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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the kitesurf 365 podcast.
- [00:03]
B
Welcome back to the show. I hope you all had a great weekend. On today's episode, I catch up with Roberto Ricci. Roberto Ricci is the founder of rrd and we sit down and discuss the signing of Andrea Principe. Roberto explains why it's a perfect fit for the brand, what it means for the future of rrd, and why one of the sport's biggest stars will shape the next chapter of his company. This is a good one, guys. So sit back and enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, Roberto Ricci. Roberto, welcome to the show, man. Great to see you.
- [00:43]
A
Good to see you too, guys. Good to be here.
- [00:46]
B
You might be one of the only people in the industry I haven't spoken to over these years, but people said, are you going to speak to Roberto? And I'm like, I actually don't know him very well, but I reached out and managed to track you down fairly quickly. So it's great for you to carve out some time for us.
- [00:59]
A
Sure, my pleasure. It's good to catch up with you guys and talk to Andreas. Hey, these guys are the most known ones and you get to talk to these guys, so make sure that you show your face and they get to know you. Otherwise you're invisible,
- [01:15]
B
mate. How has the last few weeks been with the announcement of Andrea coming to rd? That must be pretty crazy for you guys.
- [01:23]
A
Well, it's been a real nice couple of months because my. Our marketing manager, Jacopo, was in touch with Andrea since quite a long time. And actually Andrea, since we don't live very far, he lives about 110k north of our. Of our headquarters. So you know his family, I know his father and I never met his mother, but I met Andrea for the first time a couple of years ago in Cape Town. But somehow with Andrea, we always been connected because as a local brand over here, obviously he was raised with whatever was available at the beach at that time. And Andre was already using some of our wetsuits and other probably some boards and kites when he was really a kid. And obviously we knew each other for many, many reasons for many years. But yeah, I mean, in the last couple of months, this idea of starting to work with Andrea came about and then we thought about it and we say, okay, you know what? We haven't been really investing any effort and money and real time into big air in the last five, six years because we thought it was not belonging to us. And we were really interested, honestly, to see this development for various reasons. And then really we saw what kiteboarding was all about in the end. We were always very present in the wave realm, myself being very active into kiteboarding in the waves, and most of our team has always been waveriders. And so, you know what? Now with this opportunity of having Andrea to the team, our design team is very keen to giving maximum support. So let's talk.
- [03:18]
B
You know, you mentioned that you had spoken to Andrea over the years. I mean, was there ever a conversation about coming to RD back in those days? Or was it just, hello, how are you, great to see you type stuff?
- [03:30]
A
Honestly, I never met Andrea before two years, and I spoke only to his father about, I would say, five, six years ago, before he signed up with Duochon. And. And there were, you know, he. He obviously needed some. Some type of support, which was mainly related to equipment. He needed to have, you know, his. The key that he trusted. He actually took part to this young blood camp that they do, and he was really showing up his skills, et cetera. So he felt very secure, you know, about being with a family where we were more like a general water sport company rather than just a focused skyboarding company. And at the time, you know, Duotron seemed to be the best choice for him, and he did the right choice. I mean, look at where he's at. And I think the results were the strategy that his father and mother, obviously they were taking decision on his behalf back then because he was really young. Yeah, we chat, but we never found the right time to actually align. Now. It was. It was good. It was actually just like, you know, when the planets align, then everything is smooth.
- [04:43]
B
Since 2022, it's crazy that the Italians and Andrea, Lorenzo, Jeremy, has now Leonardo joining that they've really dominated the competition. It's pretty difficult to find a competition that these Italians haven't won. Is this a bit like Andrea coming home to you, coming back to an Italian brand and continuing to build sort of this Italian legacy in kiteboarding?
