I was going to write about the business advice I gave to the founders of mountain biking. In looking up the current status of the founders I found that Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze have created different histories.
Joe acknowledges Gary as his co-founder but Gary acknowledges Charlie Kelly as his co-founder of mountain biking. They were all hippies, they all played a key role and I can offer no help on the history. The best history is given by Charlie.
When the Briarpatch team of consultants visited the shop near San Rafael, in roughly 1979, there were three people from the shop who joined us.
What was interesting...
What is interesting is that all three have followed the advice I/we
gave them: continue to make one-off bikes, be inventors, have your shop
open for everyone to learn from you and you will always be the gurus of
mountain biking.
That is what happened. Many of the industry leaders were trained by these guys, the field grew larger than anything in the history of biking. Today, everyone in mountain biking knows the names Joe Breeze and Gary Fisher. Charlie Kelly has become the historian of the field and has his own, non-bicycle business in San Rafael.
Today they are still leaders in the field, true heroes. The field is gigantic.
I still give the same advice. If you are the creative genius, the great
artist, then be creative, be the artist and keep producing at your full
fury. Don't get dragged into the management of some production line.
If you do get involved with production you will lose your creativity
and soon be bogged down in difficult day to day management.
I said "I/we" gave business advice. Throughout the early history of the Briarpatch, the first eight years, I brought as many intern-business consultants with me as could fit in a car or a van. I wanted as many people as possible to learn the methods and arts of small business consulting. For eight years we visited three to four Briarpatch businesses every Wednesday. That was a lot of businesses. Between Wednesdays, Briarpatch coordinators were available to help solve problems and answer questions.
Three of the interns are still in the business of small business consulting.