Passion, conviction, obsession. Heart and soul. Words to describe the devoted. Those driven to produce what had never existed before — a crusade to push the sport forward.

When Bill Belcourt talks product, you listen. The former head of R&D at Black Diamond, Bill helmed the department during the heydey, when anything was possible and all roads led to BD for product innovation. Chances are, if you’ve used BD climbing gear in the past 30 years, you’ve used Bill’s work.

Now, Bill leads Blue Ice - North America, where the work continues.

In this episode, we chat about:

🧊 Why product discovery is a life project, not a job
🧊 How finding your people can change everything
🧊 The lifecycle of innovation in business and industry
🧊 Life lessons from Randy Rackliff and Mark Twight

Resources and links:

Bill isn’t really active on social media, so no point in sharing links. We didn’t talk about it in the episode, but Bill has been at the vanguard of paragliding in the U.S. for decades (and has several long-distance records). If you’d like to learn more about that facet of his life, this is a good podcast episode.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the (mythology?) of Black Diamond, I enjoyed this article from Outside, “Welcome to the Mutant Factory”.

And of course, if you’d like to support a climbing brand who is continuing the work, check out Blue Ice at blueice.com.

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📸: Cover photo by Barry Blanchard.

Credits:

Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).
This episode was edited by Andrew Salomone of salomonesound.com.
And of course, a big thanks to our sponsors, Aniiu Gloves and Furnace Industries!

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The Heart and Soul of Product Innovation with Bill Belcourt

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