Skullcandy veered away from standard-issue black and white headphones - and struck gold.Skullcandy is using fake alligator skin and rhinestones to shake up the headphone market, giving Philips and Sony a run for their money.
The half pipe tucked in a corner of the office is the first clue that Skullcandy is not your average company.
Other clues: In the teeth of the worst recession in generations, the five-year-old private company is growing like a weed. And it just scored a round of funding, from private-equity shop Goode Partners, at a time when investment dollars are scarce.
If the name Skullcandy doesn't register, it will with your kids (so will the term half pipe, which is a ramp, in this case for skateboarding, shaped like a pipe cut in half lengthwise).
Skullcandy's business is headphones, and they dominate the 12- to 25-year-old demographic with a line-up of gear covered in faux gator skin, gold foil, rhinestones and hip hop-inspired graphics. Pull back the hoody on any kid riding a snowboard in Park City, Utah and chances are pretty good, a pair of Skullcandy headphones, probably the top-selling "Smokin' Buds," will be pumping music into their ears.
Making electronics cool
From a distant No. 10 three years ago, Skullcandy is now North America's third-largest manufacturer of headphones by unit sales, behind consumer electronics giants Philips Electronics (PHG) and Sony (SNE), according to NPD Group. "We'll be No. 2 soon," predicted Skullcandy president Jeremy Andrus, legs dangling from the office half pipe. "My guess is some time next year."
After that, Skullcandy and the band of snowboarders, skaters, surfers and DJs that founder Rick Alden has assembled in Park City, will be gunning for No. 1. That is, if Alden, the CEO and creative madman to Andrus' operations guru, can figure out a way to do it without diluting the company's cool factor.
Skullcandy didn't invent headphones; what the company has done is make them into a fashion item. Kids don't want one pair, they want five. "We're like sunglasses," Alden said. "Except we sit on top of your head, and you wear them a lot more."
Skullcandy headphones are not the type you will hear audiophiles gushing about. They are mostly solid-sounding pieces of affordable gear that, unlike Sony's grey and black headphones, or Apple's white, don't disappear into the background. On the contrary, they make a statement. The snowboard, surf and skate inspired graphics and colors ask for attention, and speak to a lifestyle, or in most cases, a wannabe lifestyle.
Successful clothing brands are able to evoke that lifestyle magic, but it is the rare consumer electronics company that does it. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) with its iPod is the obvious and most successful current example. Skullcandy has pulled it off so far, and in doing so sent revenue from essentially zero to approaching $100 million in just a few years. Sales more than doubled in 2008.
To put in perspective Skullcandy's momentum, when many consumer electronics companies saw sales fall off a cliff in November, Skullcandy's quadrupled year over year, according to Andrus.
That success is obviously gratifying to Alden, but it also has him worried about overexposure. "I was at the mountain riding with my son the other day, and everyone I saw was wearing Skullcandy headphone, I mean they were everywhere," Alden said. "I may go back to wearing black Sony's just to be different."
He's kidding, but his concern is real. Alden and his design team need to keep Skullcandy fresh, so it doesn't fall out of fashion and black becomes the new black. Fortunately the Skullcandy team has a secret weapon when they seek inspiration, design-wise and business-wise.
"We head to the mountain," Alden said, checking for the latest snowfall report on his laptop. "No good ideas ever come from sitting in an office, not around here at least."
Other clues: In the teeth of the worst recession in generations, the five-year-old private company is growing like a weed. And it just scored a round of funding, from private-equity shop Goode Partners, at a time when investment dollars are scarce.
If the name Skullcandy doesn't register, it will with your kids (so will the term half pipe, which is a ramp, in this case for skateboarding, shaped like a pipe cut in half lengthwise).
Skullcandy's business is headphones, and they dominate the 12- to 25-year-old demographic with a line-up of gear covered in faux gator skin, gold foil, rhinestones and hip hop-inspired graphics. Pull back the hoody on any kid riding a snowboard in Park City, Utah and chances are pretty good, a pair of Skullcandy headphones, probably the top-selling "Smokin' Buds," will be pumping music into their ears.
Making electronics cool
From a distant No. 10 three years ago, Skullcandy is now North America's third-largest manufacturer of headphones by unit sales, behind consumer electronics giants Philips Electronics (PHG) and Sony (SNE), according to NPD Group. "We'll be No. 2 soon," predicted Skullcandy president Jeremy Andrus, legs dangling from the office half pipe. "My guess is some time next year."
After that, Skullcandy and the band of snowboarders, skaters, surfers and DJs that founder Rick Alden has assembled in Park City, will be gunning for No. 1. That is, if Alden, the CEO and creative madman to Andrus' operations guru, can figure out a way to do it without diluting the company's cool factor.
Skullcandy didn't invent headphones; what the company has done is make them into a fashion item. Kids don't want one pair, they want five. "We're like sunglasses," Alden said. "Except we sit on top of your head, and you wear them a lot more."
Skullcandy headphones are not the type you will hear audiophiles gushing about. They are mostly solid-sounding pieces of affordable gear that, unlike Sony's grey and black headphones, or Apple's white, don't disappear into the background. On the contrary, they make a statement. The snowboard, surf and skate inspired graphics and colors ask for attention, and speak to a lifestyle, or in most cases, a wannabe lifestyle.
