Story Courtesy of Nicholas Wolken, Lead Ambassador & Product Development

On my first trip to Japan, I experienced the thriving snow surfing culture in Japan. The Japanese focus on perfectly executed turns and the overall surf inspired approach was right up my alley. At the same time, I was developing boards with my previous sponsor and started pushing for new and experimental shapes. The following July I received a phone call offering the opportunity to start a brand from scratch. I immediately got Stephan Maurer (whose partnership with his previous sponsor had just ended) and Alvaro Vogel in to the boat; we were long time friends, surfing and snowboarding together so I knew they had a similar vision of what this could be. Together we brainstormed and worked a lot on profiling the brand. It finally launched in 2014. Testing prototypes I randomly met Aaron Schwartz on the hill, he had his camera there so we took some carving shots the same day and he ended up becoming part of the family doing graphics, photos and social media.

How do you stand apart?

I guess we are a lot smaller than other brands out there which sometimes makes it easier to realize good ideas fast. Also we are just regular snowboarders, no superhuman abilities there… so the way we ride is relatable and not just things of dreams. It’s simply about turning on snow and having a good time while doing so, no need to overcome any major fear.

Different from most brands at that time, the heart of our "classic" boards were and still are really easy to ride and good all-round - they carve great on slopes and have incredible float in powder. They're focused on what the majority of people out there want to do most. Branding wise we've stuck with our original design philosophy whereas many other brands seem to hop from trend to trend.
 

What inspires your graphics and designs?

"Less is more" hits the spot, so no need for oversized logos. By sticking to our colors we get recognized and its sort of paradox how we stand out by seemingly doing nothing. But don’t be fooled, Aaron and Stephan put a lot of thought and energy into the details, which makes all the difference. We also don’t change our graphics over the years, this way you don’t get tricked in to feeling like you need a new board every year, just because the design is last season's. This also gives us more time to improve the boards' performance.  As for shape design, we try not to build crazy shapes for the sake of being different. The form follows function and we believe that a good board is easy to ride.
 

Anything else you'd like to share?

We often get asked what "KORUA" means. Funny story - KORUA was a fantasy name Stephan came up with for a previous project he was working on. We liked the sound of it because it reminded us of a lonely island in the ocean, and we found out later that it means something along the lines of  "you the people" in Maori.