Above & Beyond: Talking purpose-driven entrepreneurship with Stefan Ytterborn

In our previous Above & Beyond talk, Magnus Göransson proclaimed the singular design “genius” figurehead to be dead, replaced by cross-functional teams. It was an idea that we were willing to play around with until about 5 minutes into our latest Above & Beyond talk last Friday with Stefan Ytterborn, founder and CEO of electric motorbike company Cake. Prior to Cake, he founded yet another successful snow sport and cycling helmet and apparel company called POC (piece of cake). 

If there’s one thing to learn from talking to Stefan, it’s that the design genius isn’t dead — they’ve just moved on to entrepreneurship.

Beyond their confectionary namesake, Cake and POC have shared impeccable timing as far as entry into their respective markets. POC was launched on the precipice of sweeping changes in snow sports that led to widespread adoption of safety gear (which later extended into cycling and mountain biking) while Cake’s e-bikes cater well toward increasingly climate-conscious consumers.

Stefan’s ability to foresee a growing need for ski safety equipment or the fallout of the combustion engine wasn’t just pure luck either. When hearing him talk, you quickly realize that not only is he extremely self-aware but he’s also able to apply that self-awareness into actionable business. “I recently realized I would never be a good art curator because that requires a level of philosophical subjectivity that I don’t have. Everything I work with has to have some performance quality that can be objectively measured,” he explained.

Over the years, Stefan has combined this keen sense of awareness of his surroundings with his background in interior design import/export to cultivate an innate understanding of what makes consumer preferences change over time. Such insight has been paramount in the success of POC and Cake, which both capitalized early on changes in consumer preferences by creating products with newfound societal purpose.

Our discussion with Stefan, moderated by our Design Director Jonas Samrelius, brought up some thought-provoking approaches to both design and entrepreneurship as well as how the two can influence one another. Highlighted below are some key takeaways:

⛷The needs of entrepreneurs are the same as everyone else

It’s easy to place entrepreneurs on some ideological pedestal that pushes the idea that they are somehow wired differently than us regular folk. But, Stefan completely rejected and contradicted this notion in our discussions. “I think my intuition for spotting emerging trends came from the realization in my 30s that I’m not special. I’m a victim of the time I’m living in and so is everyone else around me,” he explained.

He was right in many ways. POC was conceived out of his own growing desire for more safety equipment while skiing, especially with his younger children. He was just cognizant enough to realize his own need for helmets probably resonated with other skiers (particularly parents of young skiers) as well. This haunch happened to coincide with a growing popularity of carving skis and the launch of the Winter X Games in the early 2000s, which led to a significant increase in ski helmet usage.

Stefan, and likely most other entrepreneurs, didn’t magically predict some radical market change. He simply noticed a change in his own needs as a consumer and, rightfully, suspected that those needs were the byproduct of bigger societal changes. You don’t need to be a genius unicorn to uncover lucrative entrepreneurial opportunities, just an observant consumer who can contextualize the bigger systemic changes taking place around you.

⚙️ Design follows performance

One thing that Stefan brought up repeatedly when talking about his experience with both POC and Cake was that product performance should be prioritized above all else. While the notion that form follows function isn’t new or revolutionary by any means, we generally tend to think that design and engineering provide us with the framework to give products purpose. However, Stefan’s approach is the exact opposite: “My framework to ensure that there’s a purpose to a product is to bring innovation to it and add some kind of performance quality that can be objectively measured. Only then should these factors be embraced and fully realized by deliberate engineering and design.”

By focusing on objective qualities that can be measured — like the level of energy consumption used when developing a helmet or how well the suspension works on a bike — Stefan’s approach gives products an explicit, tangible purpose before deliberate design and engineering even enter the equation. It’s an approach that also resonates well with Above’s continued prototyping explorations, which leverage video or machine learning to quickly produce lo-fi, workable products that can be tested for performance and quality before they are “designed.”

🌍 Innovation sometimes means acknowledging that you haven’t solved a problem fully

Change in societal consumption patterns is particularly relevant for Stefan’s latest venture with Cake. While sustainable and climate-friendly products have become en vogue with consumers, Stefan pointed out the importance of defining how products help fight climate change as well as where they fall short (We told you he was extremely self-aware, after all). “Electric engines have their own issues. At Cake, we’re not saying ‘Hey, look at us, we’re good for the environment’, because we know there are bigger issues like ‘how do we solve for durability, permanence, longevity, recyclability?’ Ultimately, the sustainability of our products is going to be a larger beast than just going from combustion to electric,” he explains.

Reducing the pace of consumption is no small task. Furthermore, it comes in direct conflict with the contemporary capitalist systems we Westerners live in today. For Stefan, this means using design and engineering to create quality products that users will be willing to invest in for long-term use. For Cake, specifically, this means exporting their learnings from designing e-bikes to other transportation methods so any future commuters can get around sustainably, regardless of their preferred transport.

Revisiting the notion that the design genius has evolved into the entrepreneurial genius, our discussion with Stefan inadvertently points out some shortcomings in the way cross-functional teams work today. While cross-competencies may allow for a more holistic approach to the product development process, the groundwork required before deliberate design and engineering take over is reliant on more “entrepreneurial” soft skills — like the gut feeling that you can create something better than what’s currently available or the acute awareness of the societal changes going on around you.

So, is the hyper-aware entrepreneur the new design genius? Is performance the only catalyst for purposeful product design? We’d love to hear your thoughts!