- [05:08]
A
I think the moment is. It's quite unique in this particular era of kiteboarding, let's say, where it's obvious that kiteboarding nowadays is, I would say, 70% big air. And the rest is a little bit between wave riding and obviously school teaching, free riding, whatever. But as soon as you're a kite border, you start to put the twin tip under your feet and you learn to go up and down and start to stay upwind. Next thing you want to do is jump. And kite boarding is all about jump, it's all about air. And so in this Sort of, kind of direction where kite boarding lies right now, it is obvious that the, say the, the desire of a lot of. A lot of riders that never have the opportunity to actually use the proper condition to train find itself, you know, in, in a good moment, in a sense that, you know, we don't have incredible waves all over Italy. We all have kind of flat beaches and some windy areas like Cape, you know, La Garda and Sardinia and the south of Italy and Sicily. But we are not a swell spot. There's no real swell consist at least consistent swell all over the Mediterranean. And I think this distance between, you know, the conditions which were always the most searched parameter was always missing with all the people all over the world. Now with kite boning being associated with big air, most of the playgrounds, even though you have to go out with a big kite with a 14 or 15 or even bigger, makes Italy, you know, a playground that you actually can show off to your friends and you can really, you know, become someone if you actually ride in Italy because the condition not so bad. And this gives a lot of, you know, possibility. I see a lot of kids in schools all over the world. Yesterday I was in Calabria, I was down in Jitseria for the win for a World Cup. And my guys down there in Crotona, you know, Tony Chile and Alice and Andrea all the way. There's a nice, you know, upcoming big, big air group of people, all the riders, you know, 14, 15, 16, you name it. These guys are kids, they have, they're fearless. And I think it's the first time that Italy has found the ground and the conditions to really prove that, you know, we have, we can train now. We can train. That gives you a lot of positive. Obviously then if you really want to become a professional, you have to move either to Cape Town in the winter time or to Tarifa in the summertime, but. Or Mykonos nowadays. But besides that, I think it's all happening because, you know, once you have your comrade, you know, or your, or your teammate or your, your playmate, whatever, becoming a champion, don't boom. You emulate and you want to be like him. And obviously it's just stimulating. It's just a roller coaster down the line and it becomes obvious that these kids are really wanting to kick each other, each other's ass positively. There's a good feeling, you know, and it's great. It's just great to see that happening.
- [08:35]
B
I mean, why haven't RD focused so much on Big Ear before? I mean, you've had you have Alice. You know, we love Alice. She's such a great representative on the female side. You never hear a bad word about her. She's always got a big smile, been on the podiums at World Championship. I mean the, the recipe was there. Why didn't you push in that and try and go for a bigger name
- [08:57]
A
before we had our big air time, but it was never like we had Jerry Van de Kop getting third, the king of the air about 10 years ago when there was this, the transition between C shaped kite with a bridle and probably, you know, delta shaped kite somehow. But, but honestly I always believed that wave riding waves would have been the destination of kite boarding. And, and strangely I thought like a windsurfer. I'm a windsurfer by heart. So I really thought that the sport would take the same development and same history as. And windsurfing. I was wrong. I totally underestimated the, the importance of, of having, you know, a cat in your hand that gives. Becomes a little parachute. I totally underestimated this possibility. I thought it was something just for Kryptonians or for people that live over there or fly over there or Tarifa. And I really thought that the rest of the world would be in free riding, going up and down, do a few jumps, maybe kite loops, but going 20 meters high and just fucking crank the bar. I didn't think it was going to be so possible for a lot of. And I was wrong. I see the most important development in keyboard and now in kids, which is phenomenal, you know, and we, we do have to capitalize on that. And we had to understand now it's, it's the moment. Probably it was too long, you know, but that's what it is. I could see I have so many other water sports to think about and I'm always in the water and I'm always dreaming about the new ways to go in the water. So my passion is just the ocean. And whatever happens there, man, I want to be there. And I want to be there with the best equipment possible.
- [10:40]
B
Designing Andrea is going to change things 100%. Right? Can you take us back to the moments around when you realized that Andrea was going to sign? And how did that come about?
