InPrint
RobbyNaish
Crisis, What Crisis?
An article by Robert Masters
(as submitted to Windsurfing Magazine)
It’s 6am on Maui. I’m working on my final draft of an article about the legend, the man - Robby Naish - and his company, Naish International.
Windsurfing Magazine contacted me to write an exposé about Naish and the challenges his company faces. They were intrigued with everything he was doing; the new web site, Naish.tv, event sponsorship, new products. “Why were these things necessary?” they asked.
It was an interesting question. In fact, I had no clue that Naish even had issues. I’d heard of a snafu regarding a warranty issue with kites some years back that cost him dearly, but that was all water under the bridge. So, what was up? I chose to take the assignment and find out.
My initial meeting with Robby took place at his offices in Haiku, Maui. With me was Eddy Patricelli, former editor for Windsurfing Magazine. As we drove towards Naish’s office, Eddy spoke about the project and commented about how he held Robby in the highest esteem. Eddy had met Naish a few times, so this wasn’t a first meeting for him. I worked with Robby back in the eighties and early nineties, so for me, this was going to be an opportunity to meet up with an old colleague.
We rolled up at the Naish offices, taking a parking spot next to a classic black Cadillac hearse, Robby’s ride for the day. On entering the inner sanctum of the Naish Empire, Robby emerged from a meeting and greeted us both.
We headed for a vacant conference room, took our seats, and listened while Eddy nervously explained what he was looking for. Why was Naish International struggling in the USA? How had kiting affected the brand’s image? What were they doing to ensure success in the market? Naish listened intently and on hearing Eddy’s ideas, agreed to give his support to the project.
Driving back towards Paia, Eddy reflected on the encounter. He thought it had gone well, despite his considerable apprehension at speaking with Naish about the project. He was really psyched out by the guy! I was a bit surprised. Why would the editor of a major magazine be intimidated by such a laid back person?
On reflection, I concluded it was Eddy’s perception of the situation and his admiration of Robby that essentially made him go weak at the knees. It got me thinking about how perception lay at the heart of this whole article. How does one person instill a reaction in another, sometimes without even trying - and how does that correlate to marketing and branding? How does it apply to the name Naish?
I was curious if having the name Naish had automatically given this sporting celebrity a free pass in the world of business. I don’t mind admitting that I was influenced by Robby’s stature in the sport when I purchased my first windsurfing gear in 1984 - a Mistral Malibu, a Superlight and some Gaastra Powerfoil sails.
If the gear was good enough for him, it would be good enough for me! So how did that correlate to Naish’s own company which he founded over a decade later? Would his name guarantee success? What obstacles would Naish face? When presented with challenges, how would he react? Would Robby’s big gamble pay off?
Knowing Naish’s competitive history help us understand the driving forces behind his current activities. It was the mid-seventies when a very young Robby Naish came onto the scene - using the Windsurfer One Design.
It was amazing that Robby could even control the big gear. But by using his weight and balance to his advantage, Robby did things no one would have thought possible.
In 1976, the scrawny thirteen year-old showed up at the Windsurfer World Championships and served notice to the world that not only was he taking that year’s crown, but that he’d be back. And return he did.
By 1980, the sport was fragmenting from a one-design sport to one of different disciplines, styles and concepts. Robby thrived on the technical aspects of slalom racing - the twists and turns of races with beach starts and pounding shore-break.
He excelled in course racing where currents, lifts and headers factored into the strategy. Wavesailing was huge on his agenda as it played to his desire for the ultimate rush.
Robby dominated and terrorized his opponents. He was front-page news in some countries, requiring an entourage of bodyguards to keep his adoring fans at bay.
As the eighties came to a close, so did Robby’s interest in the World Cup. Racing had evolved to suit larger sailors such as Bjorn Dunkerbeck. The equipment had changed the way sailors approached a race. Robby was a mid-weight, tactical sailor - not a brute-force sailor.
This put him at a disadvantage to his heavier, taller peers, who dominated in the latest genre of competition. Robby wasn’t interested in racing for 5th place, so he focused his attention on wavesailing and other extreme aspects of the sport.
As the nineties arrived, “extreme” was alive and well. Big wave wavesailing became the new icon for the sport. Gone was the image of a sailor on a lake. In its’ place was Hookipa.
The nineties also brought a wave of change for Naish. Gaastra, Robby’s sail sponsor for over a decade, had been sold and the new management wasn’t interested in keeping Robby’s core design team of Pat Currell and Don Montague intact.
