Tower Paddle Boards in Pacific Beach recently was listed as tops on the list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in San Diego for 2014.
\n“It was for our growth of more than 1,000 percent revenue between 2011 and 2013 \u2014 not bad for a surf company,” said Stephan Aarstol, founder\/CEO of Tower, which started in 2010.
\nPaddleboarding is a surface water sport in which participants are propelled by a swimming motion using their arms or a paddle while lying, kneeling or standing on a paddleboard or surfboard in the ocean.
\nOne key to Tower\u2019s success, said Aarstol, was catching the wave of popularity \u2014 and opportunity \u2014 early on in the new water sport and riding it as it began cresting.
\nPaddle surfing in the waves is less than 5 percent of the much larger “paddle boarding” market, said Aarstol noting paddle boarding is actually far bigger than the surf market, just as a sport like kayaking is, “and the difference isn’t insignificant.
\n“There are about 25 million people who kayak in a year in the United States, and only about 2.5 million people who surf in the United States in a year, Aarstol said.
\nBesides being relatively easy to learn, Aarstol said paddleboarding provides a number of attractive recreational and athletic opportunities.
\n“It can be a competitive or a social thing,” he said adding, “One hour of standup paddleboarding is equivalent to eight hours of surfing in the waves, because it\u2019s constant action and it\u2019s a whole-body workout.”
\nFinding a way to cut costs is one reason why Aarstol\u2019s company has thrived through creating, manufacturing and direct marketing its own brand.
\n“We sell direct to consumers through our website, www.towerpaddleboards.com,” said Aarstol noting that can allow his customers to save hundreds of dollars on paddleboard purchases, which at Tower are in the $600 to $1,000 range.
\nAarstol said paddleboarding is also growing in popularity because it\u2019s a multi-dimensional experience.
\n“There\u2019s the surfing element,” he said adding, “Another element is the outdoor adventure. Then there\u2019s the exercise element for both men and women.”
\nOnline commerce is growing every year. Paddleboarding is growing every year. For Aarstol, it\u2019s a perfect match.
\n“We\u2019re just eating up market share,” he enthused.
\nAarstol said he\u2019s profited from doing things a little differently.
\n“Nobody else sells paddleboards through their website, and our brand is not available in any retail store,” he said pointing out his new online business model is actually returning to the “basics” of retail.
\n“We have a personal relationship with our customers,” he said noting “Most other brands are far removed from the ultimate end customer. We\u2019ve grown our brand one customer at a time. They have direct access. They can call us, and I\u2019ll pick up the phone and they can talk to me. It\u2019s a modern version of Old School business, to know your customers. With social media and direct marketing, we\u2019ve gotten back to that small town-type of business. That\u2019s what we are.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tower Paddle Boards in Pacific Beach recently was listed as tops on the list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in San Diego for 2014. “It was for our growth of more than 1,000 percent revenue between 2011 and 2013 \u2014 not bad for a surf company,” said Stephan Aarstol, founder\/CEO of Tower, which started in […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":272078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"PB\u2019s Tower Paddle Boards makes list of fastest-growing companies in city","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}