- [10:51]
A
No, we were looking at him since quite a few years and always loved the way the spontaneity of Andrea. He's a rock star by heart and I always liked that approach. And he's like the kid that just show his feelings and it brings him out and it's an incredible Communicator, because there's no filter, it's just straight out. And what this brings is it really brings the trust from the people that listen to him and see him performing. You know, taking out your courage, close your eyes and do it kind of thing, you know, and that brings the right attitude for kiteboarding when you do something like that. And when we hear that he wasn't happy with auto on the things were going different directions from his parameters and he really wanted to design his own kite together with our design team, he said, yeah, well, this is something we can do. I mean, RRD is all about design, right? It's Roberto Rich Designs. I made up this company to make sure that our design would meet what I learned as a kid, as a shaper, you know, bring the Italian eye and accuracy of the visuals and the harmonious lines and the care for design and harmony, I would say together with the performance, with the background of performance. I learned how to shape wheelchair boards in Hawaii. And actually the first custom made boards that I made, I sold them to to people that lived in Hawaii, in Maui, and to my friend, to fellow mates that were windsurfers with me, professional windsurfers. So I never took to took it for granted, but I had to prove myself that my designs and my boards and my ideas were put into shape. And it was, you know, selling Whitster boards in a way from an Italian guy was not. Is not that easy because it's like a little bit like, he's like a little bit like selling an American guy coming to sell mozzarella in Naples, you know, so it was really something that I took very seriously. And it's always been my philosophy, if you really have the desire to design something which is the right one and to take it together with some visual approach, you cannot go wrong. And there was a movie last year that came out, the History about Enzo Ferrari. And I was really shocked to see that. I really thought about the same things that this iconic man in the. In the automotive business thought. And it was when he was teaching Piero Ferrari his kind of son, they wanted to push away because he was not done with the official mother, let's say he showed him, you know, a design of a new engine. And he told him, look, you know, this is this curve of the. How the fuel goes into the cylinder. You know, do you like this curve? What do you think about this curve? Yeah, it should be a little bit longer and yes, you know, but you know that when the lines actually work better, they always look better. And I Always believe that aesthetics, you know, in harmony, in nature. You can see it right away. The best figures of nature, always the one that works the best. And always been taking that philosophy forward, you know, proportions, graphics, colors, always been a very good part of the product development. And we have an incredible team of designers. We have an incredible team of sail makers, kite makers that have the heart and soul into kiteboarding. So Andrea knows about that because he knows these figures, you know, all these guys. And now we have a very young team of three guys. One is French, one is German, and the other one is Italian. And we push in the boundaries of water sports to a different level. And they're all like 2021 just came out of, you know, engineering universities and. And they use, you know, the. The design program as they would. And Mia, you use the email, you know, programs, and it's amazing. And with the AI, they can do things that I couldn't believe it was possible to be done. So, yeah, Andrea needed this kind of team to back him up with ideas and particular we have our designer, Verter Castelletti, which has been a designer for since when I started to do the very first kites with other designer. Back then, he was always so keen to design whatever flies because he does paragliding. He's a very keen kiteboarder. And he wanted to prove to himself, to rest the war that his kites can actually win, you know, events like, you know, the Megaloop Challenge or the King of the Air, because these two events are the ones that we. That we care the most.
- [15:56]
B
A lot to unpack there. Let me just go back. You mentioned that Andre has no filter and maybe that didn't align with his previous brand. Do you guys have no problem with the way Andrea goes about doing stuff? And are you guys happy to let him bring his immense talent? I mean, you know, the talent is just not on the water, as you said. Are you happy for him to grow with rrd?
- [16:19]
A
Oh, obviously, yeah. Yeah, we loved it. We love his approach. And for me, as a company owner and I always need to see the talents and I always push the talent to become and to express themselves the way they perform at best, you know, and the results you always have always happen once you have a team around you that actually create an ecosystem where you express yourself and you're spontaneous, I believe a lot to work with people that want to have fun, they want to have fun in the water, they want to express themselves. And you just don't go there with just, you know, we got to do. We Got to do. We got to do it. You know, the results happen when you really want to create an environment around yourself where you feel comfortable that your ideas are listened and your. The ideas and the sketches, you do whatever they are put into reality. And you know, and. And I tell. I told Andre it's not. It's not easy. It's not easy to have fun, man. It either. It. It either happens spontaneously and generally and it flows and. And then you see it happen in a good way or it just doesn't. Doesn't go. And whenever we made it, we made the best product in every category, whenever there was a good team of people that really wanted to enjoy the product we are designing. So I think Andrea needed that. I think Andrea needed that way to actually work with people around him that let him have the kites and the bars and the boards that he always was dreaming about. And he has a special style. He likes the cat to be very rigid as design. So he wants to work only with Alula. He doesn't want to compromise with anything else. And obviously other companies probably were limiting him or for whatever the reason. We have no problem. We're really one of the very first brand to get Alula from Ocean Rodeo about seven years ago when the yellow material came just out. And we were the one to use Gold. Gold Alula for the first guide that we did was a religion way back in time. So we've been always using alula 82 gram, the gold Alula. And we want to keep using that because we believe still that this is the best material proven to be very lightweight, stiff and durable. I mean, we have kites from Alula that are four years old and still perform as they were, almost brand new. So that's what. That's. And Andrea didn't want to compromise. I want the kite to be in Alula. I don't want to. Okay, let's do it. Let's go. I mean, other guys, they want to have more of a flexible feel. They want to have a kite that actually twists. He wants to have a kite which is a rigid frame, 100%.
