The Unconventional Lesson Behind This Brand’s Decade of Success | Dave Allee Ep. 20

0:00Chris Cruz:Every founder wants to build something that lasts, but so many of them get distracted chasing trends, chasing hype, chasing fast growth. Allman's surfboards took the opposite approach. They went after small waves, slow mornings, and to show a belief that craftsmanship still matters. So we started building boards for waves that were small and windy and waist high. Because that was what we were surfing. That one decision to serve the real customer instead of this overly idealistic one turned Almond into one of the most trusted names in surf culture. This episode isn't about surfing. It's about building a brand that will endure.

0:35Chris Cruz:And David Alley's approach to building this brand shows that patience, clarity, and conviction still win. How staying small built global trust. Why he rejected the hype and the rule that's guiding everything he's made. Never trade tomorrow's trust for today's win. This is Anatomy of a Brand, where every week I talk with people shaping culture, founders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and creatives to uncover what drives great brands forward so yours never settles. This is episode 20 with Almond Surfboard founder and CEO, David Alley. All right, Dave, thanks for jumping on with us today, man. I appreciate you taking the time.

1:09Chris Cruz:Happy to be here. Well, let's jump right in, man. And I want you, if you could describe Almond without describing what it is that you do, the products you make and the services you offer, the things like that. If you had to describe Almond, how would you describe it? Oh, that's a great question. I would say at the core of our kind of brand ethos or our offer is we want to invite our customers to maybe see the underutilized resource and maximize that and kind of celebrate the underutilized resource of like, in our instance, it's crappy two foot waves. But so within that, there's a lot of messages and things we want to lean into.

2:04But that would be kind of like the core thing is like meeting our customers where they're at.

2:09Chris Cruz:Yeah. It's like being realistic about who our customer is and what they face. Okay. So obviously with that, people lean into the idea that Almond Surf makes surfboards and things like that. And we'll dive a little bit more into your product. but what I'm intrigued by what you said already is an underutilized or undervalued or underappreciated resource that is two to four foot waves I have it in my notes even how you've kind of rejected some of the mass hype around surfboards and it sounds like there's a group of people you're like this group of people doesn't have an advocate or something like that like what's the energy behind that way of looking at waves?

2:53I think it started out of just pure pragmatism. Like growing up in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach is right there. The waves are not that great. It's like it can get good, but the average day is like small and windy and waist high. So we started building boards for waves that were small and windy and waist high. And then when, because that was what we were surfing. And so then that became kind of the brand identity was like, let's just lean into it. Like we're not the only ones who this is our identity. You look at a surf film or surf magazine and those are really cool aspirational things to devour.

3:27But then you look out to the beach and you're like, it does not look like the Mentowai Islands out here. So we're going to like celebrate it. So I guess like the first iteration of that was like two feet and firing was kind of our like rallying drive. Like it might be two feet, but with the right attitude, like it can be really fun.

3:46Chris Cruz:That's amazing. So you guys kind of tapped into this idea that your surfboards are not going to be those ones in those magazines that are like in those big barrels. Was that ever going to be the goal? Like, hey, we'll get there. Or were you like, no, this is our market. This is who we're going to be serving, and we're not changing that. Was that ever a conversation? Or was it just like, hey, we're just going to keep doing what we know it's in front of us? How did you guys see that? i think i think our brand offering kind of represents like the reality for most people like sure there are those days those days make make up one or two percent of the surf experience so it's like we make a few boards for those kind of waves but not a lot most of the boards we make are for like we the way we say it is like exceptional surfboards for everyday waves so there are those days when it's really good like i just surfed with a bunch of buddies like a week and a half ago.

4:38And it was like, awesome. It was like really good. And I was on a peak with like six friends, just trading waves and hooting and hollering and that whole thing that happens like once or twice a year. So like you do want to be ready for those days, but you also want to be realistic about just meeting people where they're at and serving those folks to give them the most fun, just period in 65 days a year.

4:59Chris Cruz:Did you, did you have to wrestle anybody on your team to stay in that lane? Like, was that ever, was there ever a conversation around like people being like, we got to go for more and you're like no dude it's this is where we are like was there ever a tension there kind of so i grew up longboarding our shaper griffin who he and i linked up in 2008 so we've been working together for like you know over 17 years now um he grew up shortboarding so we kind of had this immediate tension of like my influences were different than his influences i I was really into like the 1960s and kind of hearkening back to this timeless era of like the golden age of surfing in California.

