Bulgarian skis and snowboards produced by people from Botevgrad are sold in Russia, China and EU
The hardest thing for starting business in Bulgaria is not only finding financing but also the fact that the government does not propose incentives, especillay to small companies like ours. That was said by the founders of Cloud9 ski and snowboard manufacturing startup Mirsolav Georgiev and Vladimir Dimitrov in Business Start Show at Bloomberg TV with host Yoanna Nikolova.
The guests said that, with the help of Rinker's (the company won the Rinker's Challenge competition last year) they have managed to buy some equipment which helped them to ease tehir production, they have managed to transfer in to a larger workshop so that they could produce a little bit more. They have helped in many aspects in terms of business because we are engineers and we do not have such experience until now.
"We make custom boards and skis. Our products are aimed at freeride and freestyle. One cannot have a real idea about the skis and boards based on their looks. The construction is called sandwich as it has many layers. The most important part is the core- the internity of the ski and board and it determines its main characteristics. The rest is combination of materials, tests and loads of work"
"During mass production thousands of boards and skis are made per day. In our Botevgrad workshop we produce only one or two paris per day if all materials are preapred in advance".
The enterpreneurs explained that during the first two years the aim was to make models so that can be tested and technology and models improved until the model is not finalized and is not presented to the market. Now we have finalized already a few models and until now we recieve only positive feedback. "The other test is the durability timewise. At least one season needs to pass, but real quality is recognized if the board and skis last for five seasons".
"The markets we are aiming are not so well known to the winter community in Bulgaria- Russia, China and we are already entering the European market which is glutted with this type of goods. Every day new brands emerge. For Europe "Made in Bulgaria" still does not bring confidence. For the moment we see there is interest from Russia and we are following that trend".
According to the engineers the products have been sold with early bird sale and were at promotional prices which vary between 700 and 1100 BGN and next year these prices will be changed.