- [19:10]
B
Did Andrea have any other demands that he wanted in regards to gear? Because look, I've known Andrea a long time and he's always been very, very particular about boards, lines, harnesses, you know, obviously the kite. Did he give you any other stuff that he really wanted?
- [19:29]
A
Yeah, he wanted, you know, he want to have a bar which is actually slimmer than our floaters because he wants to spin the bar really quickly. He want to have a Smaller chicken loop. He was. He loves our SK99 lines. Made in Italy. Super. I mean hard, hard to beat them really. They are 1.1 millimeter. The thinnest, the thinnest SK99 alliance ever had. And he likes everything else. I mean he loves the boy just want to stiffen them up a little bit. He loves the shape, he loves the pads. So we are starting to work on the project. But what you really want, he doesn't want to compromise is the rigidity of the frame. He said, you know guys, I think I believe that the way I fly the kite and the way I want the cat to respond has to be with the super rigid frame. Which is something that I always been looking and then I have not been able to get that in especially in the last year. So we say, you know what? We have been always, you know, building Alula kites since the very beginning. We do both the classic construction in Dakar and Tagine and then we do the Alula and Tagine canopy for. For many years. So we don't have a problem with that. So we hardly have any say marketing guidelines since we are very small brand, we are artisanal and we just want to make the best guides for, for the riders. Because that's what I did in the very beginning. I did the same thing over and over with a lot of all my riders. We know we, we sponsor, we used to sponsor this guy called Anders Brindle which was number two in the world after beyond Dunkerbeck, the famous windsurfer. And we always been working for what do people need in terms of result? Because if you don't listen to the pilots, man, doesn't matter how much how strong your marketing campaigns and marketing they have to be aligned. If these guys are your reps, are your image in your face, you got to satisfy them, you got to miss something for them and then good products will follow. So we don't have a problem with that. That's what we did also with our kiteboarding heroes back then. We've been the third brand to take on the license from Bruno Legagneux about when the patent was still valid. After we picked we were the third brand before anybody else. And the first guy we sponsored and actually was the first professional contract written in the history of kite body was with Flash. Austin and I took Flash around the world showing even with the two line kite from Nash and with our boards what we can do with the kite. And we were really believing in this sport from the very beginning. We signed up with Martin Vari five years later, we won two championships with him in freestyle. We were always up in the. In the ladder, you know, and then obviously when, you know what happens when finance, you know, the private equities come into the play. They invest impossible budget for smaller brands. The ecosystem of Kyborg just gets destroyed. And that's why we couldn't compete neither with north, neither with Borza, Moore Duo to namely. And we just let it go. You know, we just say, okay, guys, you do whatever. And then you see the result was up. Now these companies are losing money like crazy. And they don't represent, you know, a friendly and a healthy ecosystem. They destroy the market. So we are here to reconstruct the market together with the comp. With the figures that love kiteboarding, with the figures that actually want to do good things, good products. Because in the end, Adrian, our environment is super small. We are a micro niche. A micro niche, you know, and we keep forgetting about that. And it's all about shapers and sail designers, which evolve into foil designers. And these guys evolve into kite designers and wing designers. But it's the same approach. You have a product in front of your hands, you want to work with your head, go down to it, engineer it. And it's a product that evolves with the time. And it takes a lot of effort to actually find the right kids, the right guys to develop the equipment with. And it's a little bit like, I wouldn't say surfing, because surf is a way bigger sport than kite body and winging. And with surfing put together and the ecosystem is to be protected ideas and inventions. I respect what people do, and I do respect, I do know the amount of effort it takes to develop something with the tools that we have, which are not incredible. And when this start to reappear again, like Andreas Given, there is a possibility, I just, boom, I jump on it. That's healthy. That's something that we, we need to do. Not just because you want to sell more kites, because you want to make somebody happy. That actually attract more kids and more people to Cape Body because we need new people into Cape Body. We need new people in the water. You know, we don't have enough people coming to the water. We had the same old farts around there. Anytime I go to the beach, we all have white hair and it's not fun, man. I just want to see new kids showing up in the water and being. And be addicted, you know, that's. That's what you want. They have to be addicted.
