Mike Schneider is our guy. He’s the face behind our Instagram, and the force that helps us bring our visions to life at Voltage. But, Mike is much more than a VoHemian and outdoor enthusiast – He’s an entrepreneur and the mastermind behind Surface Skis. This business founder fell in love with skiing, started a new wave of edgy skis, and has been shredding ever since.
If you want to feel inspired, tune in to Mike’s story and read about how he turned his passion into a successful ski brand!
HOW MIKE MET SKIING – A Love Story
Surprisingly enough, skiing wasn’t something Mike grew up on. He was born and raised in Utah, but spent his early years playing baseball, and eventually moved to California to play the sport on a college level. Halfway through his college baseball career, he found himself missing Utah and the mountains. He kept hearing stories from his friends that lived in Cottonwood Canyon and Alta who were living the dream and skiing powder everyday. This was the final push that got him out of California and back to his mountains, “I packed my car and left literally in the middle of the night and drove to Alta.”
He touched down at the Rustler Lodge, where his buddy hooked him up with a gig doing laundry all night. Mike kept this up for the next four years, surrounded by a cool group of guys who happened to be big skiers.
Because of the circle he was in, it was only a matter of time before Mike stepped into some skis of his own. For him, skiing was love at first sight, and it truly changed the course of his life. When you’re skiing some of the best snow ever, there’s no reason to do anything else. Mike and his crew were thriving on the mountain and hardly found any reason to leave Alta. Plus, hanging out with athletes 24/7 pushed Mike to progress at skiing fast.
“Being a new skier, it was crazy for me. I was out there trying to ski lines and ski Wolverine Cirque with those guys and they just took me under their wing. I’ll never forget the bigger line I skied in Wolverine Cirque – there was a guy named Dave, who is an Alta legend, but Dave walked me through the whole process. We probably had no business being there but we figured it out.”
Once he learned to ski from these guys, the rest was history. Today, it’s still a huge part of his life and something he loves to do with his kids.
CREATING SURFACE SKIS
At this point in Mike’s life, he recently married his wife Lisa, and they were poor newlyweds.
From a career standpoint, they didn’t know what to do so they decided to open a small retail shop in Highlands, Utah. The Union Shop was where they sold skateboards, clothes, shoes, snowboards, and the list goes on. “We were probably ahead of our time with that store. We didn’t get the most support, but we met a lot of cool people in the area and created a little scene.”
One day, Mike was chatting with his good friend when the conversation went a bit like, “Why are skis so boring?” He felt like they all consisted of nascar graphics and were super racey. So, he decided to get crazy and put art and graphics on skis. They had a couple hundred bucks, and few obligations in life, so they put this into the creation of Surface Skis.
“We kind of came up with this thing – imperfecting the perfect.” Mike described it as throwing stuff against the wall, and finding out what sticks. They found a factory in Utah that made skis, and were able to make the products come to life and get them on the snow. It all happened quickly, but they didn’t want to sit and think about it for too long. Mike says, “We rather thought, ‘Hey, why not? People are building skate decks, why can’t we build skis?’”
Surface Skis quickly followed* his vision – they were building crazy skis, cool art, and shooting insane photos. It pushed past what the typical ski standard was at the time, and people loved it. “They were cool, and everybody was sort of tripping out on them because they looked so different.” Pretty soon, Surface had super fans all over the world.
DOING THINGS THE SURFACE-SKI-WAY
Surface Skis was one of the first ski brands to really come out and do their thing without catering to the masses. They experienced success in this because they had the confidence and knew that their vision was right.
“It’s a double edged sword, because when we did surface, we didn’t give a crap what anybody said about anything when it came to graphics, shapes, art, our messaging and everything. We literally did not care what anybody thought, we were doing this our way… It was a total self expression brand.”
Staying true to his ideas, even though they were different, had a huge pay off. Surface Skis reached 20 different countries, and what he was doing really worked. They gained a cult following around the world, with fans in central europe, scandinavia, japan, you name it. An important takeaway from this experience for Mike, is to do exactly what you want to do.
Take it from Mike himself, “Follow your dreams. And I know it sounds cheesy, but follow your vision. If you have goals, just commit to that and you’re going to have people along the way who don’t like what you do and talk smack, but if they’re not talking about you, then you’re doing something wrong. We had a lot of people talking about us, so that was super cool.”
LOOKING BACK ON THE EXPERIENCE NOW
Creating this brand was super rewarding in the sense that Mike crafted something he loved, and it gave his family crazy cool experiences. He says, “First and foremost, I’m a family guy. Family is everything to me.”
Because of Surface, he got to travel with his family all the time. They were always in the mountains of different countries, and he believes that these experiences shaped who his kids are. Exposing them to creative people and beautiful places affected their approach to life. Whether it’s team sports, or anything going on in their lives, they have a unique approach because of those experiences.
Aside from his family, Mike is forever grateful for all the friendships and connections he made through Surface Skis. The majority of his circle today had to do with this company, and he stayed best friends with the people he worked with.
Of course it wasn’t easy and they faced some challenges along the way. In the beginning, Surface was overflowing with energy and excitement from the team and friends. It was a super collaborative effort from everyone involved. But after a couple years of this, the demand got crazy. People from all over the world were trying to buy skis, and it was hard to keep up.
Like most small companies, Surface faced the problem of trying to meet the demands while not having that much money. Mike says, “Money sucks, but money was the hardest challenge.”
Luckily, they’re friend Greg came in and turned their dreams into a reality. He provided them with some fire power through cash, and plugged them into a proper accounting team. This allowed them to create, sell, market, and really make a solidified brand.
Overall, the list of takeaways from building Surface is never-ending in Mike’s opinion. “There’s no regrets, we have great memories with surface skis.”
