| New Flagstaff manufacturer of rock-climbing holds transforms garage
business into worldwide sales.
When rock climbing is your passion, there is no limit to how high you can rise, and Frank Cornelius has his sights set on reaching the top of a unique and relatively young industry. Cornelius' VooDoo Holds, which produces holds mainly for indoor rock climbing gyms, began as humbly as any business can. Laid off as an aerospace engineer seven years ago, Cornelius used his spare time tinkering in his garage with holds for his climbing hobby. A friend of mine was a buyer for an outdoors store, and he said if I could make them just a little bit better, he'd sell them in the store for me," says Cornelius, 38. It's the type of challenge any engineer embraces, and out of those few initial molds has grown a business that now makes and sells up to 5,000 climbing holds per month |
|
Cornelius, who moved his business from San Diego to Flagstaff in October, sees that production eventually growing to 300,000 holds annually as sales expand globally.
While he declines to say how much his company currently earns, potential revenues from VooDoo Holds' 800 hold styles have been projected to reach $1.5 million per year. In climbing, the view at the top makes the struggle to get there worthwhile. It's been no different for Cornelius' two- person operation, which struggled in its first three to four years to turn a profit.
"It's evolved quite a bit since I've started, it's gotten quite a bit better. There is room to grow; there's some limitations that we have, but we can deal with those," Cornelius says Friday, sitting in the small office of his 1,700-square-foot, east Flagstaff shop, 3920 E. Huntington Drive, Suite D.
Part of what restricts VooDoo Holds is its size. Along with Cornelius, the only other permanent employee is CEO Regina Richer, who assists in the production of the climbing gear and focuses on marketing.
The greatest - and costliest - evolution for VooDoo Holds has been the design of the silicon molds he uses to craft his 800 products. In the ever changing sport of climbing, the challenge is keeping up with the latest trends. VooDoo manages better than its competitors. Many of its holds are considered the standard in a truly specialized industry , where only about five other companies in the United States produce holds to the level that VooDoo does.
"We have new hold shapes every month, which
not many other companies do. It's a subscription program our customers sign up
for, and every month they receive a set of holds that haven't been seen
before," Richer, 27, says.
VooDoo Holds focuses on direct sales, mostly to indoor rock-climbing gyms.
Cornelius and Richer say they use Flagstaff's Vertical Relief Rock Gym as their
"laboratory," letting the downtown indoor gym test out its latest
holds.
Part of the reason for their move to Flagstaff was to be nearer to climbing locations, where Cornelius and Richer draw their inspiration for new holds meant to imitate real rock faces for indoor climbers. "When you're out climbing, a lot of times you'll grab onto a hold and you'll say, 'Wow, that's cool,' and you'll remember what the shape was and you can come back and replicate it fairly well," Cornelius says.
Compared with its competitors, VooDoo Holds uses a more durable material to make its holds, but one that is twice as expensive. The company also bonds a rubber coating akin to skateboard wheels to the back of the hold, making it more flexible and preventing the hold from spinning on the wall.
VooDoo Holds also moved to northern Arizona to lower its overhead costs. The savings from that have been put into marketing efforts, which to this point mostly have come via customer word of mouth.
With a background in engineering, Cornelius admits that promoting his products, rather than making them, has proved to be his biggest stumbling block. As Richer says, "The product is pretty well-developed; realistically, it's better than anything else that's out there, so making it better isn't going to help us a lot."
he company recently developed a new Web site (www.voodooholds.com), but also promotes itself in climbing magazines and by sponsoring competitions nationwide. For more information, call VooDoo Holds at 526-0993
Source: Scott Walters, Arizona Daily Sun, Sunday
March 18, 2001 pp D1 & 4.
Copyright 2001 Northern Arizona
University, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