- [24:57]
B
How's the motivation and Excitement been around the office on the back of this. I mean, it must be. Everyone must be pumped. The designers, yourself. I can see you with a big smile on your face because the, you know, this is a big change for rd. You know, I know that you guys have been around a long time, had a big history, but it's a big move into the bigger space at the moment. Being bigger.
- [25:21]
A
Yeah. Well, when. When everybody just, just, just jumps and does wings and foils, which is very much what we do every day, I say, you know, kiteboarding has to be. Has to be pumped because there's so many practicants, there's so many schools around the world. There's a very good, let's say, potential for having new kids. And when I saw what was happening in Crotonium and I saw what was happening in Tarifa, and when I see what's happening in some local beaches, and, And I see that a lot of kids are now discovering kiteboarding, and they love jumping, they love to do tricks. I think that's very healthy. And, And I saw it for the first time in the eyes of Adrian Lowe. It's our kid from Cape Town.
- [26:10]
B
Yeah, very well.
- [26:11]
A
He specialize in. In short lines, Big Air. And that opened up my mind. I. I never seen anything like that. And I see every, Every landing, Every landing he was doing, the guy could literally crash his. His, his ribs any landing and say, wow. He came to weeks.
- [26:28]
B
We know Adrian. We know him.
- [26:31]
A
Whoa. And, and, and that timing, that, that whole, you know, movement and that whole approach to kiteboarding till this kids are gonna go crazy. I mean, kids that are really have the adrenaline rush that they learn about, you know, what, what, what we want is gonna be an incredible eye opener. And actually this attracts a lot of kids. Even though it's very dangerous, it's very limit. But, you know, how can you take. How can you distract the kids from this phone? You know, how can you give me his dopamine dose every day? You know, you have to do something which say, wow, that is something that I want to try, that I want to do that. And I think Big Air is actually one of the safest one because it's not short like Big air. It's normal 23 meter lines. And obviously even done here in Italy with a 15 square meter, you can't really hurt yourself much because you don't jump higher than 10 meters. But still, the feeling of doing that and throwing yourself on a loop, it's just amazing. And I see this coming, and I think that a rock Star like Andrea would interpret that type of approach better than anybody else. He has the right approach and this really gave a lot of boost to our marketing guys, to our designers, to our, you know, commercial guys, to our sales managers. Yeah, that's, that's what I want to see in Kaibor. That's a guy like Andrea developing. Kai's together with us and make a statement, you know, he wants to do his own things and we are here to help him out. So pretty straightforward.
