Kitten Factory ad in RH Nav Bar-Who are You?

[bl2000]

So, you placed an ad here. You must figure you got something. What ya got? Who are you? Why are you on TGR? Lots of carbon in your line but carbon kinda sucks in crud unless really well balanced with other materials. Not looking for spam. But, you might want to give Slaagmaster a pro deal.

[KyleA]

Hey guys. I'm Kyle Alexander, one of the owners of Kitten Factory. I'm a very frequent lurker of tech talk and the Wasatch conditions threads, but don't post very much.

A little background on the company. My partners and I have been building skis and boards as a hobby for the last seven years while attending school at the University of Utah and even before that in our high school days. Calvin Hawley, Norman Butler and myself graduated from the engineering program from the U a few years ago and have been working in the engineering industry for the last several years to save some money to turn our hobby into a business. Jeff Scott, our other partner,who handles all of our website, graphics, and photos graduated from the U with both a business and communications degrees. I'm the only full time KF employee currently. Everyone else still works full time jobs so we can pay our rent and eat, and hopefully can come on full time next year.

Now a little bit about our skis. Yes, we like carbon. Yes, they can handle crud better than any other carbon ski. We did not set out to make the lightest ski possible. We tried to make the best skis possible. All of our materials in our carbon skis are the same as our fiberglass skis, we just replace the fiberglass with carbon. They still have thick bases and edges, durable UHMW sidewalls, full length wood cores. They are also much stiffer than a carbon ski like a DPS for example and generally have less sidecut, because we like to ski fast.

We started making mostly carbon skis because we thought there was a void in the market for decently priced carbon ski, especially before PM Gear started making some carbon offerings. And we also thought that if done correctly, carbon could be far superior to fiberglass skis. Carbon seemed to get some negative initial reviews, because companies using it were just trying to make the lightest touring skis possible, using lightweight, inferior cores, cap construction, and producing very lightweight, but not very skiable products. Some of the other carbon skis were quite pricey, especially for being made over seas. Same with snowboards. Nobody was really using carbon, and what did exist, was either not actually carbon, or extremely expensive. We have been making and testing our skis for years now and definitely believe we have a standout product that you guys should enjoy.

We will list weights and camber profiles on our site shortly, but we have been insanely busy right now producing and getting our new shop organized. To give you guys an example, our 185 all mountain skis, 105mm underfoot, weigh in at about 7.5 lbs. Stiff flex underfoot, medium stiff tails, and medium to medium stiff tip flex.

Feel free to shoot me a pm, email, or phone call if anybody has any questions about our products. Anybody in the Salt Lake area is encouraged to stop by our shop. It's downtown, right off the highway on 525 S 300 W.

Hopefully some of you extreme skier types, can get over our dumb name, and give our products a try. We will be doing demos at a bunch of major east and west coast resorts this season. And anybody in Utah is welcome to stop by the shop and take our some free demos this year.

Here is a video of owner, engineer, decent skier, Calvin Hawley winning the 2 Star day of the SFS at Snowbird last year. He is on the 185 Carbon All Mountain.

link in case embed fails...






And a link to our website for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about.

http://www.kittenfactoryskis.com/

Hopefully this wasn't too spammy for you guys. Anybody that might be interested in purchasing some, shoot me a pm and we can cut you a break a little better than our presale prices.

-Kyle

[1000-oaks]

I'm shocked, figured these "Hello Kitty" skis were something off the shelf coming in direct from China. You guys actually design & make them in the US?

[KyleA]

I'm shocked, figured these "Hello Kitty" skis were something off the shelf coming in direct from China. You guys actually design & make them in the US?

Haha. It's pretty funny actually. A good amount of our website hits currently are coming from China and Taiwan. I'm assuming they are looking for a different type of cat factory.

But yes, we design and make all of our own skis in Salt Lake City, UT. Almost all of our materials are from U.S suppliers and we do everything but print our graphics in house.

[skifishbum]

Hey guys. I'm Kyle Alexander, one of the owners of Kitten Factory. I'm a very frequent lurker of tech talk and the Wasatch conditions threads, but don't post very much.

A little background on the company. My partners and I have been building skis and boards as a hobby for the last seven years while attending school at the University of Utah and even before that in our high school days. Calvin Hawley, Norman Butler and myself graduated from the engineering program from the U a few years ago and have been working in the engineering industry for the last several years to save some money to turn our hobby into a business. Jeff Scott, our other partner,who handles all of our website, graphics, and photos graduated from the U with both a business and communications degrees. I'm the only full time KF employee currently. Everyone else still works full time jobs so we can pay our rent and eat, and hopefully can come on full time next year.

Now a little bit about our skis. Yes, we like carbon. Yes, they can handle crud better than any other carbon ski. We did not set out to make the lightest ski possible. We tried to make the best skis possible. All of our materials in our carbon skis are the same as our fiberglass skis, we just replace the fiberglass with carbon. They still have thick bases and edges, durable UHMW sidewalls, full length wood cores. They are also much stiffer than a carbon ski like a DPS for example and generally have less sidecut, because we like to ski fast.

We started making mostly carbon skis because we thought there was a void in the market for decently priced carbon ski, especially before PM Gear started making some carbon offerings. And we also thought that if done correctly, carbon could be far superior to fiberglass skis. Carbon seemed to get some negative initial reviews, because companies using it were just trying to make the lightest touring skis possible, using lightweight, inferior cores, cap construction, and producing very lightweight, but not very skiable products. Some of the other carbon skis were quite pricey, especially for being made over seas. Same with snowboards. Nobody was really using carbon, and what did exist, was either not actually carbon, or extremely expensive. We have been making and testing our skis for years now and definitely believe we have a standout product that you guys should enjoy.

