand, I really was quite clear on the fact that it had to be as I classed it as "authentic". Everything, there were a few, a couple of inflatable brands available or boards available at the time and one reason it spurred me on to make Red was that, or start Red, was that they were really bad experiences. They were pretty average experiences actually. You stand on it, it bent in the middle, you had wet feet, it didn't go in a straight line. It was a great idea, badly executed is the way I'd normally explain it. And so I, I set about with this mission saying that I believe that riding an inflatable board shouldn't be a compromise. It should be an authentic experience and that still stands true today. We might not be competing quite as we were against hardboards, but we are competing against much more sort of average or run of the mill basic entry level product before we go any further. I think it's great to have entry level product. I think every good successful sport activity in the world has different tiers of product you've got to decide where you want to go in that and I never wanted to be the bottom of the bottom, it's what we call race to the bottom. You're just always competing on price and you just strip it out of quality components because you've got to get it cheaper and cheaper, which in a water sport ultimately puts you in an unsafe position, and I'm a big believer in making things safe. I love a bit of risk. I love a bit of calculated risk and excitement and adrenaline and all those sort of things. But yeah even the craziest extreme sports guys is taking a calculated risk. They're not stupid. They're not putting themselves in a position they know they can't get out of. I look at paddle boarding very much the same way. I wanted to get people on that water, have that experience of looking back at the land and going, "wow, I'm the only person having this" but having a hundred percent confidence with the products under their feet. So yes, you can deflate our boards and put it in a bag just like you can every single inflatable board in the world. But. I'm 100% convinced that when I can stand behind the product, we know how it's made. We designed the building, build process, we designed the materials. All component parts that come with, for example, the pump allows you to get it to a high enough pressure. So it is a better experience. It's a safer experience. It's a more enjoyable experience. You can transport it easier, all those sort of things. So yeah, our range of boards is diverse, like everybody's, but everything is built for purpose. And a simple way to say is we start with our why. Why are we doing this? So why do we do the brand? It's all about believing that you can deliver an authentic, non compromising experience. Why do we make a certain board size? Because actually it fits the gap for somebody. It delivers something that we think that our customers are after or paddle boarders are after. So one of our most popular boards is a Voyager board, which is a touring board, which is something that the sport has progressed into, and we have a twin fin system and a V hole system on that. But it's because we know we've spent hours paddling with other people and other customers. I go where are you struggling? Okay, you're struggling to keep the board in a straight line because the beauty of paddleboarding, for example, is you don't have to be a technical expert to have a great time. So anything that helps you keep that board in a straight line be, keep efficiency. We'll design around that. So that's why the Voyagers for us is such a popular touring product because you can jump on it, it actually works for you. You don't need a high level of skill. If you have a high level of skill, it's still really good as well.
So yeah, Voyager for me, 13. 2 Voyager is one of our most popular products. It's one of my favourite boards. If you're asking about, other boards, it's trying to solve those problems. So our compact board, we have a patent on a compact board. Plenty of people try and copy it. We have plenty of conversation with those guys. But the compacts patented compacts setup is great because again, it just makes you be able to take a paddle board with you into other locations or on trips or in store in a different way it packs down to half the size So it's just trying to find these innovative steps you can make to solve a few of those issues. So then when you come to a retail store, customer comes in and says "i'm looking for a paddle board" you can actually say, actually I've got a really good solution for you here because I don't think anyone ever walked into a shop and say, you might tell me I'm wrong Maddi but goes, "I'm looking for an inflatable paddleboard because I can't store one anywhere". They just thought, I want to get to paddle boarding and say, and then you start to find out what their constraints are or what their life is like, and you would find a thing that fits. For sure our boards aren't going to be suited to everybody, for every application, but what we do try and do is solve those key issues for people but do it in a way that we are 100 confident the product is not going to fall apart and the paddleboard world has been riddled with recalls in the last two years because brands have jumped on a bandwagon. They've never been to their factory, they've never, they don't understand the technical details behind it and it's put a lot of people in harm's way which is unfortunate and really disappointing because that's not how I view the sport. It needs to be looked after and so we spend a huge amount of time and money and effort making sure the product lasts and is really good and doesn't fail. So that's a big part of what we do.