This didn’t agree with Robby who, rather than seeing his team split up, decided to leave Gaastra and start Naish Sails Hawaii. It was more a matter of necessity and loyalty than desire. It wasn’t easy or cheap, but it put destiny in his hands, rather than that of an unknown overseas conglomerate.
A new company was about to be born.
Unlike some athletes who license their name to a manufacturer, Naish built his company from the ground up with his own cash and with his own team by his side. The brand and the people were inseparable.
Sure, the name Naish would be an asset when it came to branding, but Robby wanted more. It wasn’t about slapping a logo on some mediocre gear. It was about taking his philosophy on equipment and technology - and translating that into a line of solid, core gear for windsurf enthusiasts around the world.
At first, the brand reflected the current passions of the sailors who formed the company. The first products were a series of wave and high performance flat water sails.
The marketing was focused around a Hawaiian style meets bad boy motif. The company acted as their own design and advertising agency, something they still do to this day.
From day one, Robby wanted to structure Naish Sails so that he could still focus some attention on his role as a professional athlete.
He wanted to be very hands-on with the company, but needed to have the freedom to give his undivided attention to his other activities. According to Naish “If it’s good, I’m at Hookipa, I’m not in here.”
Regardless of the conditions at Hookipa, he saw it as a mandate to work smart and “get the hell out of the office”. He encouraged employees to do the same, feeling that some of their most creative ideas would emerge whilst away from a desk or meeting room.
Robby has never had an office at Naish HQ. He does not carry high tech gadgets while traveling. He is completely opposed to over-using technology, seeing it as a counter-productive diversion to his day.
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Rather than spend time in front of a computer, Robby preferred to be on the water. “If you compared me to whoever it is now, the owner of Mistral Sports Group or Neil [Pryde], I guarantee I’m out there doing it, living it, experiencing it way more than they are.”
Naish Sails Hawaii was originally operated under the umbrella of the Mistral Sports Group. Early experiences and lessons learned, however, prompted Naish to go independent several years later. Robby retained North Sports as their US distributor, since they were the people he’d worked with in the USA while with Mistral.
As the brand evolved and Naish’s horizons broadened, so did the product range. Production boards became part of the mix when Naish went independent from Mistral - bringing them into a whole new arena.
Naish got involved in kiting in 1999, as a result of Don Montague’s interest in the sport. He prompted Naish to give it a try. It didn’t take long for Robby to get hooked and add kites to their product line.
“It was fun,” says Robby. “It wasn’t about not liking windsurfing. It was about liking kiting more than sailing flat water in 10 knots of wind with a ten meter sail and a fifty centimeter fin.”
When Naish started kiting, they may have lost a few windsurf clients who only wanted to deal with a specialist windsurfing company. To most dealers and water people however, the move was seen as a brilliant one - one that leapt Naish from a windsurfing company, into a watersports company. One of Naish’s first kiting dealers was Big Winds in Hood River.
According to owner Steve Gates “a lot of our windsurfing customers started kiting, not necessarily exclusively but using it as another way to enjoy the ocean or lake and wind or whatever. So I think there wasn’t a negative feeling towards Robby Naish or the Naish brand because he was now kiting.”
Before long, Naish was a force to be reckoned with in the world of kiteboarding.
It’s not easy finding balance in what you do. Watersports are no different. You can’t just make all things for all people and expect everything to work well. So where was the balance for Naish in terms of products? According to Robby “it was about making specialty equipment - but also trying to make it accessible and easy to use in a wide variety of conditions by sailors of different abilities.”
There was also the challenge of finding a happy medium when addressing distribution, marketing and sales. For Naish, “image to me is really important, but it means nothing if you don’t have all the other checks and balances in place. You can have the best image and the best product and still run yourself right out of business. There are so many things that are important to being successful.”
A company can get it’s entire profits wiped out by a small over-production run, a warranty issue with materials, or a tardy release due to a twenty-five cent part being unavailable - so the team was focused on getting things right and not making costly mistakes. This was a cash-based business set up by Robby, not a small slice of an international conglomerate that could afford to invest and lose huge sums of money.
For Robby, “the company would live or die by what we did every month, with very little room for error. We’re a cash based business. You’re looking at the bank right here. There is no real separation between Robby Naish and the business.”
Robby says he respected his money and his workers’ livelihoods too much to play with their fortunes. Insurance costs, R+D, raw materials, and marketing all added up. “No one was getting rich in this business. The margins are so tight”, says Naish. It was important to work smart, yet not be afraid to plot a new course if needed.
As a company selling products in over fifty countries, Naish’s initial approach was to line up the distributors and let them market to dealers and the general public. In certain markets, this worked well. In other countries, there was room for improvement. One such place was the United States.
