(1)Everybusiness needs two things, says Skullcandy CEO Rick Alden: inspiration anddesperation. In 2001, Alden had both. He’d sold two snowboarding businesses,and he was desperately bored. But be had an idea: He wanted to make a new kindof headphone.

 

    (2) “I kept seeing people missing theircell phone calls because they were listening to music,” he explains. “Then I’min a chairlift（索道）, I’ve got my headphones on, and I realize my phone isringing. As I take my gloves off and reach for my phone, I think, ‘It can’t bethat tough to make headphones with two plugs, one for music and one for yourcell phone.’” Alden described what he wanted to a designer, perfected aprototype, and outsourced（外包）manufacturing overseas.

 

    (3)Alden then started designing headphonesinto helmets, backpacks—anywhere that would make it easy to listen to musicwhile snowboarding. “Selling into board and skate shops wasn’t a big researcheffort,” he explains. “Those were the only guys I knew!”

 

    (4)Alden didn’t want to be a manufacturer.And by outsourcing, he’d hoped he could get the business off the ground withoutdebt. But he was wrong. But he was wrong. So he asked his wife, “Can I put amortgage（抵押贷款）on the house? She said, ‘What is the worst thing thatcan happen? We lose the house, we sell our cars, and we start all over again.’I definitely married the right woman!”

 

    (5)For the next two years, Alden juggledmortgage payments and payments to his manufacturers. “Factories won’t ship yourproduct till they get paid,” he says. “But it takes four or five months to geta mortgage company so upset that they knock on your door. So we paid thefactory first.”

 

    (6)Gradually, non-snowboarders began tonotice the colourful headphones. In 2006, the company started selling them in1,400 FYE (For Your Entertainment) stores. “We knew that nine out of ten peoplewalking into that store would be learning about Skullcandy for the first time.Why would they look at brands they knew and take home a new brand instead? Wehad agreed to buy back anything we didn’t sell, but we were dealing with hugenumbers. It’d kill us to take back all the products.”

 

    (7)Alden’s fears faded as Skullcandy becamethe No. 1 headphone seller in those stores and tripled its revenue to $120million in one year. His key insight was that headphones weren’t gadgets; theywere a fashion accessory. “In the beginning,” he says, “that little white wirethat said you had an iPod—that was cool. But now wearing the white bud meansyou’re just like everyone else. Headphones occupy this critical piece ofcranial real estate and are highly visible.”

 

    (8)Today, Skullcandy is America’ssecond-largest headphone supplier, after Sony. With 79 employees, the companyis bigger than Alden ever imagined.