Maddi Leblanc: I think that is so important, especially when it comes to the market of inflatable paddle boards. I saw on a Facebook forum the other day in a paddling group, it was a joke, but not joke. They were on I want to say it was definitely a Costco paddle board... like maybe body glove or something like that, but it was a bad board and they were on it andHhalfway through their paddle, the middle of the deck was starting to fall apart the deck pad was peeling off, and they were actually worried about water getting onto it, and they asked someone about a warranty, and then someone joked saying, "yeah if you can get the board back to land" and I agree with having good integrity and creating a product that is sustainable and works for people. I think you're right, a lot of companies out there that exist in this market and in this industry are trying to cut those corners and just create a product that's the cheapest cost, but I think where's that balance of what is a good product and what will last you a really long time as well and is good quality I think definitely, I mean I'm super biased, but Red Paddle Co fits in that category. I truly believe.
John Hibbard: I like what you said earlier. I always compare it to bikes. You can go to a bike store or like you say, a Costco style, big box store and you buy yourself a bike and you can jump on that bike and you can have some great experiences and you can get the wind in your hair and you can ride the trails. If that's all you want to do, basic, occasional use, fine, great. It does what it does, what it says, and you need those products but equally quite a lot of people jump on and realize the escapism and the experience it gives you and then they start to think about what does this product say about me or how does this reflect? How am I reflected in this brand and what it doesn't. And same like bikes, you end up going on some trails and see some people on some better bikes or some faster bikes or easier pedaling bikes or whatever it is. They seem to be having a better time. So the reason to buy products exactly as you say, is to get a higher technical quality, but it's equally is to think, "no, I'd be proud to ride that bike", or in this case a board, do I look at that business and that brand? Because now I'm a paddle boarder and I'm really into it. I want my products to reflect what I do. And we all do it, whether it's the car we drive, the phone we use, the clothes we wear, it's okay to make choice and I think that's the thing sometimes people get a little bit... It's all stressed over what choice is the right choice. It's whatever is right for you. But we will try and we just try and put across a really passionate position. Our customers come back to us and say that we love you. We trust you is the kind of words we get back and that's really what we're trying to achieve is something that people are proud to own, has value, secondhand value as well as new value. You can sell it on and trade up and upgrade in your adventure as you go. So I think that's as much a part of it as the technical details of it is. Do I believe in this business? Do I believe in the brand? And, as I say, whether it's a water bottle, a phone, a computer, we will do it, whether we know it or not yeah.
Maddi Leblanc: Absolutely. And I guess you guys were founded in 2008 and we're now in 2023. So over 10 years in the business, I think that's a pretty remarkable as well. What's one of the coolest things that has happened to Red Paddle Co. Over the past 10 years? What would you say is something you guys are really proud of?
John Hibbard: 15th summer now. What are the coolest things? I think there's a few things. One is actually. Still being here. I know when we started it, I had no real kind of gauge on how long this would last for or what would happen. It's just got on this mission. So that's great. Obviously still going and still growing and being very well received.
The second thing that always makes me smile and feel good inside is that we've, we employ lots of people both here in our head office, but also we have, we, we have contributed to loads of people's livelihoods, To an extent a little bit Maddi every time you sell a board, you're helping us, but we're helping you and it's it all sort of fuels that so we're part of that community and we're in the sport for the right reasons. We weren't jumping on a bandwagon so I feel like we've helped grow the sport. That's another really cool thing that's happened you know, we were part of that story from pretty much the beginning maybe a year or so behind the initial original boards that are on the market, we would definitely be leading that conversation. We definitely had a huge influence in turning the sport mass market due to the inflatable technology and a lot of what we've done over the years, yeah, it gets copied. It gets copied all the time and the easiest way I explain that is like a chocolate cake. You can give me an ingredient for some chocolate cake and you give a Michelin star chef the same ingredients. His cake is going to be way better than my cake because I'm a rubbish chef. So when we get copied, but you've been copied it's the same as yours. No. It's not the same. It might look the same, i.e. it's inflatable or it's a bag with a zip in a certain way, but I guarantee you it's not made the same way as what we've done.
