The Roots of Nineplus
Nineplus was started in 1996 in the small town of St. Agnes on the North Coast of Cornwall in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Richard Balding when he was 19 years old although due to his surfing sponsorship commitments it was kept as a side project until 2000 aged 23.
Between 2000 & 2002 the years were spent driving around the UK and into Europe while attending surfing events in the pursuit of both customers and suppliers in equal effort. Trying to establish a business based around the sport of longboarding, something Richard had fallen in love with over the past 10 years, Richard would drive an old VW full of products and literally not take no for an answer, his relentlessness paid off & Nineplus was soon making deliveries to the numerous surfing shops scattered up and down the coasts of Europe whilst employing youngsters back in St Agnes after school to fold and pack the orders as they rolled in.
A funny story here is that Richard used to have Kevin Connelly from California make him boards, 30 or so would come in for delivery and as it was based out of a small house there was no-where to store the boards. Wire used to be wrapped around the boxes in the garden, up through the bedroom window and around Richards ankles just in case someone tried to take off with them. Had that happened the company would have been gone overnight !!!
In 1993 at age 16 Richard began being a frequent visitor to California’s West Coast and from his relationships with numerous industry people he continued to learn from the Golden’s state affiliation with the sport of kings and started to box it up and ship it back to Europe. Working with his friend Chris Barker whom lived at Cardiff By the Sea, close to San Diego they would spend hours working on branding and the subtle differences that distinguished the emerging alternative trends that were appearing in the surfing market between the established shortboard mentality and the classic and more soulful approach of yesteryear and the personal connection surfing had to offer.
By 2003 the company was operating from a 5000sq ft warehouse in Cornwall, another warehouse in Hossegor, SW France and had a retail shop in the centre of Truro, Cornwall, UK.
Richard was spending time working alongside factories all over the world in such locations as India, Morocco, Portugal, China, Hong Kong as well as frequenting the USA regularly throughout the year.
The company also had a surfboard program with professional surfer ‘Kevin Connelly’ who represented the company. The home based team of employees included Emma Skinner, Gordon Blake, Sam Starkie, Simon Scales, Paul Chapman & Tori Hainey – all of whom shared a passion to make growing Nineplus a reality and shared many memories in the earlier years.
Over the course of 2004 & 2005 the company although growing in popularity suffered a series of setbacks which affected its organization as well as the product offering and this resulted in a lack of momentum. During what was a hard personal time Richard he had made the difficult decisions to close the French operation, he also did not renew the lease on the store in Truro and instead focused on his creative energies taking the company back to its roots where he had intended it to be and stripped it of the design team and rebuilt the foundations focusing on surfboards & wetsuits.
Nineplus sought investment from Equity Partners and with thanks to both David Blake and Finance Cornwall the company continued on its path.
Upon a renewed decision to focus on surfboards and for-filling a steadily growing demand from a wetsuit line that had been slowly growing into the sole distributor for Japans Yamamoto neoprene Nineplus was quickly becoming sought out from all over the globe. Slowly Nineplus wetsuits were beginning to show up in all the key global surfing spots. It was almost like every core surfer was starting to check out the brand and with a better neoprene than anything else the demand started to outstrip the supply.
Since taking the company back to scratch and re-building the brand the ‘lotus flower’ logo that is now used today was adapted as the company logo, to many countries and individuals the lotus flower, although a natural flower symbolizes re-generation and beauty, a sort of emergence from darkness into enlightenment.Key people were added starting with Dan Streeter who still manages all the online and media that communicates the values that lay within the brand. Luke Dymond later joined in late 2006 and started to manage sales and oversaw the international distributors and wholesale business. Over the period of 2006 & 2007 the company continued to grow offering products across expanding categories including wetsuits, surfing accessories, apparel and of course surfboards.
In 2008 the company was purchased in full by Richard and his family and he started implementing the changes to the company that would make it operate as a small company with a global focus, driving it into key markets and reducing the brand down again to simplify it and create a core focus relevant to the market. Like the ‘Lotus Flower’ which releases its ‘beauty amongst the chaos’ Nineplus started concentrating on offering its beautiful, well designed products into the busy market place to keep it relevant and attractive. An intense focus on the alternative surfing market using only the highest quality materials and workmanship and utilising global manufacturing arrangements has enabled it to work across culture and language and carry a universal appeal that not many brands can enjoy.
In 2009 the company created its own subsidiaries in both California, USA and Australia replacing its distributors. In 2009 Richard Nineplus also created a new brand ‘HASU’ which means ‘Lotus’ in its Japanese mother tongue. This is will operate alongside ‘Nineplus’ and widen its approach to the vision of being a leading supplier to the hearts of open minded surfers the world over by only offering the very best quality products & workmanship while focusing on the simplistic nature of clean Japanese design.
Richard is 36 years old and continues to creatively direct ‘Nineplus’ & ‘HASU’ and travels & works with countries the world over – USA, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Morocco, Korea, Europe and Japan. From sitting with factories producing goods or running the coastlines handling sales.
The company is committed and has been built on quality, originality & ethical working relationships in their quest to create solid, dependable and unique products.
To show case this, in 2010 Nineplus suffered with a batch of wetsuits that had been glued incorrectly (smooth-skin can be a notoriously difficult material to work with) Richard collected every damaged wetsuit from every store and replace them once the problem was fixed. Every customers suit was either repaired or replaced and at huge personal cost the situation was sorted.
The Nineplus Group contributes to an organization called ‘First Fruits’ and this provides financial assistance to people less fortunate. It currently supports the ‘support a child orphan’ organization in India along with various other charities. It has a program where for each new employee they take on – they also sponsor a child making it the employee’s responsibility to maintain a relationship with that child.
We trust you enjoy the company and thank you for your time in reading this. As it says in our book ‘all you need in this life is ignorance & confidence; then success is sure’.
Thank you