347…and counting

October 2, 2007

I met with Jay Townley at Interbike – the industry numbers expert and general guru. He told me there were 347 brands in the US that day, not including Kind. I wanted to throw up. Most numbers point to about 170 brands in the US, which was formidable enough, he just doubled the competition. That is 347 brands – think about that.

The world really doesn’t need another brand. There is plenty of innovation on the high end, tons of cool brands in the urban market – all filling every need you could possibly want to fit any budget.

We had bikes on the floor courtesy of our good friends at Kore and Planet Bike and the response was great (to my face anyway). Even so, as I walked around the show, looking at all the coolness on display, I wondered what the hell I was doing there.

But as I bumped into industry friends and met with new component suppliers, the response was the same: “its about time”. Its about time someone is looking at the entire picture, looking at different ways of supplying, sourcing, assembling and buying bikes.

That really is the vision of Kind – not to make the lightest/fastest bike or develop the next one season wonder, but to supply bikes that people want to ride, are easy to maintain and do it in the most sustainable way possible.
So we are going forward as #348….

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