The Path To A New Sport
- 1976 Walter Carl Jones Jr. Was Born
- 1979 Carl Started Skiing
- 1989 Carl Bought His First Snowboard
- 1994 Carl Moved To Park City
- 1995 Carl Devoted Himself To Moguls
- 1996 Carl Created WWW.MOGULSNOWBOARDING.COM
- 1997 Carl Came Up With A B C Class Of Riders For Moguls
- 1999 Carl Was a Snowboard Instructor
- 2000 Carl Realized AASI Had NO Clue About Moguls
- 2000 Carl Went To The Olympic Committee
- 2000 Carl Made His First Mogul Snowboarding DVD Level A
- 2001 Carl Was Turned Down By The Olympics
- 2002 Carl Took On The Name Tombstone Kid
- 2003 Carl Boarded Every Day Except 7 Days In This Season
- 2005 Carl Received His First Sponsor
- 2005 Carl Teamed Up With Monster Energy Drink
- 2006 Carl Talks To Sundance About a Mogul Event
- 2006 Carl Was Turned Down By Sundance With Hard Feelings
- 2007 Carl Talked With Snowbird To Have An Event
- 2007 Carl Tried To Combine Monster With Snowbird
- 2008 New Products and Sponsoring Privateers
- Now Never Giving Up On His Dream. Dedicated To The End
Mogul Snowboarding is a limited liability company, organized in the State of Utah. The Author, Carl,
is the CEO of www.mogulsnowboarding.com, because of this; the author has chosen his own company to implement
a strategic plan. The company has been in existence since 2000. The company is built on the premise to teach
people how to ride the bumps in the snow or otherwise known as moguls. To build awareness of this new style of
boarding, we also sell hats, beanies, t-shirts, sweaters, socks, instructional DVD’s, and custom snowboards.
The company is comprised of sales and marketing, training, product development, sponsorship, and event management.
Everyone associated with the company all share the same passion for mogul snowboarding.
This company was founded on an idea that started in 1994, when Carl moved to Park City and his affair with
snowboarding was born. Being a skier before, Carl was determined to find a way to ride moguls with a snowboard.
He decided to go snowboarding as much as possible. In 1996 he realized that an online presence would need to
be built first, so Carl purchased the worldwide website of: www.mogulsnowboarding.com, www.snowboardingmoguls.com,
and www.mogulsnowboard.com. The sites would be the first indicators that a new style of snowboarding was about to
emerge.
The company came up with different skill levels A, B, and C. A is for beginners B is for intermediate and C is for
the professional. In 1999, Carl became a Certified Snowboard Instructor at Park City Mountain Resort. During his
instructor training, he noticed that the teachers missed a whole section of moguls. Additionally, his trainers at
Park City Mountain Resort thought he rode too low to the ground and he kicked the board around with his back foot,
his stance was Duck Foot, and he used counter rotation. They required him to change his stance in order to conform
to their style. So, he followed their set instructions and changed his riding, but never forgot his own style of
riding.
In 2000, Carl went to the United States Ski Association Olympic Committee and asked them if they would be
interested in a new event for the Olympics. Their response was very negative and they said they were not
interested. Since they turned down this style, he realized that he would have to champion the cause, so he
made his first instructional DVD. Carl also realized that he would need corporate sponsorships in order to be
noticed.
In 2005, Carl signed his first sponsor Monster Energy Drink. Sundance Ski Resort became interested in having the
first ever event take place in 2006. Carl came up with a way to judge performance and award points so the event
would be organized and have a way to designate a winner. Sundance began to not only promote the event, but wanted
to take over the company. This caused Mogul Snowboarding Company to be very cautious as to how they approached
venues for this and other events. They are focusing on presenting the style to as many boarders as they can reach
and to promote this new style of snowboarding.
Mogul Snowboarding Company’s Mission Statement is “To start a new trend, make mogul snowboarding mainstream and to
educate the world about a new twist to a new sport” (Jones, 2000).
Strategically, Mogul Snowboarding Company needs to analyze how they are going to gain enough participants to make
this style a viable event. The instructional videos are the key, and just like the music industry, they must work
out ways of distribution and secure professional creation of these videos. Meanwhile, the company needs to assure
that the logo of Mogul Snowboarding is soon on as many boards and clothing as it can. They need to analyze the best
articles that their potential supporters would embrace and wear.
