So, I'd like to think that the idea for a motorcycle had to come up when someone was bicycling up a super steep hill in the 19th century and thought, 'There has to be a better way.' Fast forward to the 21st century, and Peter Dering had the exact same thought. Granted, he was riding a motorcycle over the Bay Bridge, thinking about an easier way to carry his DSLR, but that's how Peak Design was born. You may have heard of Peak Design in the motorcycle world only recently, but they've been coming up with pretty nifty products since 2010, making photography, travel, and now motorcycling an easier and more enjoyable experience. Most recently with their wireless charging motorcycle phone mount. Peter himself has been around motorcycles way before 2010. From growing up with his dad bombing around on old BMWs to learning to ride from a college friend in Madison, Wisconsin, and even touring South America by two wheels, he knows just how freeing and fun riding a motorcycle can be. And also, thanks to him, we all can enjoy it a little more with a fully charged phone. This is Peter Dering. I'm your host, Mark Long, and you're listening to Driven to Ride.
All right, Peter Dering, you are on Driven to Ride. Thank you so much for being here, sir.
Pumped to be here. Great to see you, Mark.
I'm excited as well. I'm a big fan of your work, but I don't want to steal your thunder. So, why don't we start by telling me in your own words what people maybe most know you for or what you think your claim to fame is.
Oh man, that's a doozy from the start because what I think I'm known for might not be the case. Peak Design is a company born about 14 years ago when I put the first ever Kickstarter out. I had quit my job as a construction engineer and invented a gizmo for photography: two metal plates that clamp onto a backpack strap to carry a camera hands-free. I launched that product on May 2nd, 2011, and within three days it had raised over $80,000. I had a profitable company because it was just me and I had recouped my investment. It took me 15 months from quitting my job to that point. I had no industrial design or mechanical engineering experience, I studied civil engineering, never used 3D modeling software, never manufactured a product before. So it was a lot of feeling around in the dark until I stumbled across something that worked. But boy, howdy, did it work. Now, 15 years later, I'm basically doing the same thing with more people helping me: 80 full-timers in the US and Europe, 60 in the Philippines for customer service, and manufacturing partners across the world. But I'm still up here slanging product on Kickstarter. What we're known for is giving a really solid rethink to products that are out there. We focus on real problems, not trying to cram a problem down customers' throats. We try to be real, authentic, genuine problem solvers, solving problems we ourselves encounter as users.
That's very motorcycle of you. You talked about the camera clip and tinkering around with no experience, and you turned that into a wildly successful business. But you're also a motorcyclist, and your passion for motorcycles and entrepreneurship have combined forces lately. Before we get to that, how did you get into motorcycling in the first place? How long have you been a rider?
Great question. I'll pin it to two formative things. One, my dad rode a motorcycle, always had BMWs. He was a firefighter, kind of a loner, went his own way. He never taught me to ride. But in college, my buddy Dave, three years older, was the only guy I knew who was going to buy a one-way ticket to New Zealand after college. He had a motorcycle and taught me how to ride. Six years later, Dave came on board at Peak Design as employee number three and is still our CFO today. So I learned to ride from my CFO.
That's wild. And that's a long way from slinging drinks in Madison.
Totally. Although, as far as life highlights go, does it get better than being a bartender during college? I'm not sure. I felt so much freedom and joy as a bartender. I think life is as good now as it was then. You don't need material success or wealth; all things are relative. I thought I was making pretty good coin as a bartender, enough to get by and not have many worries. And motorcycles can be found cheap. Dave was riding a 250 Nighthawk. If you're motivated, you can get into two-wheel transportation, and once you fire that puppy up, you unlock the most fun a human being can have for pretty damn cheap.
It sounds like you were hooked from the start as soon as you threw a leg over a motorcycle.
Oh, absolutely. After I graduated, I moved to San Francisco because I studied abroad in Rome and was blown away. I had never been out of the country before. I grew up in the Reagan years thinking America was exceptional, but Rome showed me that people there know how to live. I had a borrowed Vespa in Rome, which was a big motorcycle experience. As soon as I moved to SF, I got a construction engineering job, and with my first bonus I bought a Nighthawk 750. I rode across the Bay Bridge every day to my project at UC Berkeley. Lane splitting in California is like a magic carpet; it's the key to punctuality and as fun as downhill skiing. I also bought an SLR camera with that bonus, and I used to ride with my camera slung across my chest. It was always a pain because the strap was uncomfortable. Whoever designed the camera strap basically gave me a business idea. I also rode with music most of my riding life; it's joyful to experience music ripping through the lanes, a soundtrack to your life, a little dangerous, as good as it gets.
I remember my dad showed me how he used a Walkman with earbuds in his helmet, taped Velcro to the gas tank for a cassette tape. Now we have Bluetooth speakers and AirPods. We're spoiled. And now you can put your rectangular supercomputer on your handlebars and thanks to Peak Design be charging it at 15 watts.
I could not have transitioned over to that better. Thank you for the assist. You have a Peak Design motorcycle mount, a brand new V2 with a charger. Where did the idea for the phone mount come from? I was a Quad Lock user early on, but I had a gripe with the thickness of the case. It was about 7 to 12 mm bump off the back, which never sat well with me. But it was a good product. Then cameras started getting better, and with the iPhone X in 2016 and portrait mode, I realized the phone is the most important camera. As a camera accessory company, it became imperative to make the most important case. I'm a cyclist, mountain biker, and motorcyclist, which is a bit rare. Usually people go analog or motor, but I'm all over on two wheels. I think if you get what's fun about cycling, you'll love a motorcycle. And road cycling and backcountry camping are the best idea generators because you're doing something repetitively and have time to think. That's why the outdoor space has so many innovative products.
So the pieces come together: you want your phone while bicycling, mountain biking, on a motorcycle. And the cameras are prograde. Did the idea for the mount come first, or the case, or the whole ecosystem?
The experience with Quad Lock was formative. Two things were necessary: thinness and magnetic capabilities. We started investing energy in 2016, took a break to focus on the tripod, then returned in earnest in 2018. We were about to launch a system that looks like this when we caught rumors that Apple was considering putting magnets in the back of their phones for wireless charging. Thank God we didn't release before that. It locked an architecture: the magnetic array and an ecosystem. We had been designing magnet systems for years to minimize interference with wireless charging, which is a supreme technical challenge. Apple took a different approach, but it was fortuitous that they developed CH2 with the wireless power consortium. We were able to contort our system into the MagSafe ring with a mechanical cutout. The insert is zirconia, which is incredibly stiff and allows inductive charging. It costs $3.40 per part, which is insane compared to other cases that cost $1.20 to make. But that's Peak Design: we put real engineering and materials into our products. Now with wireless charging upon us, Peak Design has a head and shoulders better system.
