From an initial design project to in-house VP of Brand working hand-in-hand with the founder. A seven-year run that landed the brand as REI’s #1 bike brand and positioned the company for its long-sought sale.
Everything visual. From product paint jobs, decals and component colorway-matching, to photoshoots, copywriting and catalogs, and finally marketing experiences, advertisements and sales P.O.P. For 200 product models across 7 years of new lines and updates.
Bob Buckley founded Marin Bikes in 1986. Heritage brand, real credibility in the sport, but had gone quiet since its 80s glory days. Bob wanted to bring it back. Agencies weren’t clicking. He needed a right hand who could translate his instincts into a coherent brand without dulling them.
I met Bob through a chance conversation with a hotel concierge in Hawaii. What started as a few trade-show projects grew into a multi-year run with my design studio (Studio Aspect) as Marin’s outside creative team. By year five, I’d hit the ceiling on what I could do at that scale from the outside. I proposed to Bob: acquire Studio Aspect, bring me in-house as VP of Brand, and build a real in-house design department.
He said yes.
Marin was cycling roughly 200 bike designs a year. Every SKU needed color, decal, and finish decisions on a schedule that had to hit the factory in Taiwan or China months ahead of each retail season.
I built the design department from scratch based on my pre-existing studio workflows and design assets. Established the design brief system, review process, and factory-ready spec format. Made trips to the manufacturing partners in China and Taiwan to walk the floors and adjust the system so it produced fewer errors and overall higher-quality final shipped bikes.
Integrated the supply chain too. WTB made most of Marin’s components. I built a spec communication system so suppliers could work directly off our sheets and produce parts that matched the first try. By year two in-house, we could move a bike from concept sketch to factory-ready in a fraction of the time. And the whole line finally felt coherent.
Simultaneously, I turned my eye on closing the gap between great products and sales conversions. The in-house sales team was great, all full believers who rode the bikes daily. Their sales communications and marketing materials were way off the back, though. Now that I was in daily, close proximity to the team, I was able to hear and see what they really needed to land bigger accounts. Their main target was REI.
Marin became REI’s #1 mountain bike brand and revenue grew meaningfully across the run. The brand felt current again without giving up any of its heritage weight.
Bob had been preparing the company for a sale the whole time. With the brand looking good and the REI account carrying real weight, he had a story worth pitching to acquirers. He sold Marin on his terms.
Heritage brand rejuvenation is a specific discipline. It’s not a rebrand, not a surface refresh. It’s an operating system upgrade that lets the brand’s original character work in the current market. That’s the ask founders sitting on brands they inherited or built are trying to answer today. I rode the winding path through the journey and lived to tell.
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