Powder7 owners Jordan and Amy got a chance to chat with the folks over at BusinessDen to chat about what we get up to in the summer, and how circularity fits into our business. We wanted to share some snippets from the article, as well as this great video that they got here at the shop. Check out BusinessDen and the whole story here.
Winter Expertise
“The Golden-based business got its start selling used gear online, making it one of the first in
the industry to have its own e-commerce arm, according to owners Jordan Jones and Amy Dannwolf. And, unlike many brick-and-mortar winter retailers, it doesn’t switch up its inventory when the weather warms up.
Instead, Powder7, which the now-married couple founded in 2007, stays slinging twigs 12 months of the year.
‘Around 2012, we started thinking about diversifying and testing the waters there, just trying a few things out,’ said Dannwolf, who focuses on the business’ big-picture vision. ‘But it just didn’t feel true to ourselves to do that. We built such a reputation and brand for ourselves around our winter expertise.’
With a focus on just one subset of outdoor recreation, the Powder7 team has time to test out gear, write reviews and tailor their advice to the needs of each customer, the pair said.
‘This allows us to hire and train around everyone being winter experts,” said Jones, who is Powder7’s president and handles its day-to-day operations. ‘You’re not going to get that same 100% of people to have the passion for skiing to have that same passion with 100% of the summer sports.'”
The Origin Story
“Jones and Dannwolf met in the fall of 2003 while running for Boston University and started dating a short time later.
Jones graduated first and moved to Denver, where his mother had relocated while he was in college. Once here, the youth powderhound rediscovered his love for the slopes.
‘I got super back into skiing. And I remember I was in Vail, and I saw a bunch of demo skis that (ski shops) would have to bring out, like 200 pairs,’ he said. ‘And they’d be out in front of the stores, and no one was even looking at them. I thought if someone — me — could list these online for sale, there’d be a ton of appreciative skiers.’
Those shops were dependent on summer tourists buying the previous season’s demos, effectively limiting themselves to just a sliver of the potential market. Their need to create space for summer inventory and new gear coming in for the coming winter forced them to sell at particularly steep discounts.
‘It’s the most classic entrepreneur thing: you’re solving two problems,’ he said of Powder7.
Jones began driving into the Rockies and loading pairs into his grey Volvo station wagon.
‘It started small. I didn’t even have any money,’ Jones said. ‘It was ‘Hey, I’ll buy 10 of these.’ Then I’d sell those and maybe buy 12 the next time.’
‘Jordan would buy as many as he could with a credit card and sell them so he could pay off the card, and then with that he’d have a little more money to buy some more skis,” said Dannwolf, who was still in school and visited Colorado during breaks.
In October 2007, four months after Dannwolf graduated and joined Jones in the Centennial State, the two moved the operation into a 1,500-square-foot warehouse at the corner of Sheridan Boulevard and 6th Avenue. They then gave the business its current name, referencing top-tier mountain conditions and the year they went full-time on the business.
Up to that point, they’d been selling on eBay – something Jones did throughout college with running gear. The next step was getting a website.
When Jones picked up a copy of “PHP for Dummies” and taught himself how to code, most ski brands were still a couple years away from their internet debut.
‘We’ve always viewed ourselves as trying to be technologically advanced,’ Jones said.
‘There’s been tons of improvements through the years, but you can find lines of code in there
from 2007.’
In 2009, the couple and the business moved to Golden. Powder7’s space doubled in size in 2011, when another tenant moved out, and again in 2015, when the storefront was added. They also started tuning skis in-house at that time.
‘It was really exciting because then we were able to make sure that every ski went out of Powder7 with a tune that we’d be pumped to ski,’ Dannwolf said. ‘Because before we’d be at the mercy of the shops in terms of quality.”
The business expanded to 12,000 square feet in 2019 and to its current 28,000 in 2022.
‘We started with a handful of shops in the mountains, built up credibility and developed a
name for ourselves,’ Jones said.
From Rentals to Trade-ins
“While most used skis come from a rental fleet, the couple began buying trade-ins from individuals in summer 2023. They said that segment has gone up about 30% each of the two years it’s been live and has lots of room to grow.
Ski bums can get an instant quote on Powder7’s website based on the year, make and condition of the pair, and use that credit for a new edition.
‘Sometimes people don’t end up loving the model they buy, maybe they outgrew it or they might come to that point where they want something wider or narrower,’ Jones said, adding that trade-ins help diversify offerings as well. ‘We wanted to let the consumer decide where they want to go to make sure the ski can reach its full lifespan.’
This concept leans into what Dannwolf says is the future of the business: circularity.
‘When Jordan thought of the trade-in idea two years ago, at that point circularity wasn’t the buzzword that you see now,’ she said. ‘There’s more of an awareness in trying to keep things out of a landfill. Circularity isn’t gonna be optional in the future.’
Next, the couple are thinking more about end-of-life options for skis, whether it be recycling them in some way or displaying them somewhere else — anything to keep pairs from a garbage heap.
‘We want to continue to grow the brand and be really strong in the ski industry in terms of circularity. We would love for us to be a role model there and push the envelope,’ Dannwolf said. ‘But long-term, we want to be the first place people think of when they buy skis.’
