June 28, 2002

CU grad?s senior project forms Splitter Gear

EVERGREEN — ?There’s not really a whole lot of innovation in the climbing business,? says Brandon Fallahi, sales representative for Advanced Base Camp in Salt Lake City, the exclusive distributor for Splitter Gear Inc., ?but these guys have really come up with something that was needed and is good. I see a lot of potential.?

The ?something? to which Fallahi refers is a new camming device used by rock and mountain climbers. And ?those guys? are University of Colorado engineering school graduate Seth Murray, who designed the device, and partners Brian Ladd and Mike Haag, who formed Splitter Gear in 2000.

A cam is a type of protection anchor device, a spring-loaded, expandable wedge that a climber places in a crack in a rock. It is not as well known as a piton, explains Murray. ?That is essentially a nail hammered into cracks, which leaves scars when removed. Cams don’t scar rocks and are considered ?clean.’ ?

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Murray worked on Splitter’s patented and trademarked 2Cam for two years while at CU. He grew up in Boulder and has been ?climbing for 10 years, in the best areas all over the country, from New York to Yosemite.?

Murray said his CU senior design project, which became Splitter Gear cams, ?uses aluminum cam lobes, just like other cams on the market. But Splitter Gear has exclusive rights to my design that places the cam lobes in direct opposition. The advantage of directly opposed cams is that they are narrow, and allow climbers to place them in shallow cracks where traditional staggered cams wouldn’t fit.?

With Murray’s invention, Splitter Gear was formed with less than $15,000 in investments from the three partners.

?We decided early on that we would avoid the venture capital route, as we only wanted investors who truly understood our passion for this company and product,? said Brian Ladd, business administration/marketing partner.

Murray agrees. ?We raised $60,000 by selling shares. We have money from friends and family, three CU engineering professors, and a few famous climbers like Jim Dononi.?

The Evergreen home-based company has very little overhead. ?We do not have rent nor phone bills,? says Murray. ?We use our cell phones and laptop computers to run SG.? None of the three partners is currently taking a salary from Splitter Gear.

?We strongly believe that it is very easy to kill a company by taking salaries before the company has been cash-flow positive for a couple of quarters,? Ladd says. ?This is very conservative, as compared to the venture capital fest we have seen the last couple of years, but we felt that in order to take salary at this point, we would have had to sell off more of the company than we had wished. We would rather tighten our belt buckles a few notches for a while than sell out for a little extra money right now.?

The belt-tightening may not have to go on much longer. Advanced Base Camp’s Fallahi says although sales of Splitter Gear’s products — five sizes of 2Cam and five sizes of 4-Cam — got off to a slow start, sales have picked up, and now, more than 1,000 units have been sold.

?Rock/mountain climbing is a very brand-sensitive industry,? he says. ?There are several big names that already dominate the market, and climbers are reluctant to switch to products made by a company they’ve not heard of. But Splitter Gear is overcoming that hurdle, mainly because of the good press it’s received. The end-user thinks, ?If it’s good enough for the experts, it’s OK for me.’ Splitter Gear has received some great recent reviews, and sales have increased.?

Advanced Base Camp, which is a distributor for many manufacturers, believes firmly enough in the company’s products to contract with Haag to be its road representative to promote Splitter Gear in the Rocky Mountains and Canada.

Fallahi says, ?I have many cams, and I know that this new cam is a great product. It’s just a matter of time.? That fits with Ladd’s prediction: ?We expect to maintain a solid growth path, with an estimate of about $500,000 in revenue in two to three years.?

EVERGREEN — ?There’s not really a whole lot of innovation in the climbing business,? says Brandon Fallahi, sales representative for Advanced Base Camp in Salt Lake City, the exclusive distributor for Splitter Gear Inc., ?but these guys have really come up with something that was needed and is good. I see a lot of potential.?

The ?something? to which Fallahi refers is a new camming device used by rock and mountain climbers. And ?those guys? are University of Colorado engineering school graduate Seth Murray, who designed the device, and partners Brian Ladd and Mike Haag, who formed Splitter Gear in 2000.…

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