If the strategy works, and Mogul Snowboarding Company events became a viable entity, it will positively affect our
revenue streams and our ability to secure angel funding. At this point, Carl would need additional expertise in
managing and marketing the company. For this reason, Carl has decided to return to school and obtain his Masters
of Business Administration. Additionally, he will establish Advisory Council comprised of the experts in the sport.
As the popularity of this activity increases, and becomes an Olympic event, the revenue streams of endorsements
could be very significant.
Snowboarding is a young sport, just now coming into its own. The resulting events for this sport are based on
skate boarding, where all tricks and performances are done in a half pipe. Moguls offer an opportunity for
participation for speed, tricks, and ever changing surface conditions. This makes for a greater skill set and
much more excitement for the participant and spectators.
Actually, Mogul Snowboarding is the example of “Threat of Entry” in regard to the existing styles of snowboarding
endorsed and supported by the United States Snowboard Association. This organization determines the training
certification for instructors as well as what is accepted by the normal Snowboarding expectations of the Olympics.
Another example of a style that is working on gaining acceptance by Olympic committee just like us is “Big Mountain
Snowboarding” where they challenge the out of bounds areas of ski resorts. Our style has a much better potential
acceptance, as the events most popular for skiers is the “freestyle mogul events”. Just like the freestyle mogul
ski event, Mogul Snowboarding offers a new terrain each time a participant runs. Every run a boarder makes
contributes to a change in the terrain, as well as there are many lines of descent through any given set of
moguls.
USSA has held a monopoly stranglehold on any new entry into their world of the mogul half pipe. This style
only rewards the skaters to snowboard participant. Mogul Snowboard rewards the skier to snowboarding participant.
Our biggest obstacle for our company is gaining enough acceptance from outside the USSA organization that they
collapse to recognize our unique style and market.
Increasing our pressure onto the USSA is, at least for now, shared by the “Big Mountain” style. As we gain more
recognition from our own events, coupled with the efforts of “Big Mountain” events, we both hope to break down the
dominant presence exercised by the USSA. Even our instructors are not able to gain certifications as we change the
way a person sets on the board, their foot positions, and stance. These changes are not recognized by USSA which
results in our instructors counting on our Mogul Snowboarding instructional videos. Even though these videos offer
a great revenue source for our company, gaining acceptance from USSA certification would drastically improve our
support and our style.
Capital requirements are a major challenge for our company. We can only summarize that it will offer a substantial
barrier to anyone else who tries to build a new style. Our financing has come solely from “angel financing” and
revenue streams of our merchandise. Because we are a “for-profit” organization, we cannot expect to raise money
simply from donations. We intend to continue to strive to raise enough capital that we can continue our quest to
change the snowboarding world.
A new sporting event in and of itself does not generate copious amounts of cash. However, the acceptance of the
event on a national or even better, international basis, enables huge sponsorships from various corporate sponsors.
We become an additional marketing vehicle for these large corporations and our riders also directly benefit from
these sponsorships and endorsements. The capital is not only used to continue to fund the direct efforts of Mogul
Snowboarding in their marketing and training tools, but also to fund enough prize money to entice participants to
travel to our events to participate. Prize money and corporate sponsorships are the life blood of our market.
Without this major source of funding, no event would be able to exist.
The Olympic committee is directly related to how they can entice large corporate sponsors, and when those dry
up or unwilling to support, the Olympic committee will quickly drop that event from their offerings.
Product Differentiation is one of our greatest strengths. By being a unique style, Mogul Snowboarding will be
in a position to manage and govern ALL snowboarding events that are based on utilizing a mogul ski area. Our
advertising creates a specific type of snowboarding that can only be utilized by using our methods, training,
boards, and merchandise. The success of our sales so far, have given us the encouragement that is need to give
confidence to our idea. The idea of having competition snowboarding on an ever-changing terrain, heightens the
suspense and challenge of this new sporting event. In addition to developing our own stance and boarding
techniques, it also offers us the ability to re-design the snowboard itself. By creating a custom board that
is slightly narrower in the middle and offers a much better “flexing” through the challenging moguls, we have
an extremely strong product. Differentiation will cause competitors to be challenged by our trademarks and
experience in the obtaining a stronghold into our market.
Our existing customers or (“team” as we refer to them), show they exhibit a very strong loyalty not only to the
company, Mogul Snowboarding, but also to our cause of creating this new event. We are confident that all future
“team members” will also demonstrate the same strong alliance with us and become strong advocates to our sport.