2024 In Review: So What Now?
“Rollercoaster” is the only word sophisticated enough to describe 2024 for Diamant Skiing.
This is the Diamant Team (and Stephen A. Smith), on a roller coaster. May or may not be photoshopped.
Yes, yes, that's a cliché. I know. But there’s just no better way to summarize the constant up-and-down nature of the past year.
2024 started with us “selling out” of the inventory we had on-hand. This was actually due to 70% of our bags being stuck in Chinese customs. Why? An illegal product shipped by the company we were sharing a container with caused an immediate confiscation and search.
Sick.
For two months, we had no clue when—or if—our bags would be released. A Chinese customs agent had more mental real estate in my mind than he (or she) will ever understand. We lost over two months of sales as we switched to “pre-sales.” Pre-sales, shockingly, do NOT work in the middle of ski season.
We lost all our momentum—and cash—and were staring down bankruptcy (for the first of three times). Thankfully, our last-ditch effort—a President’s Day Sale—generated just enough revenue. By the end of February, our bags finally landed in the US.
This incident was our sign to move production. We officially transitioned our manufacturing to Vietnam (which we had visited in November 2023). We’d set up a relationship with a product development team and were ready to take the next step in producing better products.
We dove into development right away, working on improving the Weekend Warrior and rapidly developing The XL. With rising development costs and slower sales as we exited winter, we once again faced bankruptcy—for the second time in four months.
We used this opportunity to take a look at our business model - clearly this also needed rework.
Insert Rise & Alpine. A conversation with the YouTuber in February (that I had personally forgotten about) led to us sending him a bag to try out. Fast forward to April: he absolutely loved it. He featured us in a video, and our sales blew up, singlehandedly saving us from disaster.
In May, we launched the pre-sale of The XL. Launching a ski-based product in May isn’t easy. Sales were relatively low, but they helped us keep the lights on.
The XL getting packed during a July Photo Shoot. Yes, we take photos of ski gear in July.
The summer was slow and filled with planning. In June, we finally closed our collaboration with J Skis. Another sale for us that helped pay the bills. July and August were brutal. Sales were minimal, and once again, we faced bankruptcy heading into September.
Somehow, on August 30th, a barrage of sales hit just as I was contemplating putting in more of my own money to cover the bills. By October 1st, we were ready to launch The Weekend Warrior 2.0. This updated version represented months of hard work and customer feedback. Simultaneously, we decided to onboard an ad agency to support our increased marketing efforts for November and December. One of our better decisions.
Of course, this was when we were informed of strikes at the New Jersey port. Another inventory order, another delay. As sales started to pick up, we realized our promised date of delivery by Thanksgiving wouldn’t be met. We went into customer service overdrive, answering hundreds of (justifiably) angry emails.
Justifiably Angry Port Workers.
We didn’t lose a single order. October ended up being, at the time, our best month to date. November tripled the sales of October. December doubled the sales of November. Whether it was luck, planning, third-party support, or some combination of the three, I’m not quite sure.
The end of 2024 was a breakthrough that none of us saw coming. Sure, we had expectations, but this broke all of them. In late December, our collaboration with J Skis was launched. By December 31st, we were out of both black and green Weekend Warriors. On January 12th, we were completely sold out. On January 18th, the collaboration with J Skis sold out.
Just a really pretty photo of a Bluebird Weekend Warrior (and Loam).
So, what now?
I consistently reference the movie Edge of Tomorrow when explaining what I think of the future. In the movie, Tom Cruise relives the same day over and over again until, eventually, there comes a moment when his team asks him, “What next?” He looks at them and says, “I don’t know. I’ve never made it this far.”
When I decided to design a boot bag, I had a few scenarios in mind:
I wouldn’t be able to get a proper design, and this would end before it started.
I’d try to launch a Kickstarter, and it would fail.
The Kickstarter would succeed, and then something would happen and this would fail.
I never really considered that I would actually start a small company. But as we head into 2025, Diamant Skiing is a living, breathing, and time-consuming company that has taken on a life of its own.
I never imagined this back in October 2022 when I sketched a boot bag design on my iPad.
So, instead of trying to guess and predict, I’ll just tell you what we have planned.
In a few days, we are going to open up signups for our pre-sale of the Weekend Warrior 50L. Yes, another pre-sale. But as a startup, they help us raise the capital we always need for inventory purchases.
A 50L Weekend Warrior for those of you with big feet / lots of stuff. More information to come *eye emoji*.
Why the 50L version? The current bag (40L) fits up to a 29.5 ski boot. This one will fit up to a 32. People with big feet—we got you.
Our goal is to order inventory by March 1st. This will finally allow us to avoid the nightmare of shipping last-minute bags in early December. Our goal is to have bags ready to ship by October 1st, and we’re building plenty of delay buffers into our order timeline. Because at this point, we all know something is going to go wrong.
There will be new colors coming. They’re awesome.
We are currently developing multiple personal item-sized bags. These will work in line with our current carry-on-approved products and will help skiers continue to bring more with less. Our goal is to release these at some point in the winter, so hold on just a bit longer.
We are also starting to design a ski bag. Many of you have asked for one, and I can safely say—it’s coming.
The truth is, I have no idea where Diamant will be in five years. I’m not even sure what will happen in 2026.
But I’m starting to get confident that there will be a five years from now for Diamant.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll even go full-time soon.
See you on the slopes,
—Shai
