Mush, puppy!
Originally designed for extreme athletes, Diggler's scooters have gone to the dogs.
 |
| Originally designed for extreme athletes, Diggler's scooter has gone to the dogs. Here, Wiggins tows his owner, CEO Fruechtenicht. |
(Fortune Small Business) -- When I started designing mountain scooters, I didn't have dogs in mind. I grew up in Marin County, Calif., watching guys from the area develop the mountain bike. It didn't take long for me to decide that I wanted to do something similar.
I was a competitive mountain biker, and I launched Diggler because I dreamed of inventing a sport that combined biking, boarding, and skiing. One day, soon after college, I took apart an old scooter, attached a skateboard platform to it, and added BMX bike wheels and the suspension system from my bike.
I started test-riding the contraption on mountain trails. One afternoon I tried to skid over a rock at a high speed. That was one of the worst wipeouts of my life. But it inspired me to add a plastic ski to the bottom of the scooter so that riders could slide more over rough terrain, enabling them to perform tricks without killing themselves.
At first I focused on selling to ski resorts, figuring that they could rent out the scooters during warmer months. After Mike Kloser, a triathlete and world champion mountain biker, took one of my scooters for a test run at Vail Resorts' Beaver Creek, I made my first sale in 1999 to the ski resort company, which bought a fleet of eight. Today about 50 ski resorts use my scooters.
I have no idea how dogsledders got hold of my product, but about three years ago I received a large order from a sled-dog equipment company. It turned out that they were attaching leashes to the scooters and using them to train dogs when there wasn't any snow. I soon realized that Diggler had tapped into a brand-new sport: urban mushing.
The International Sled Dog Racing Association holds dry-land races five times a year. Our overall sales hit about $500,000 last year, a third of which came from mushers. Thanks to recent design tweaks such as a more efficient leash attachment, we're hoping to increase the number of dog scooters we sell this year by 50%. I wanted to help create a new sport, but I never expected it to be this.
Rob Fruechtenicht is the Founder and CEO of Diggler in Petaluma, Calif. 
-
The Cheesecake Factory created smaller portions to survive the downturn. Play -
A breeder of award-winning marijuana seeds is following the money and heading to the U.S. More -
Most small businesses die within five years, but Amish businesses have a survival rate north of 90%. More -
The 10 most popular franchise brands over the past decade -- and their failure rates. More -
These firms are the last left in America making iconic products now in their twilight. More
My dream is to launch my own business someday. Now that it's time to choose a major, I'm debating if I should major in entrepreneurial studies or major in engineering to acquire a set of skills first. Is majoring in entrepreneurship a good choice? More
When it comes to in-flight pampering, the amenity kits offered by these 10 airlines are the ultimate in luxury More
From a text therapy platform to apps that push you reminders to breathe, these self-care startups offer help on a daily basis or in times of need. More
From Uber's flying cars to the Hyperloop, these are some of the neatest transportation concepts in the works today. More
More Small Business