5:39Griffin was more like, I want these things to work and go good and turn. And so that was like the, I think that like tug of war landed us squarely in the middle where we're not like a retro throwback brand, but we're not like a high performance brand. We're like a just pragmatic, you know, we're the quality thing still has to be super high. but like in terms of like what we're designing for is uh i would say kind of in that like sweet

6:06Chris Cruz:spot in the middle so okay i'm going to show you a picture this is this is an interesting segue i'm going to show you a picture we have and then i want you to kind of like you to tell me what you feel when you see this picture you can even describe what this picture is for those that are only listening to the podcast but i'm going to show you a picture describe it tell me about it especially from what kind of like you're launching off of right there so okay that is a photo of my dad and i when i was about 19 bro you look running a big you look ripped thank you i think it's favorable shadows um or i was more ripped at 19 than i am at 39 um we're running a big slab of balsa wood through a table saw in my childhood backyard the first board i ever built uh i spent a year on it was like a garage project with my dad my dad's like an engineer always did projects in the garage he's kind of like stone crandall our mutual friend who's like always fixing up old cars like he's yeah he did an old land driving his humvee land cruiser so like yeah exactly my dad haven't dipped into the humvee world quite yet but he's got a really cool like late 60s land cruiser happening right now um but that was kind of how we bonded was like projects in the garage so like the first surfboard we ever made was like literally i thought it was the only surfboard we would ever do like oh let's just spend our time on it this is probably the only surfboard we'll ever make i just want to like go through that process and kind of like to say i've done it um so we spent a year on that first board so that was us that buddy showed was us ripping we the ripping the like slab of balsa apart to then cut the rocker profile into each piece then glue it back together then put your outline on it and then start like shaping it and foiling it and all the things that make it a finished surfboard but was that that's a throwback was almond ever an idea you still have the board oh yeah that was yeah it's like the first board you ever make and it's like yeah you can't turn loose of it i served it like one time it's super heavy but it's kind of a cool memory to have yeah and was that the origins of almond or did almond start somewhere else so i was 19 at the time i was in college studying business and i think almond or like my hypothetical surfboard or surf business surf brand was like the filter that i would run everything through as i'm like sitting in class i'm like just okay how this applied to my like imaginary business and so almond literally came from me doodling in the margins of my notes in college just like drawing waves drawing surfboards trying to come up with like what would i call it it just i never expected to be the guy to do it i just kind of like it was like a you know you just doodling in the margins like were you gonna do a different business was there something else that was on your horizon you know it's like you grow up in like custom based in newport everyone's in like commercial real estate like you just assume I'm like, oh, that's like the, that is the path.

9:05So I honestly, I graduated Chapman University in 2008. I thought I would do this report thing for like a year and then get a real job. And then we just kind of stubbornly been paddling in the same direction now for 17 years. So, okay.

9:18Chris Cruz:So then take me to a little bit deeper into that origins of Almond here for a second. You, so that you're doodling on the edges of your notes for college and business, learning business, doodling this concept, looking at names, waves, all this stuff. How did you land? We'll start with how did you land with almond? Like how did that name come to be? Cause I love naming, naming it, but it's also one of the most frustrating things for me because I'm so critical. So how did you land on almond? So I liked almond because it was appeared a lot of places in the natural world. It's like California is number one export.

9:52It's a food, it's a shape, it's a color, it's a flavor um and it just kind of like all those things kind of resonated with me it felt like very like natural and organic without being like overtly related to the ocean and then as you're doodling it like this is what this is why i think it's so important to like do the analog thing right like yeah as you're doodling it you start to like oh i like the shape of this word i like that it's six letters i can break it up by two or by three you know it's like as you're drawing it's like a l is tall m o n is short and then ends with a tall d again like it just was like i just yeah and i knew there because there was not a lot of like meaning that the only loose one would be like an almond shaped barrel which is like not the kind of waves that we're after anyway but um there was no real meaning so i just knew like when you first tell someone we're going to call it almond surfboards that makes no sense to them so we because there's no meaning there yet other than whatever you might think of when you think of almonds we get to describe the meaning So I was like, we could just plant our flag in that word, own that word, and then we get to decide what that word means.

