David Chiu

What is a Freebord?

To imagine what a freebord is, think of a skateboard with six wheels. First, take the four wheels you normally see on a skateboard and push them out a bit – making the wheel base significantly wider. Second, add a couple of pivoting wheels at each end of the board. Finally, slap on binding-like devices to allow you to edge hard and slide as you Freebord down the hill. It’s obviously more complicated than what I’ve described, but that’ll give you a good idea.

What’s really interesting is that Steen Strand, the founder of Freebord is also the co-founder of ICON Aircraft.

Steen Strand is a seasoned sports product entrepreneur with 14 years of hands-on operational startup experience. Steen’s expertise is in product design, marketing and brand building. Early in his career he worked at IDEO, one of the world’s leading design consultancies before founding Freebord, a skateboard company with a global subculture of fanatical riders. He later served as COO and Director of Product at Secara, a funded healthcare startup. Steen received his MS in Product Design from Stanford University, where he periodically instructs courses in Product Design. Steen’s designs have been featured in numerous TV shows, websites and magazines, including Time, Forbes, Newsweek and Wired. He has lectured on design and business in many venues, including Stanford, Yale, MIT’s Media Lab, and Xerox PARC. Prior to attending Stanford, Steen worked in finance at Lehman Brothers and co-founded Fletcher Asset Management, an early hedge fund with over $500 million in assets. He received his AB in Economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

From carving up the streets to carving up the sky. Pretty impressive.