We will list weights and camber profiles on our site shortly, but we have been insanely busy right now producing and getting our new shop organized. To give you guys an example, our 185 all mountain skis, 105mm underfoot, weigh in at about 7.5 lbs. Stiff flex underfoot, medium stiff tails, and medium to medium stiff tip flex.

Feel free to shoot me a pm, email, or phone call if anybody has any questions about our products. Anybody in the Salt Lake area is encouraged to stop by our shop. It's downtown, right off the highway on 525 S 300 W.

Hopefully some of you extreme skier types, can get over our dumb name, and give our products a try. We will being demos at a bunch of major east and west coast resorts this season. And anybody in Utah is welcome to stop by the shop and take our some free demos this year.

Here is a video of owner, engineer, decent skier, Calvin Hawley winning the 2 Star day of the SFS at Snowbird last year. He is on the 185 Carbon All Mountain.

link in case embed fails...






And a link to our website for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about.

http://www.kittenfactoryskis.com/

Hopefully thins wasn't too spammy for you guys. Anybody that might be interested in purchasing some, shoot me a pm and we can cut you a break a little better than our presale prices.

-Kyle

yo jongs
pretty cool that yous came to/supporting the community with some ad duckets instead of the usual spam.
Just down the road in your hood at the l9 grainery compound a bit. will stop by and check out the shop/shoot some ski shit, next week if your there.
so if a bummy lookin bro in bum central land knocks let em in.
Would be stoked to check er out and take a spin on your sticks once the snow falls.
I'd venture to say ive got as many days on various carbon skis as anyone here.
the name don't do nuthin for me but i'm a large canine dude.
anywhos welcome

[KyleA]

yo jongs
pretty cool that yous came to/supporting the community with some ad duckets instead of the usual spam.
Just down the road in your hood at the l9 grainery compound a bit. will stop by and check out the shop/shoot some ski shit, next week if your there.
so if a bummy lookin bro in bum central land knocks let em in.
Would be stoked to check er out and take a spin on your sticks once the snow falls.
I'd venture to say ive got as many days on various carbon skis as anyone here.
the name don't do nuthin for me but i'm a large canine dude.
anywhos welcome

Stop by anytime. We are there from about 9 AM until midnight everyday aside from the occasional errand. We don't have any signs up yet, but we're right behind the Horne Construction building

[stuckathuntermtn]

I'm just here to say neato!

[::: :::]

So, WTF's up with the name?

[Rideski]

With a couple decades of marketing under my belt, my initial reaction to the name is all positive. If they were my client I would do some deeper digging to find out hidden ramifications, but at first glance; it works...

[KyleA]

We are well aware that the name Kitten Factory is stupid and meaningless, as are the names of many other popular companies. Hopefully after seeing it a few times it becomes familiar and takes on a bit of normalcy.

Kitten Factory is what we have been for years now and it has taken on a great meaning to us, so changing the name would never be considered. We want to do something different than what everyone else is doing and stand out from the crowd of complacent ski companies.

I know some people will be able to look past a silly name and realize that we are making some awesome and unique skis and boards.

[phatty]

I like the name and the skis look good. While the skis are more than I would spend, it seems they are in line with similar skis. Now we just need some snow and reviews from the collective.

[bl2000]

If you're interested in starting up conversations, these would be great chick magnets. Anyway, thanks for the response Kyle; I look forward to stopping by or seeing you when you demo in BCC this winter.

[nickwm21]

I like that you're building snow boards even though I ski. Almost seems like as the Indy ski companies boomed all the Indy board companies died.

sent from the future using my mind powers

[Johnny Deep]

The name 'Kitten Factoy' only brings out those who are insecure with their skiing and are afraid to tell there father about it.


Just sayin'

[::: :::]

Hopefully some of you extreme skier types, can get over our dumb name

We are well aware that the name Kitten Factory is stupid and meaningless

Kitten Factory is what we have been for years now and it has taken on a great meaning to us, so changing the name would never be considered.

so, what's the story behind it then?
i was hoping there was a story...

[capulin overdrive]

Meh, name is just fine.

[nobueno]

Have you guys thought about a demo day anywhere outside of UT? ON3P at loveland draws a pretty good crowd. It's just a 7hr drive from SLC.

[smallfry506]

I like the name and the product. Dig the logo too. Are they in any stores or just online currently?

[KyleA]

Have you guys thought about a demo day anywhere outside of UT? ON3P at loveland draws a pretty good crowd. It's just a 7hr drive from SLC.

We plan to do as much traveling as possible in the mid winter and spring doing as many demo days as we can. We should hit resorts in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and some north east resorts as well.

[XavierD]

Sounds like you guys have been doing it right. Other than the gehy name. Looking forward to seeing you when you make it out to WA.

[KyleA]

I like the name and the product. Dig the logo too. Are they in any stores or just online currently?

Thanks! Products are just available online at the moment.

[Tri-Ungulate]

Name is fine; folks bagging on it are prolly self-hating homophobes or whatnot.

Any chance you'll be mounting demos with broken bindings for the tele crowd?

[KyleA]

Name is fine; folks bagging on it are prolly self-hating homophobes or whatnot.

Any chance you'll be mounting demos with broken bindings for the tele crowd?

Yes. We have had a great deal on interest from tele skiers, so we will have some tele demos ready to ride at all of our events.

[TahoeJ]

I think the name is fine. Some nice skiing in that video. Good luck to you guys!

[weasel1]

Kyle, welcome to the fold! Nice site, nice looking product, I dig the shapes. And good on ya for jumping in with both skis and boards. I look forward to seeing your product on the hill. Keep the name, it's sticky....(no, not that way. Sheesh.)