10:53So for us, that was going to be timeless aesthetic, super high quality. I want to build boards that are going to be used and enjoyed for like decades to come. Like that was kind of like the original premise. It's like if I'm inspired by boards from the 1960s that are 40 some odd years old, I want to build boards that 40, 50 years from now, some kids going to pick up and be like, oh my gosh, look at this. but that requires a certain level of like patience to like build products that will be

11:21Chris Cruz:enjoyed 45 years later did and what what did okay so then from there like the visuals obviously you're doing the exact you do it's so funny because i was talking to my wife the other day about a thing she's trying to develop and she was telling me a word and i like this this is so funny because she was telling me the word she was thinking and i was like i like that word because it's visually appealing. It has, and it like, it has all these different things that you're describing. I'm like, I think the same way about words where like, do they actually appeal? How does that, Hey, is there a letter that compliments that is size wise?

11:53Chris Cruz:So you got, you decided almond because of all the different areas. I love the idea of you get to ascribe the meaning to this thing. Cause it's not a constant kind of, uh, in the surf industry, a word you would hear regularly. You get to describe it. You get to fill it in, in people's minds and consciousness. how did visuals play in and what stage did visuals play in were they like immediately or was it like boards first don't care about the visuals only boards like how did what was that next step i think because i was doodling so much i was drawing so many little logos and like what's the logo gonna look like on the board and i really at that time wanted it to be kind of like a subtle little like mark that like wasn't just like some big logo just plastered on um and a lot of that is a rejection of what had been coming in like the early 2000s like in the early 2000s things are still very like bright and bold and big logos and so for me i was trying to like fit into this other kind of like emerging ride everything ethos and there was like some really good surf films in that era that were like super formative so you're kind of you're you're looking at these like other cues and kind of trying to figure out like where you want to fit into the market but it was just a lot of like uh again like earthy colors more like retro inspired timeless logos things that like just understated and kind of low-key and that's the thing about almond when i look at almond from when i just on a visual standpoint and then when i look at the content the website everything's one of the things that that comes to my mind is like these bonfires in the evening like these like like slower times but then also you're getting like up early and you get a great cup of coffee together but then there's just this like craftsmanship you odds are you're probably talking about things that you're putting your hands to if you're connected to almond there's there's like this craftsmanship to it it's not a this mass commercial thing i'm sure you've had to like resist to urge to convert into some like different way or maybe you didn't maybe you didn't maybe that was never a thing and you're like, no, dude, I never had the urge to change how this showed up.

13:59Chris Cruz:Or did you? What's your thoughts there? I mean, we've certainly gone through several iterations over the years. I would say I really do care deeply for our customers and I want to like help shift and move culture without adding to the noise. So whether it's like the open fire potluck dinners that we do on the front lawn or the early enough and like surf club meetups once a month in the mornings or me just writing articles literally you said it but like i've written articles that it's just like hey guys slow down just slow down and it's just i'm like preaching at our audience out of just purely like desiring for them to like tap into the best things that surfing has to offer and that living in community has to offer and trying to like find things that are like non-transactional and ways for us to just like improve their journey.

14:49Everyone's on like various parts of this like journey of life. So how can we help make surfing a part that like contributes to that in a positive way? And you know, we've had season.

15:00Chris Cruz:Go ahead. Sorry, you said something that I wanted to call out. You said, and you said it so quickly. And I love it when I talk to like founders of brands because things that they do that seem normal and they just say them. And I'm like, wait, wait, pause. pause like the the idea of like you're articulating something on a consistent basis when you're writing something that you feel the sense of like I've got to shape how people think where does that come there's two things you said that I really want to kind of dive into for a second one there's the urge inside of you to shape how people think what is that where is that like what is that like versus somebody's like I just want to make a cool product

15:37probably having done the same thing for so long you just can't help but kind of like look at society reflect on the conversations that occur within the surf shop setting i have so many friends who are like fellow entrepreneurs we're having these like kind of deep like thoughtful conversations all the time and really wanting to like I don't know encourage people to like live the best version of it like I would say I'm like fairly critical of like how easy it is to slip into just like bad habits and I'm guilty of this too I'm like trying to be a man of discipline and wake up early and read and right am I getting back to like I don't want to say journaling again because I feel like that's kind of funny but I'm getting back to trying to like write stuff down again before I like let this disastrous thing invade my day.

16:29So just, it's that kind of like genuine love for our customers and our friends and the people that we serve.