Successful clothing brands are able to evoke that lifestyle magic, but it is the rare consumer electronics company that does it. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) with its iPod is the obvious and most successful current example. Skullcandy has pulled it off so far, and in doing so sent revenue from essentially zero to approaching $100 million in just a few years. Sales more than doubled in 2008.
To put in perspective Skullcandy's momentum, when many consumer electronics companies saw sales fall off a cliff in November, Skullcandy's quadrupled year over year, according to Andrus.
That success is obviously gratifying to Alden, but it also has him worried about overexposure. "I was at the mountain riding with my son the other day, and everyone I saw was wearing Skullcandy headphone, I mean they were everywhere," Alden said. "I may go back to wearing black Sony's just to be different."
He's kidding, but his concern is real. Alden and his design team need to keep Skullcandy fresh, so it doesn't fall out of fashion and black becomes the new black. Fortunately the Skullcandy team has a secret weapon when they seek inspiration, design-wise and business-wise.
"We head to the mountain," Alden said, checking for the latest snowfall report on his laptop. "No good ideas ever come from sitting in an office, not around here at least."
more...
The Potential of Earbuds
There is great disagreement about:
Whether earbuds could potentially sound good, given their small size.
Whether any actual earbuds sound good, or whether the whole idea needs further development.
Which earbuds sound good and which sound bad.
Which of the expensive ($40-$80) earbuds sound so good that the extra cost is justified.
After testing many headphones and earbuds and applying my extensive experience tweaking equalizers, I think that earbuds actually have the potential to sound even *better* than standard headphones. In any case, all headphones and earbuds need a new approach: a calibrated equalization curve built into the player, to yield flat response. Megabass is a step toward such a compensation curve.
Like the Etymotics, earbuds have the potential to have smoother response than even the best popular standard headphones, such as the Sennheiser 580's. I've dialed in some truly vibrant, open sound using equalization together with $10 earbuds. It is easy and straightforward to equalize earbuds; just do anti-rolloff to a greater or lesser degree, and leave the rest flat; there aren't mysterious jags hidden along the entire spectrum that need unique shapes of compensation. I'd rather trust my ears than the common assumption that earbuds are inferior. If the conditions are right and the appropriate, ordinary EQ compensations are made, earbuds can be superior, rather than inferior, to good standard headphones. It's simply a matter of starting with a decent earbud driver, and providing the inverse of the earbud driver's frequency response.
If someone shows me a measured response curve of an earbud and it's rough and jagged, I will change my view somewhat, but in any case, I think that eq-compensated earbuds at least *can sound* unusually smooth and natural. Players need more fancy curves to compensate for specific earbud models.
"Though I like the R3 stock earbuds even better than the 888's, I can't stop seeking for even better sound, as I believe it can be a lot better. If I press against an earbud I get very powerful bass, so it is possible. I will keep on looking, and if I find something interesting I will let you know. Please let me know your findings on this matter." (from a private email to me)
Some people haven't been lucky and haven't heard the one or two models that are really good. No wonder they think earbuds are a poor packaging and sound poor. I was starting to suspect that *some* Sony stock earbuds (included with the player) sound great, and some sound lousy.
There is great disagreement about:
Whether earbuds could potentially sound good, given their small size.
Whether any actual earbuds sound good, or whether the whole idea needs further development.
Which earbuds sound good and which sound bad.
Which of the expensive ($40-$80) earbuds sound so good that the extra cost is justified.
After testing many headphones and earbuds and applying my extensive experience tweaking equalizers, I think that earbuds actually have the potential to sound even *better* than standard headphones. In any case, all headphones and earbuds need a new approach: a calibrated equalization curve built into the player, to yield flat response. Megabass is a step toward such a compensation curve.
Like the Etymotics, earbuds have the potential to have smoother response than even the best popular standard headphones, such as the Sennheiser 580's. I've dialed in some truly vibrant, open sound using equalization together with $10 earbuds. It is easy and straightforward to equalize earbuds; just do anti-rolloff to a greater or lesser degree, and leave the rest flat; there aren't mysterious jags hidden along the entire spectrum that need unique shapes of compensation. I'd rather trust my ears than the common assumption that earbuds are inferior. If the conditions are right and the appropriate, ordinary EQ compensations are made, earbuds can be superior, rather than inferior, to good standard headphones. It's simply a matter of starting with a decent earbud driver, and providing the inverse of the earbud driver's frequency response.
If someone shows me a measured response curve of an earbud and it's rough and jagged, I will change my view somewhat, but in any case, I think that eq-compensated earbuds at least *can sound* unusually smooth and natural. Players need more fancy curves to compensate for specific earbud models.
"Though I like the R3 stock earbuds even better than the 888's, I can't stop seeking for even better sound, as I believe it can be a lot better. If I press against an earbud I get very powerful bass, so it is possible. I will keep on looking, and if I find something interesting I will let you know. Please let me know your findings on this matter." (from a private email to me)
Some people haven't been lucky and haven't heard the one or two models that are really good. No wonder they think earbuds are a poor packaging and sound poor. I was starting to suspect that *some* Sony stock earbuds (included with the player) sound great, and some sound lousy.
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