- [28:08]
B
I mean it wasn't just a boost for you guys, it was a boost for everyone. I mean it was. I think it's the biggest news in kiteboarding for, for many years maybe since Duotone north became Duotone. I think that's probably the last time we had news this massive. When are we going to see the first iterations of Andreas kite and will it be an extension of the Obsession or will it be a brand new named Kite? Because the Obsession has been your kite for a long time. Right? That's been your sort of big air, let's say more of aggressive riding kite.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah, yeah. We always been working on these names that came about, you know and I work worked on with my previous production manager. We say we had to find a name that go for our kites because in the very beginning our kites were named after the sequence. It was type one, type two, type four, type, et cetera. And then we went all the way type 6, type 8, type 9. Then hypertype before was super type and hypertype. That's where all the names for these guys, Kevin and stuff they got the inspiration from, was the super type and the hyper type. They all came from RRD and then we decided, you know what, we have a great product which is the Poison. The Poison ball was always like we had, we were the best selling boards in Europe for a while. Made in Cobra super thin. Made with the wood core with some insert of PVC in the middle to lighten, to lighten it up. Fully custom made finish made by hand sprayed on with the top sheet in the bottom. Something completely new because at that time all the board with them made with full PVC or with a pu core. And so we had the poison was a great seller. Say what, what, what can we do, you know, in the kites? I don't, I'm not happy with this. Type 9, type 10. How the way do we want to go, you know, in further. I don't see it. See poison, poison has this suffix on iron in the end, you know, poison. I say what about the levels of attention that your brain takes when you see something links in, linking to. And we say, okay, you know, you start with a vision and there was a vision kite and then it develops into a passion and then turns into an obsession and then becomes an addiction until it reveal your religion, you know. And that's exactly the sequence of how kids get into getting to possibly any sport. And I thought it was a great way to actually call our line of kites. And obsession was always the one, you know, vision, whether the beginner kite, let's say school kite. And then the passion was the evolution from that towards free riding. Started to do the first jumps, very reliable three strut kite. And then obsession was always the one that had to be to jump high. Addiction was the development of the obsession mostly for racing. 5 strat, really high aspect ratio. And then the religion obviously was iconic benchmark kite for waves. And yeah, I can tell you as a preview that the kite that we developed for Andrea is going to be called addiction because that's exactly what it is. This is not a kite, this is his addiction.
- [31:32]
B
Wow, that's super cool. Addiction. I like that. I remember it was a high aspect, it was a racing kite. I mean that was when guys were riding those, you know, horrible directionals and doing racing back in the day. But it was that I was actually living in Dubai at the time and it was a great kite for Dubai. It was a big kite, you know, you could fly it in the light of winds and yeah, I love, I had that kite for a few seasons for sure.
- [31:52]
A
I remember guys like our rider at that time, Tom is, was a very good racer and I saw him quite a few times. He's not a good jumper but he went, he took this kite, I think it was 9 meter or 7 meters something and he went down to the, you know, to the corner in Big Bay in Cape Town where, you know, Aaron and and Kevin were always doing these incredible jumps with the C shaped kites and he took the addiction out and he actually was jumping higher than these kids. You're floating, you're floating in the air, you know. And I remember that very well. It was a very similar design to the current big air kite. Five struts, quite a bit of aspect ratio, extended tips, long bridle. So there you go, you have a base. And of course we did many designs and then with Andrea, he really wants to put his signature onto this kite and I think that's something that also he found with rrd. I told Andrea, you have to capitalize on your image. Now you're 21, you still have a lot of a long way to go. Create your own logo. And that's what I did. I help him out, I help him out to create this idea. Register his brand name, make sure that he's going to be marketed properly. And the card is going to be called addiction. AP04.AP04 which is Andrea Principe 2004, the year he was born. And I think his brand is going to stay there for a while and I hope that we're going to work for many, many years together. But one day he wants to jump out to do his own thing. He's ready to do his own thing. Because again, I believe in healthy ecosystems and I believe in ideas. I don't believe in finance like private equities. Coming there and just trying to monopolize the market. And look at what happened. It's just terrible. There's hardly any kite so the full price. There's overwhelming amount of stocks everywhere. Just because these companies there, they don't think like I do think in, in healthy ecosystems and well made products. Just think about filling up an Excel sheet with results they need to submit to the owners of the company. Because not most of the time the CEOs of this company are not the owners. I am the owner. Rafael is the owner. Robbie used to be an owner. Zen Rasmussi is the owner. All these guys, they have the company, the owners. And that's what I call a healthy ecosystem where people, they just put their ass down. When it talks about, when it's about, you know, talking about investing your money and into something you believe in and, and I think in ideas and beliefs apply to, to, to a healthy ecosystem like high body, like winging, like water sports in general. It's a phenomenal way to express your, your, your passion for, for, for the ocean. And I think it's, it's all about that. Andrea loves the ocean. Andrea loves this level of between, between the air and the ocean which is phenomenal. He just dreams about it. He just loves to fly around and just dreams about doing something which is incredible and I want to give you the opportunity. So There you go. AP04.
