Charlie Spanjers, Co-founder of Berd Spokes and 2016
Division Winner of the MN-Cup is paving the way for the future of cyclists with a
passion for cycling and advanced polymer technology. Berd builds both custom
wheels with their spokes and will also rebuild wheels that have metal spokes
for people that are local or all over the country.
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| Charlie Spanjers, Berd Spokes |
Tell me about your
journey both personally and academically that led you to Berd spokes.
My background is in chemical engineering, I also have knowledge
in material science. I got a Ph.D. at Penn State, and then came back to UMN for a post doc at the chemical engineering department.
Berd Spokes started from my and two of my co-founders and
friend’s love for cycling. We understood the need to have light weight equipment
and at the same time we were familiar with advanced polymers and knowing that they
can be much stronger for the same weight or, on the other hand, for the same
strength much lighter. We had the idea to make a bicycle spoke out of a
flexible polymer. The company was founded about three and a half years ago. It
was founded part time by myself and two co-founders.
In 2016 I took the startup course in Carlson and it introduced
me to the customer discovery process that introduced me to John Stavig, Carla Parvone,
and MN-Cup. That, for me, while we were trying to start our business, was the
catalyst that helped our business get started.
You were MN-Cup division winners, how was that whole experience?
That experience was great. That was our first business
planning experience. Getting advisors for our company was a huge help for us
getting started.
Did you meet a lot of
connections through MN-Cup/MIN-Corps?
Yea, definitely. One of the advisors for our company is Mark Arbeiter. He is our advisor through MN-Cup.
I saw that your
spokes are legal for racing, they must be a big advantage?
In terms of racers that’s one of our big goals. It’s tough
to get professionals to use products from small companies, because they’re
always sponsored by large cycling companies. To get professionals to use
something new is a difficult process. We’re still working on that and it will
take time. Lots of people who race who aren’t necessarily professionals or are
past professionals race on our spokes now.
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| Berd Spokes, 2019 |
Are you mostly in
local businesses and bicycle shops or online?
We do both. For local sales, our biggest bicycle shop is
Eric’s bike shop, especially in St. Louis Park. We also sell all over the country and all over
the world too. There’s a world-renowned manufacturer of lightweight bicycle
wheels in Germany called Tune and they’re launching wheels with our spokes this
year.
Have you encountered
anything particularly challenging with Berd Spokes or entrepreneurship
in general and how did you overcome that?
A big challenge for us is manufacturing. We’re making
something that nobody has ever made before. You can’t do injection molding or
use something that most products are made of. We have to invent our own manufacturing
process to do this.
One thing that we were able to get is a grant from the National
Science Foundation, through their small business innovation research program
(SBIR). That has been a huge help for us and for our manufacturing to scale.
Do you have any plans
for the future?
Our plans are to succeed with bicycle spokes which means
getting the leading distributors in the country and the world, selling our
spokes, partnering with leading wheel manufactures all over the world to sell
our spokes. We also have eventual plans to use our innovation and our
manufacturing to produce products outside of cycling as well.
For more about Berd Spokes visit http://www.berdspokes.com/
