Why Aaron Started Actionsports Anchor
Aaron, founder of Actionsports Anchor, is a regular dad and lives in the NSW’s Southern Highlands with his family. His daughter spent a lot of time at the Perisher Winter Sports Club and every Friday they’d head to the snowies over winter for training while Aaron spent hours skiing around the mountain.
“We skied a lot mid-week when my daughter was training and that meant I still had to work so I used the time on the lifts to send emails. I remember one time having a death grip on my phone.” Aaron laughs. “I looked down and saw my cheap lens cloth attached to my jacket by an elastic strap and I remember thinking, this doesn’t make any sense. My lens cloth is worth 50 cents but my phone is over a thousand bucks.” So that night I jumped online to try to find something to tether my phone.”. This was in 2017 Aaron recalls “Back then there were only those cheap, clunky office style lanyards and certainly nothing sport specific as an option.”
Aaron is an outdoor enthusiast and amateur motorcycle racer so he’s naturally got an interest in engineering so he figured he’d head to his workshop and just make something himself.
What Happened Next
“I quickly came up with a design idea that I thought would work so I bought black bungee cord material from a fabric supply store and some carabiners and put something together for my family to use. It was fairly crude but worked great (I still have Actionsports Anchor #1 on my desk!). Then something interesting started to happen nearly every time one of us would take our phones out on the lift. We’d get asked where we got them from.”
Aaron also manages his family’s boutique advertising business with his wife and business partner Rebecca (who’s a marathon and ultra distance trail runner). Having spent over 20 years helping build brands and sell products for their clients, the pair knew what kind of impact a product like this could make on sports they loved, like motorcycle racing, skiing, cycling and trail running. He figured maybe they were onto something – so they started to fine tune the design.
“For version two, we knew we wanted brighter, more visible colours so ordered some material samples from the usual places but we were never satisfied with the wait times, quality or feel of the materials because they just felt cheap.” Aaron recalls. “Then we discovered an Australian company that manufactures exactly the type of industrial strength bungie shock cord we were looking for. Their quality was incredible since their cord is engineered for the marine industry with materials more durable, stronger, UV stable,you could get it wet and we could get it in any colour we wanted.. Plus since they manufacture here in Australia, they could turn our orders around much quicker than an overseas supplier could. Once we locked in this key design and supplier element, we started to get serious. It’s also when we made the decision that our products and packaging would always be made right here in Australia from as many Australian made parts as possible.
As it happens with something simple but effective, wherever Aaron took out the now fluorescent orange coloured bungie cord tether, he would get people asking about it. Things began to move quickly, starting by meeting an Aussie park skier at a camp in Japan that Aaron’s daughter was doing. That contact led to an introduction to Rhythm Sports, Cooma, who placed their first order with him and within a few weeks the Actionsports Anchor OG60 (60cm version) was officially a real product for sale and it took off from there.
The Perisher / Thredbo and communities rallied, starting with stocking it in the Mid P Centre and The Man Hotel, which helped the product grow in popularity very quickly. It grew like this simply because it was a product that was ultra-useful and did what it says on the box. “It was the first sports-specific tethering system for both phones and action cameras.” Aaron states “The Actionsports Anchor is intentionally over-engineered because I wanted the quality to be the same as the other high quality equipment I loved like my helmet, goggles and skis.” It didn’t take long before their website was launched and they began selling Actionsports Anchors to the international markets. “In the early days, most international sales came from someone seeing an Aussie using one on a chairlift while skiing overseas and asking about it.” Before long, Actionsports Anchors were being sold to customers in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, France and Spain.