- [35:03]
B
The next bigger event probably on the, on the calendar is going to be the Mega loop. One of the big ones has a lot of historical, sort of relents behind it doesn in. It's very selective. Will the RD addiction APO4 be ready for that competition?
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, for sure. It's supposed to have a long waiting period in September that event. So we're gonna see when that actually takes place. Yeah, but definitely we're gonna have all the, the sealant samples, or at least the, the prototypes pre production sample ready for Andrea. And the launch of the kite is supposed to be somewhere between the first and, and the middle, let's say part of November. So month of November is release day of the first, let's say 50 kites for production. Small runs. Don't forget we are a small company. We produce very few kites. And we want to make sure that those guides are one by one checked one by one by our QC guys. And we want to make sure that they all have the Andrea principal signature on because you know, Andrea wants to make sure that his customers, our customers are going to be guaranteed that you have the same kites as Andrea is using.
- [36:18]
B
You know, you mentioned at the top about aesthetics. Where does the orange come from? Because orange is not a popular color in kiteboarding. It's actually, there's almost no kites that are orange. Why have you chosen that color? Or why has that been a traditional color for, for your company and especially for the, for. We can talk about the apparel stuff as well, but why has that been such a prominen color for you?
- [36:41]
A
We decided to go with corporate colors about 12 years ago when clothing was said to be a big part of our business. And we decided to say, you know what, we want to make sure that when people just jump into our website, they see a line and they see a real ecosystem flow of visuals. We don't want to confuse that with too many colors. First of all, because I am a custom maker by heart. I'm an artisan. So I love to make my own boards with my own design, my airbrush and blah, blah, blah. And for many, many years we implemented this type of philosophy where every board and every kite has to have be made with different colors. I remember having boards from the 68 liters all the way up to the 92 liter were waves. We, one was yellow, one was green, the other one was red, the other one was light blue, then purple. We have, I mean you open that website, you see the catalog was Jesus. Car was like a, was like a Pantone code and it was like, come on. I, I, I, after, after, honestly, after now we had our, our 32nd year of business. After 20 years, I say, you know what? Streamline, streamline, create your, your and which, which are the colors that I would like to apply to products. And it's just four colors. One is black because it is the color of, you know, carbon. It's the color of technology. Everything. It's. It's smooth and it's very. It's a, it's a big statement. It's. It's a. It's the base of all the cars. Like it's a non color that creates this, this big impact. And then it's gray. Gray is the color of powder. It's actually. The foam is actually the, the. The hot coat that you actually sand down from your board. And it's the leftover a little bit like the, the powder of marble that, that stays out. But the marble around is actually part of the product itself because the product was sculpted from this excessive amount of other product which are put into the board before making a good board. White is the color of the waves, the foam and the ocean waves and the foam of the board. EPS core. And orange is the only color that stands out out of all these four. And it's, it's. It's called blazing. Orange is the color you spot when you're out there in the ocean. And there's no other better color. There's only two colors that stand out in the ocean. One is yellow and one is orange. Doesn't matter what other people think. I think is the color of safety. Is a color of. Wow, look at that. And I think orange is, is a, Is an amazing color. It's hard to find people that don't like orange. If you name. If you go around and ask any car companies or clothing companies what is the color for. For. For communication that everybody would dig. Everybody would tell you orange. And we took that. And a lot of companies, obviously, because it's such a good color, they are using that here and there because it's, it's not red. Red is very Ferrari racing be used, but it's not so flashy enough. Yellow is the color of happiness. Is the color of. Of, you know, warmth and in riding. Exactly in between, it's. It's orange. We use two colors. Two base of. Of orange. One is the pantone 021, which is the one that is not fluorescent for product that cannot be fluorescent like Eva. Like, you know, some fabrics and stuff like that, or plastic or molded plastic. And others can be fluorescent. So we use this, this to color. But definitely orange is. They call the blazey orange. It breaks apart from all the other neutral color that we chose as a base. Black, gray, orange, white.