So that's cool. I'm up with that. The other cool thing is I think some of our innovation is I love the fact that we've achieved what we tried to set out. So for example, I mentioned our compact board and actually having a board that packs down to half the size. Nobody was doing that before we did it. And then surprise, surprise, quite a few people are trying to do it now. That's not because they came up with the idea in isolation. It's because they copied, but so we have some, we've had some really great innovations along the way. Titan pump, the two chamber pump that we have. So it's amazing because I am not, I'm have amazing ideas. I was talking myself up a bit too much. I like me coming up with ideas. I'm not very, I'm not a technical designer. Hence why we have a design team, but I love concepts and coming up with stuff. I've got notebooks full of sketches that are really bad, really drawn, but it's great to have a team that can take those ideas and turn 'em into a real product. And to see that, see your idea there in physical form and then being, reviewed and liked and everything is really cool. Yeah, there's loads of things, but part of the fun, I think there's not just one thing
Holly Pye: I'm really interested to ask, why the name Red? Where does the the color and the name red, where does that come from?
John Hibbard: I think anyone who's set a company up is, will probably agree. It's very hard to come up with a name. I remember in the windsurfing days we had Tushingham sails and it was the agreement we had in, in house within the team was that you can't criticize a name unless you've got a better one or a different one. And it's so hard to come up with a brand name particularly because everything I came up with always had another meaning somewhere. In a different language or different sector the community or something and say that a connotation that you didn't want to attach to your product. So yeah, I got to the point where I knew I wanted to call it paddle Company or paddle co something paddle co just couldn't get that first word, sorted. We had lots of options. Actually, it wasn't until I went and visited a friend of mine who's a graphic designer. I don't know how global Danger Mouse is, but Danger Mouse, the cartoon which I grew up as a kid, it's probably in its first iteration. It's had various other ones. Anyway, my friend was a Danger Mouse animator. But he'd finished was basically being an artist, a surf artist, not just, a very good one. And I said, "Steve, you've got to help me come up with a name because I'm struggling, so I'm coming up to your house tomorrow". He lives on the north coast of Devon, where we live here, so he has a little artist studio overlooking the beach.
We spent whole days drawing various really bad brand names, and the sun went down, the sky went red, and I just flippantly went I'll just call it Red Paddle Co. That sounds quite good, actually and he drew it on his iPad, but he drew it in white and put a red square around it and I went, "that's even cooler because he hadn't written the word red in red". And we had a long winded discussion about all those things. But yeah, it came from that, which is not an amazingly glamorous story. But then as you drive home and think about it, you go, "Hang on, so red doesn't really mean anything anywhere. It's the most winningest colour. Teams that are red win more". That's a weird statistic, supposedly. And yeah, it's a colour, but if you don't write it in the colour, you don't think of it as the colour. I don't know if you can, I don't know why we're talking, we've got my logos behind me, but it's you don't look at the word red written in white and think of the colour red, I don't think. Yeah, so all those things really, but it was a quick... Not a quick thing. It was a fairly quick thing. I think isn't it like the most successful songs in history were written in the shortest amount of time? Because they just fit, it just worked, and it just fitted, and didn't spend hours crafting it. We spent hours crafting a thousand other names. We spent about five minutes crafting Red. And then Red Paddle CO on the top, yep. That's... That's pretty much how it happened.
Holly Pye: That's really cool. And Red colours and, blew the sea.
