When Jake Carpenter started Burton Snowboards, he spent years messing around with designs, manufacturing and optimization.
At any moment while he was toiling away in a garage, a big ski company could have built a much better snowboard and sold it for cheaper. But they didn’t.
Because ski companies weren’t interested in snowboarding. They didn’t care about it. They didn’t see the potential in the sport.
The market was too small for them to care, and by the time it looked big, it was too late.