- [40:28]
B
You mentioned before about you being a small company and other companies doing things differently. Where do you see the addiction AP04 being priced compared to other big air competitors?
- [40:39]
A
On the market we are thinking about coming out with two different technologies. One is the classic technology for Dacron. The classic Dacron with the proper lightweight parts. And then you know, to, to create a lightweight kite obviously and a classic canopy. And the other one is going to be the, the Alula. The Alula frame. So we, nothing new. You look at what area priced now it's you know, a 10 square meter is priced around €2,500. 2,400 for a full alula and it's about 17, 171800 euros for, for a classical structure. We, you know, we, we, we gonna be aligned by that because we don't sell many so we're not able to actually depreciate like other big brands do. They massively use, you know, they produce ten tens of thousand. We produce hundreds of kites. We want to make sure that our kites are perfect. They're not only perfect, they are really well constructed. They are checked one by one. We don't want, we don't accept any defects, no twists, no wrinkles, no unprecise finishing. We just want to make sure that people having the addiction cards are just going to be like wow, look at this.
- [41:51]
B
Is Andre going to get involved in the fashion side of rd? Because I know you have quite an extension extensive clothing brand. Is, is he going to feature as sort of a model in that as well? Because he's so striking, you know, I mean he's, you know when you see Andreas you almost have to double take every time. I mean he's got that sort of magnetism about him.
- [42:12]
A
I was joking with you the other day, say okay look Andrea, the day you paint your hair with razzle dazzle pattern or you pretty bright orange and I can put you in a photo
- [42:20]
B
shoot, he'll do it.
- [42:22]
A
We don't use, we don't use leopard skin anymore in our clothing. We used to have, we actually wear one of the very first brands. They use leopard skin in our boar shorts way back then it was like 1995 or six, you know, one of the very, very first year and it was amazing. It was amazing. We started off with the clothing like that. But yeah, definitely Andrea has all the ingredients to become a spokesperson for clothing. It's perfect. And even though our clothing range move away from the classic water sports distribution, we have completely different shops that sells our stuff. Andrea by himself is a perfect, you know, example of what I define a modern water sports addict. And that's really something that you know, we definitely want to communicate more and more.
- [43:17]
B
His Parents Sylvia and Massimo, they have a school. Will that school become an RD school as well? Because at the moment it's still sort of associated to his previous sponsors. That something that you guys will look to change.
- [43:30]
A
We didn't, we didn't talk about it with Andrea because I know Massimo, but I never met Silvia, so I waited to see Silvia and I obviously think that she'd be happy to use, you know, some of the kites designed and signed up by his, by his son, I believe. So I think it's gonna be never know. I mean, commercial agreement, I won't interfere with that. I just wanna know that I want to make the best kites with Andrea. I want to work with him. We signed him up until end of 2028, so we're gonna have two and a half years of full development and we want to make sure that the AP brand, AP04 brand, together with RD is coming up and because I think Andrea deserves recognition and deserves, you know, attention and a guide and a professional guide to leave a statement on the, on the, on the kiteboarding industry because he's, he, he's exceptional. You know, no other sports have that so often. And when this happens, when champions of that kind and ambassador of that kind come into any water sports, they become iconic and you want to make sure that they stay there for a while. And obviously some of these talents, they need a bit of guidance, they need a bit of, you know, hey, don't do that. Look what's happening here, look what's happening there. But they're never going to stop him from expressing himself the way he does.
- [44:56]
B
Well, Roberto, that was incredible, man. And on that note, I'm going to finish there. Look, thank you so much for your time. And I really hope he can find and build the kite to do what he does best, whether it's big air or not. I just think that he's, he's almost bigger than the sport now and I, I think that's going to be so cool for you guys.
- [45:13]
A
Yeah, I know there's a lot of people that don't know him yet and they, they, they just want, let's wait. And until they see him in action with his new kites, he's going to be a real proud kid. Not only showing what he can do, but showing the product that he participated in design. So it's going to be an important thing regardless of the results. Because regardless of the results, I think his style and his performance level is just brilliant. It's just outstanding. It's unique.
- [45:42]
B
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