Sep 5, 2023 3 min read

⚙️ #14 Operator in Chief 🧱

I'm focused on impact brands. A founder and operator with several exits. My sweet spot is scaling early-stage tech-enabled brands. I deeply believe Dust can fulfil its vision to be the #1 US moto brand globally.

The 2023 launch of PURE Advance with McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris 📸 Pure Electric

Neil here to complete our 3rd post on the co-founders of Dust 👋 ...

But first(!), it was great to see about half of our F50 cohort on Friday 01-Sep at our first monthly meeting. Our general newsletter (this one) will move to monthly, and our premium F50 newsletter will also be monthly. With timings offset so F50 members receive something new to read every fortnight. We're also launching daily behind-the-scenes content based from our new HQ workshop in Bend. You'll soon see video content of our journey flow across TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Stories.

... back to me. I was born in Edinburgh but now live with my young family near London with our bolthole in the Alps. I grew up in Scotland mountain-biking and skiing in the shadow of the famous Fort William Downhill World Cup. When the time comes for Dust to enter Europe I'm our ready made bridge into this market.

Spending my birthday this year on the Petit Envers in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc 📸 Robo Smith

I'm focused on impact brands. A founder and operator with several exits. I've raised over $200m in venture capital for over $2B in return on capital employed. In 2004 I was the UK Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, beating 1,200 entrants and 12 finalists to the top prize.

A design engineering masters at Glasgow/Mackintosh sponsored by Audi plus circular economy postgrad with the Royal Society of Edinburgh led to founding home energy management company ONZO (acquired by SSE in 2012); net-zero shoes with Allbirds (IPO Nasdaq 2019); advising brands at Nasdaq top-10 global marketing agency ICF (acquired TFC in 2018); battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with UBCO, PURE and DUST; hydrogen electric vehicles (HEVs) with NanoSUN.

The 2016 launch of Allbirds "The World's Most Comfortable Shoes" 📸 TIME Magazine

My sweet spot is scaling early-stage tech-enabled brands. My best example is that in 2015 Allbirds was a team of 3 branded '3/7'. At IPO in 2021 Allbirds was valued $4B+. The original 2015 Wool Runner crowdfund can be seen (Here).

I've won multiple Red Dot & iF design awards. Most of my career has been spent working for/with US brands, and I started my career at Speck Design in Palo Alto. I met Colin and Jarrett during Covid at UBCO where I was Chief Customer Officer responsible for brand, marketing, data and customer service. The Dust founders have served solid time together and a great shorthand has developed between us.

The 2023 launch the 2X2 Special Edition in Moab 📸 UBCO

I deeply believe Dust can fulfil its vision to be the #1 US moto brand globally.

Gold Dust

If you do just one thing this week please watch this brilliant insightful 15 minute Surron Ultra Bee review from FortNine with 1.77M subscribers.

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Done and DUSTED for this month. See you all on the next lap.