As is often the case when a product or brand grows so quickly, there are always a few things that you know you could have improved on. “We nailed the technical design of the Actionsports Anchors very quickly because that was our total focus early on. Such a strong demand from retail wasn’t something we were expecting. We launched the products and grew so quickly, we never got the chance to develop the branding the way we’d have liked to.” So that was their big project for the first half of 2024.“Our goal was to create brand iconography and identity that would match the quality of our products and sit comfortably with other industry leading brands. We also wanted to create a brand identity that paid respect to our origins – mountain sports and circuit racing and also the interests of our customers who have been so supportive of our products. We did months of design and focus group testing with our own personal action sports athlete and industry connections in AUS, Canada, US & UK. Eventually we locked in on our current branding and could not be more proud.”The real acid test of any brand in this industry is when a young snowboarder or park skier that you don’t know slaps your sticker on their helmet or messages you on Instagram asking if you support athletes. When we saw that happening, we knew we had created something special and it’s something we are super proud of.”
The rebrand allowed Aaron to address one manufacturing element that they also wanted to optimise. The moulded lanyard part that attaches to the phone or camera carrying their old brand mark was still made overseas and would need to be redesigned. Aaron and Bec knew they wanted to bring production of this critical element in house here in Australia so he started nerding out into the world of cutting edge 3D printing technology.
Deploying this technology has been game changing for Actionsports Anchor. “We can design, develop, test and produce new products at warp speed which led us to launching additional models and service offerings.. Material and design testing times were slashed and the new tech gave us the ability to precisely engineer our designs completely in house. This led to our new lanyard parts being 5 times stronger than the original PVC material. With the increase in strength of this part, Aaron has engineered a safety feature that releases the 1mm cord if more than 20kg of force is applied.
“It’s great for travel too.” Aaron adds “Our son Lachlan is an avid traveller and used his Actionsports Anchors as theft prevention devices on a 6 month backpacking trip around Europe. Since an Actionsports Anchor is designed to hold up to 20kg of force, a pickpocket can’t snatch your phone and run off with it. But the safety feature is there in case it really needs to break in an emergency. We’ve got a pretty big non sport focused customer segment who now use Actionsports Anchors simply for theft and loss prevention for their phones, cameras, wallets or anything else they can attach it to.”
How It’s Going
Even though Aaron and Rebecca saw the potential early on, they are pretty blown away by the support and demand their Actionsports Anchor products have gained around the world. In addition to being incredibly versatile and useful products, the new 3D printing technology has allowed Actionsports Anchor to create totally new design service that has enabled them to collaborate with some exciting brands, resort groups, snowsport schools, hotels, travel agencies, retailers and charity organisations, both here in Australia and also overseas. Actionsports Anchor is now creating bespoke, co-branded Actionsports Anchor designs that their partners use as branded retail items or as unique, high quality branded promotional gifts for their own guests, VIP’s, trade partners, staff, instructors etc. Aaron says that he loves work with other leading action sports brands and was excited to announce they’ve just finished production and shipped product to a technical partner collaboration with the Rookie Academy, an elite ski training academy running week-long courses in North and South Hemispheres. “I get a real buzz working with industry icons like Dean and Amber from Rookie Academy.” Aaron says “Rookie Academy built their brand reputation on a commitment to excellence that spans over 30 years so we take it very seriously when someone like that puts their trust in our brand and chooses to bring us on as technical partner.”
Another co-branded project they are very proud to have worked on this season was a technical partnership with Disabled Winter Sport Australia (DWA). Aaron shared “We really admire the work that the DWA does – they make it possible for people with disabilities to be able to get out and experience the thrill and freedom of being on the mountain. Our collaboration with DWA was a combination of supplying paid stock that they use as promotional give away items at events like the Melbourne and Sydney Snow Travel Expos and sponsored, no cost technical partner stock for their team of instructors and students with disability to use while on snow.”
With an ever growing list of retail, branded promotional and technical partnerships in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, North America, the UK and Europe, Actionsports Anchor is a family owned, proudly Australian born, owned and made brand that’s gone from a simple fix to a must have essential around the world.
We’d have to agree, these little but high-tech anchors are ‘built for kick-ass people doing cool stuff”. Get out there and get hooked up.
Where can you buy Actionsports Anchors? They are stocked at many retailers, including Wild Earth or jump on their website actionsportsanchor.com to see a full list of retail, brand and technical partners or get them direct from their website too.
