Jake Burton

When he first started, Jake Burton figured that all he needed to do was make and sell 50 snowboards a day, reports Bruce Horovitz in USA Today (2/8/10). The problem was, he sold just 350 for the year, which was 1977. He did manage to double that the following year, and was doing fine until his bank cut off his financing in 1984 "when its executive decided snowboarding was a passing fad." So, Jake became a "one-man cheerleading squad for the sport. He visited hundreds of ski hills that had banned snowboarding," and persuaded them to allow it at their resorts.

This wasn’t part of Jake’s original vision. "When I started Burton Snowboards, I had no idea snowboarding was going to be done at resorts," says Jake. "I thought people would do it in their backyards. I wish I could take credit for having the vision that it would become this big." But it did, and so did his company, which today commands "40 percent of the world’s snowboard market. Sales … are believed to reach almost $700 million." The business has now diversified into surfing as well as skateboarding gear, and has also opened "several brand stores."

The reality is that Burton "now makes more money selling apparel, often to folks who have never been on a board," but it’s possible that Burton could become a billion dollar company within five years. Jake says he doesn’t think about that, but his success "surprises no one more" than himself. "I was a punk," says Jake. "I got kicked out of boarding school at 15." Now 55, Jake still doesn’t comb his graying hair, and says his brand keeps it cool because decisions "are made by a guy and his family who snowboard 100 days a year," and not by Wall Street.