John Hibbard: Yeah. And also the whole point of the way we drew it initially was that red in a square after and my entrepreneurial brain was firing on my two hour drive home thinking, all right, I'll do Red Paddle Co. And then I can do red, whatever code red disco and read that code. And I can see this family tree cascading down from this, into this red square. Fact is I got extremely busy doing Paddle board, so never really did anything else. We do Red Original now, which is our accessory range of change robes and and high spec cool bags and all this stuff, which is really popular and picking up a pace. But yeah, that's also one of the things that you could extend it to other things. You just don't have time to do that. There's only so many hours in a day.
Holly Pye: Yeah.
John Hibbard: And I think you should stay close to your roots as well.
Holly Pye: Yeah, for sure. And you do it so well that sometimes it can just get really diluted if you do, if you try and do everything, with the same number of hours, then you just, you can't do anything to that extent. Going right back to the start, in those early days of paddling. You did a few competitions, you were maybe paddling, were you paddling more then do you think than now or in more in a kind of competitive sense? How was that?
John Hibbard: Yeah, probably. I, yeah, I think I was the first UK racing champion in 2008 or 2009, I can't remember, and I did, yeah, a lot of the surf contests I was on, I did what is now the APP tour, I did that for a year doing some surf contests. But I realized that I was just rinsing, repeating my windsurfing career. And I thought, "I've done this. I didn't win, why am I doing it again?" So yeah, I used to probably, I definitely paddled more in those times. I did a few really long distance races. So I did the divisors to Westminster kayak race, which if anyone who doesn't live in the UK, the divisors is towards the Western side of the UK and Westminster is in London. So it's 126 miles along a river network or canal network. And I convinced the organizer to let me in on that. So I took a while to train up for that. I didn't know anybody had paddled more than five miles at that point spent a winter training for that. I did some, I did the first 11 cities event that Anne Marie Reichmann set up, and I did a few, I did Cape Cod Bake Challenge over in in Boston. I used to paddle a hell of a lot. But then that was before I got married and before I had a child or a son. Things like that get in your way a little bit, and also before Red took off and I was travelling a lot, definitely, those early years I paddled a lot, but I think you have to, I think if you're designing product and coming up with ideas you need to be on the water. I still paddle, I paddled yesterday morning. We paddle every Wednesday 7:30 we always team paddle, so we will go for a paddle. I'll be probably out tonight. Probably go paddling as often, I probably just don't paddle as long, I'd say.
Maddi Leblanc: That's amazing, and are you going to hop on the Voyager tonight, if you go?
John Hibbard: Actually, I've got a compact. I was out on the compact S and it's still in the back of my car, so I'll probably just use that because it's it's there ready to go.
Maddi Leblanc: That's awesome. I personally, I do love the compact board. I think it's incredible. I think my favorite thing is when we get to show it off in the shop, like how amazed people are at like, "whoa, there's a paddle board in there". And I'm like, "yeah, I'm not joking. It's this small, but yeah, it fits. I swear there's a board in there". Holly, do you have any other questions that you want to ask John?
Holly Pye: I'm trying to think. I think I have loads of questions, but I think we've covered a lot of things. I think I'm excited to hear what's next. You must have some new ideas in store from your, all of your ideas notebooks. What, have you got some new designs in the kind of process, in the works for Reds and things?
John Hibbard: We're always working probably two years ahead. So we're working on 2025 and then 2026 as well. So it takes time to plan all that out, especially if you want to register any of the designs or protect anything. So we, we work a long way in advance. So yeah we're working on a bunch of stuff. I can't tell you because, but the main theme on anything we do as a brand is trying to make things easier. So make it easier to pump your board up, make it easier to transport your board, easier to choose which one to buy. For example, is it a minefield out there? Is it to try and decide that? So trying to refine what we're doing. So it just makes it easier because some people love choosing new products and dreaming about it for months on end, but other people just want to jump in and use it and know it's the right thing.