16:35Chris Cruz:And, um, yeah, just, I mean, it says something about you that it says something about you as a leader that you, that you have a sense of value, not an inflated sense of value on your voice or an inflated sense of understanding the impact you could have, but understanding that you have something to contribute. And I think that's such a like overlooked thing when you see founders start to because what you the way that the world looks at it now is like create content make stuff do things versus like wait you actually have something you want to say that feels like it impacts the way people view the world it's a very different thing than simply saying you need to make content because you're a founder and you do like no that's a different thing okay but you said another thing oh yeah please please like let's riff let's go so i really do believe that small businesses and brands shape culture whether they're creating something that people look at and say, oh, they're putting out something that I see myself in.

17:29Or just the general optimism. I think we kind of traffic in optimism in a way where when there's new businesses opening up and cool things happening, it kind of opens everyone's mind to what's possible. So we do have a responsibility as brand owners to foster and grow just optimism and creativity and so when yeah i guess like i feel like a sense of responsibility both as an entrepreneur as a dad as a man of faith just to like foster this overall optimism and i would say that's like kind of been a driving force of a lot of our

18:07Chris Cruz:decision making over the years you couldn't have said something that was like more spot on for how I see brands and why I even work with brands. I had a conversation with somebody where I said, why did I shift what I was doing to working with brands? And it was because I saw that brands are shaping culture more than most things. And I said, if I wanted to shape culture, I want to dive into the thing that is shaping culture. And I'm like, brands are doing that. So I want to jump in on shaping that thing, trying to go higher up this chain and higher up into the source of how culture is made. I love that, man.

18:38Chris Cruz:So you made these boards, you started making your business model, you started developing it were you successful right away or did it suck or was like did was it like it took you a while to get off the ground or was it like immediately we had traction the bar we had to clear those early days was so low like our rent was like 400 a month i found this little tiny store opened it in march of 2009 so like it was just me 500 square feet and like a few a few friends like we had griffin the shaper my brother was there taking pictures he was still in high school at the time like my sister eventually came on as to help with the accounting because she realized i was just a mess um my friend cam was doing some like video and photo and graphic design work so it's just like it was like a clubhouse and we were just like the young scrappy kids i was 22 when i opened a retail store in my hometown so it's like we were just like and i was the oldest one like we were like scrappy kids just trying to like patch this thing together but really like if there was i mean there was definitely days where i was like if we don't sell the surfboard today I don't have money to put gas in my car to get to work.

19:41And then we, you know, praise God, sell a surfboard. And it just was kind of just always barely enough to kind of keep going. And so it's just been this like slow, steady, incremental growth. And, you know, you have to figure it 2009. That's like, that's pre Shopify. That's pre, maybe Instagram was around, but like we, pre Instagram, like, like we were kind of ahead of all this like wave of technology. So like the business we have today is very different than the one we had then where we didn't even have an e-com store for the first couple of years we were in business. And now it's 80 % of our business is e-commerce.

20:18So, yeah, I would say the bar we had to clear was so low that I couldn't start it over from scratch today just with the cost of living and being a dad of two kids. But, you know, I was 22. I had no living expenses.

20:32Chris Cruz:Yeah. So obviously locations were a priority for you out the gate. like that you had to have something that people could go buy a surfboard at. But another thing you said the other day that I said in the conversation here was about these, even you have a hat on that says early and often surf club. There's something about in real life activations you guys are doing from your store. Are they meeting up at the retail store? Or is there just a location? It seems like you're fostering an in real life experience for your customers that's different than just selling e-commerce. Yeah, I think that just came from like looking at the whole scope of what I wanted the brand to be and realizing the parts that you can't convey in the retail store.

21:16And for us, like even as a team, we weren't getting together and surfing often enough. So we just had this idea a couple of years ago of like, what if like once a month on a Friday or Saturday morning, we just drop a pin and say, hey, we're going to be surfing here. Come join us. Bring your own board. We'll be there. Like we'll bring a craft of coffee. And my brother will come take photos. You can see photos of yourself surfing. but like let's just go get in the water together and it's like it's not a board demo because that seems too transactional it's just kind of like hey literally we'll see on friday morning rain or shine we'll be out there and it's been it's been honestly like as rewarding as anything we've done i really get a kick out of it and i am so thankful we started doing it but a lot of those kind of things like there wasn't this like grand master plan heading into it it was just kind of like it felt like the right thing to do and even like we have like all these free ebooks and we have free downloadable surfboard templates if you want to make your own surfboard like we've just been like if you want to make your own surfboard here here's a template get started do it here's an ebook on like how to shape your own surfboard it makes no sense for a surf brand to do and i think we did it just because it felt like the right thing at the time to just like give value away and help the you know there's so many people who were so generous with me in the early stages that I want to be that for others.

