Carving Out a Niche

Roberta Rodger is a fiery 24-year-old with a penchant for mad half pipes and backcountry powder. She's also a calculating businesswoman, plotting ambitious sales forecasts and innovative marketing ploys. But, most notably, Rodger is a woman scorned -- and she's vowed never to be disregarded again.

During the first five years of her career as a professional snowboarder, Rodger competed on the Canadian National Halfpipe team, in Sims World Snowboarding Championships, and on the pro team for Burton Snowboards. She advanced rapidly and collected accolades, but Rodger says that at every stop, she was the token female -- the solitary woman riding through an avalanche of swagger and strut.

At Burton, she couldn't win. The women's board she signed on to promote was too pliable and lightweight to withstand her technical tricks and daredevil jumps. So Rodger commandeered a stiffer man's board, scraped off the graphics, and pasted on Burton's girlie decals. She was neither one of the guys nor your average female rider. And she felt dissed.

"Snowboarding is a male-dominated sport -- on the slopes, in the magazines, and in the management of every snowboard company," says Rodger, a native of North Vancouver, Canada. "There were plenty of women promoting the sport, but no one was giving us the attention that we felt we deserved. Women products were an afterthought that got no time, money, or marketing."

That was until August 2000, when fellow snowboarder Leslee Olson, 23, called Rodger with a business idea: a snowboard company built for women, by women who wanted to infuse the sport with equality and innovation. Within two months, Olson had enticed Rodger, along with fellow snowboarding professionals Cara Beth Burnside, Janna Meyen, and Tomo Yamakoshi, to launch an entrepreneurial venture with no predecessors, no competitors, and no proven market.

Today, Chorus Snowboards is making its debut in 150 retail outlets around the world. Within the first three months of its first season, Chorus had sold more than 5,000 snowboards to skeptical retailers who had never stocked products geared entirely toward women. Though it's too early to call this season an economic success, the women of Chorus are smiling.

"We've created a voice for women in this industry," Rodger says. "That's just cool, you know?"

Snow Job

Shortly after assembling her team of cofounders last year, Leslee Olson scheduled a meeting with Junki Yoshida, the Portland, Oregon-based owner of Millenium Three and MLY snowboard brands. An angel investor of sorts for the extreme-sports community, Yoshida saw promise in Olson's amateur business pitch, so he phoned a local marketer, Georell Bracelin, to gauge her interest.

"Yoshida called me and said, 'If you're interested in this idea, investigate the market, put together some numbers, write a business plan, and tell me whether it's feasible. And if it is feasible, are you interested in a job?' " says Bracelin, former director of marketing for Morrow snowboards. "I said yes."

Bracelin encountered problems immediately. A hunt for the demographics and psychographics of Chorus's potential market turned up a startling fact: There were none. A Board-Trac Snowboarding report assembled by the Ponzi Group suggested that 30% of the nation's 4.5 million snowboarders were women, but no retailers or snowboard producers could tell Bracelin how many women were riding men's boards that didn't fit or perform correctly. No one charted sales according to gender. And no one could say how many women would try snowboarding if it weren't such an intimidating, male-dominated sport.

"Our potential market was split between underserved women and ostracized women," says Bracelin, now brand manager for Chorus. "Either they weren't riding a board made for their needs, or they weren't riding at all because they felt they couldn't."

A few women's snowboards existed, but they were all lighter, weaker, or pinker than Chorus's proposed product. Lacking reliable women's snowboarding data, Bracelin turned to the surf and skate industries, which attract a less feminine, more daredevil female consumer. She contacted brands like Girl skateboards and Roxy surf wear to learn about their market share, branding techniques, and sales numbers. She was delighted to find that the Chorus consumer did exist -- and she was ready for a revolution.

On October 9, 2000, Yoshida signed off on Bracelin's business plan, budget, and marketing strategy. That green light opened the door to production facilities, designers, and international distribution. Rodger, Olson, Burnside, Meyen, and Yamakoshi officially resigned their existing sponsorship deals and brainstormed a brand name that communicated solidarity and allied strength. Chorus Snowboards was born.