So we're all about ease of use maximizing the technology, the technical advantage or the material advantages that we say, so what else can we do with the drop stitch material? We've got a really exciting project around that, which I definitely can't tell you about, but yeah, how do we take that onto the next stage? So it, there's so much going on, it would take forever to tell you what we're doing, but it is ease of use. I think that's the most important thing.
Holly Pye: Awesome, we're really excited to see that come to life. And if, so a lot of our listeners are either new paddlers or people trying to paddle more and they're improving, getting better and better. Do you have any advice for those paddlers who are just getting into it, they might be paddling mainly in social groups or a little bit on their own on the coast, what kind of advice would you give them, whether they have a Red Paddle Co board or a different brand, what would make life easier for them?
John Hibbard: There's no replacement for practice, isn't it? And I think that's the best thing about paddleboarding is it doesn't feel like practice. do it more. The more you can do it. The 10, 000 hour thing, if you do it enough, you become expert. I think in paddle boarding, you need a lot less than 10,000 hours to become very proficient at it. I would encourage people to not, or to focus on locations, go to the, go to interesting places. Don't just go to the same old place, be careful, make sure you understand the location and the safety around that and educate yourself on those sorts of things and also the equipment you're using, but go and explore because that's the best thing about paddleboarding, particularly inflatable boards. Chuck it in the back of the car. Even if you think you're never going to go anywhere near any water because you'll cross a bridge or you'll look down a road and go, "Oh, I could probably paddle there and go for a paddle" if it's safe and it's the right location. And that is, that's the beauty for me of paddle boarding is you could do it almost anywhere within reason. And you can see some amazing things from the water. So I would just encourage people to paddle more. No one ever said, I wish I worked more and paddled less. That and go out more often because you just learn so much about your board and don't be scared to fall in. So dress for falling in. I always say dress for getting wet. And this is absolutely middle of Baltic winter. But still dress to get wet. But don't try and get wet is my message there. But yeah, just. Just get in, just jump in, get involved, because I think it's the, it's such a great sport. And it's so accessible.
Holly Pye: It's brilliant. Oh, thanks for sharing that. I'm sure that would be really helpful. Thanks so much for joining us today. It's been awesome to hear all about you as an athlete in windsurfing and then in paddleboarding, as well as how you developed Red Paddle Co and how all of the boards have come to life and what's, what the plans are for the future.
So where can people find Red Paddle Co boards and is there anywhere online that they can look at the whole range?
John Hibbard: Yeah, it's where we have over a thousand retailers around the world. So if you're in your local country just Google Red Paddle Co. I'm pretty sure we're going to come up top of the list or one of our retailers will come up. Obviously our website's got all of those, all the retailers listed and you have to look at all the products on there. So yeah, just. Just the classic search for Red Paddle Co. online and pretty sure you're going to find us. And you'll find one of our great retailers. And we are, we're a big supporter of retailers. We like having people. Right there, you can give the advice, make sure you've got the right board, because you see a lot of people with the wrong board. Who have bought it from an online vendor or something, or a non specialist vendor. Yeah, just search for us, you'll find us, and we'll be happy to help. We've got a CX team, a customer experience team, both in North America and also in Europe and in Australia, who will jump on an email or a call with you and help you out, point you in the right direction for retail.
Holly Pye: Amazing, thanks for that. Really appreciate it. So yeah, thanks for joining us today and we'll send everyone your way when they're in the market for a new inflatable. And yeah, thanks guys. We'll chat again soon.
Maddi Leblanc: Thank you so much, John!
Holly Pye: Thanks so much for staying tuned and listening to this episode with John Hibbard. We really enjoyed recording it so we hope that you like listening to it too. Please leave us a five star rating and follow Rise and Glide to stay tuned for next week's episode which we already can't wait to share. In the meantime, have a great week and I hope that you get out on the water as much as you can.
Maddi Leblanc: Rise & Glide is brought to you by the team behind Paddle Logger. Get more from your paddling with the Paddle Logger app. Find it on the Apple App Store today.