22:35But then you, now you look back and you're like, there's a lot of smarter marketing people who are like, oh yeah, you know, you got these lead generators and these things and it's free. And I'm like, oh yeah, we were doing that. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just kind of like doing this stuff and you're putting words to it in a way that we didn't really like even know at the time.

22:53Chris Cruz:You're just like, I'm legitimately trying to help my customer. You're like, I was legitimately. We know that if we keep investing in them, that like it will come back towards us but i think it was like in more of a broad patient sense i love that um then so you have your you have these in real life experiences happening with your brand what was before we get to some of these really fun collaborations you guys have done and going from this young guy who makes this surf company to them working with some really cool brands but the the journey there what was one of the most like pivotal times either for the brand or for you as a leader where you look back on and you're telling that story maybe often to your staff, new people that are coming on?

23:35Chris Cruz:Is there a story that has shaped kind of your culture more than another story? I would say there's been a couple instances where we've had to kind of like put all the chips to the middle of the table and like bet on, like I would say the first one was 2015. We would, previous to that, we'd gotten like really dig into clothing. We were like doing a cut and sew, shirts and pants and jackets and board shorts and the whole thing. And I kind of woke up one day. I was like, I hate this. There's so much wasted every step. I hate having to read this on the line every season. I just, I didn't like it. And I understand there's people who like that.

24:10They love it. And I'm thankful for these people. I realized at that time it was conventional wisdom said, you can't build a surf. Oh, you can't build a business on a hard good because the margins aren't good enough. But my counter to that was we've sold every surfboard we've ever made. We've never put one in the trash. So sell through is a hundred percent. So there's like very minimal waste. If we could just figure out how to do that thing better, then I think we could beat conventional wisdom and actually build a business on the hard goods. So that was 2015, 20 from 2015 to 2018. I spent kind of behind the scenes with our manufacturing partner developing what would become our R series, which is like these mold injected foam surfboards.

24:52It's kind of more entry level, price point friendly, durable, USA made art. it's kind of our take on a soft top um so 2018 we're like about to really on release our first soft top and i would say that was the first time i was like scared to release something because we've been known as this like bespoke custom surfboard manufacturer glassed on wood fins big heavy long boards and here we are going to introduce our own like recyclable usa made foamy like it just kind of felt like a and i'm kind of like a little bit maniacal about our customers' trust. I don't want to mess with our customers' trust.

25:29So this to me was our first, we're kind of taking a little bit of a leap of faith here in putting out something that they're not going to expect. And now, and the theory is, is it going to cannibalize the sales of our custom boards, all this stuff. Now that's our most important product category. It's our number one revenue driver, number one profit driver, and it has elevated our custom surfboard business because we've made ourselves available to a broader audience. and we didn't really, you know, we didn't really like change fundamentally who we were as a brand. It was just a different product category.

26:06So yeah, our focus support.

26:09Chris Cruz:Did you shut down the apparel stuff? Yeah, in 2015. We do printables and we do collaborations and stuff, but yeah, we don't do any Cut and Sew anymore. So you had invested a ton, which Cut and Sew takes a ton of time and investment to develop your planning. the next year, the year before that, you're like, and then you're just like buying fabric, driving it to the cutter, picking it up from the cutter, driving it to the sewer, taking it to the wash house, getting all the trims, you know, it's just like, and then you're like, we're going to do it anymore. Yeah, no, we're not gonna do it anymore.

26:42Chris Cruz:And then did, did anybody, did, did anybody resist you? Did you feel a sense of like, or were you just even yourself? Like, I know you mentioned you're, you're kind of like, we're going to do this. Cause I, your internal, like conventional wisdom but was there a moment where someone was like hey that's a really bad idea or like was everybody like we hate this too um i think our customers were bummed when we stopped doing the cut and sew stuff i would say most of our customers were stoked or at least understood the r-series foamies there was a few people who were like what this is lame and you're like okay but like the percentage of people that that is i think very early on i learned you have to stop worrying what like the six people in the blackies parking lot, which is a service spot in Newport, the six people in the black park, blackies parking lot are going to say or think and like focus on the other 99 and a half percent of the people that you serve.