Meet Nathan Wills of Torch in Arts District

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan Wills.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Torch began as a personal design project after I began commuting by bike several days a week. My ride was 14 miles each way from Los Feliz to Culver City and back. The ride home was especially stressful because it was usually already dark by the time I left work and I never felt that my bike lights made me any safer because they disappeared into all of the other lights on the road. They were simply too small and at the same height as all of the lights on the cars.

That’s when I had the idea to put the lights on the rider. I began sketching and prototyping on the weekends. I would test the prototypes on my ride home and note what needed improvement, make changes and start another prototype. Eventually after the fourth or fifth version I had something I thought was a product people may actually be interested in.

It was still the early days of crowdfunding, but campaigns on Kickstarter were starting to reach goals of tens of thousands so I decided to give it a try and see what people thought of it. I rented a camera and my two friends who have filming experience helped me film. It rained the entire day and night we had planned to film and I couldn’t afford the camera for another day! So we opened the back hatch on one of their cars and filmed shooting out of the back of the car while I rode in the pouring rain with the helmet on. It looked amazing! The wet roads and dark city sparkled along with the lights in the helmet. The video turned out better than I had hoped, although I look back at it now and laugh.

The crowdfund over funded, although it wasn’t truly enough to get through production. Luckily, I was approached be several interested investors and after months of negotiating I was able to close a deal which gave me the money to move things forward. I ended up hiring my father to help run the day to day stuff so I could concentrate on design and engineering development and we became a legitimate company started here in LA.

We have sold helmets in over 40 countries and have finally started to enter the retail market with stores everywhere from LA to Europe starting to carry our helmet.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been anything but smooth! If it could go wrong, it has.

For example, our first manufacturer decided to change the integrated circuit that we specified for production on our lights to another, cheaper part without telling us. We did a short production run to begin delivering the Kickstarter backers’ helmets only to find that as soon as the helmet was plugged in to charge the batteries, it would kill the circuit board rendering the helmet lights useless. It cost us over $20,000 to fix that problem and replace all of the defective helmets we had shipped!

We had two great pieces of press early on and sold out of our entire stock in a month leaving us without our own product for five months.

We placed our largest order after moving to a new manufacturer only to have our entire inventory sit on a freight ship in the Long Beach harbor for over a month because of labor strikes.

We have tried to laugh about it all and make a point to learn from any unfortunate mishaps and I can say that we have learned quite a lot in our five years of ups and downs.

Please tell us about Torch.
Torch is, at its core, a brand that wants to make cyclists look good during the day and be seen while riding at night. We started with one product which was design for urban riders like myself. I have never liked most bike helmets due to their funky shapes and bright colors. I want something that matches what I would ride in which is usually jeans and a t-shirt, not spandex. Aside from the styling of the helmet what makes Torch special is the approach I took when designing and engineering the helmet. There have been bike helmets with lights before, they just never tried it the way we did. Our approach was to project the LED lights onto a shatter proof, polycarbonate lens which helps to disperse the light creating what I believe is still the largest bike light on the market today. It makes the rider visible from 360 degrees and it was the first to include USB rechargeable batteries.

Since the launch of the first helmet we have stayed close to our customers through our crowdfunding and social media and use their feedback to improve designs or inspire new ones. I’m working on launching a mountain bike style helmet with more ventilation, a visor and a 500 lumen from light because those are things our followers have asked for. I think that is one of the things that sets us apart from the major brands is that people have full access to our team. I get emails or phone calls from customers that want to speak to me directly because they were one of my early backers and they’re amazed that I will call them back or email them personally. It’s a lot of work, but it makes me smile when I get to hear from someone who has supported the brand since the beginning and hear the excitement in their voice when we talk.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over there are lots of little things I would have done differently, but nothing major because it has been the wildest ride. It’s allowed me to travel the world, win awards as an industrial designer, appear on TV shows, meet so many wonderful people and make an honest living by doing something that makes me proud.

I recall the first time I received an email from a customer who had been in a horrific crash. He had come off his bike and broken his collar bone, two ribs, an arm and had all kinds of scrapes and bruises after he landed head first on the pavement. He said he didn’t even have a headache and that he was pretty sure the helmet saved his life. Even though starting this company and struggling to keep it going at times and the stress it has put on my personal life, it is stories like this that are the reason I wouldn’t change anything.

Pricing:

• T2 bike helmet with integrated lights – $139
• Midnight Edition with tinted lenses – $149

Contact Info:

• Website: torchapparel.com

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.