Meet Chris Beresford | Dang Shades Founder / Ex almost Pro Snowboarder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chris Beresford and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, what role has risk played in your life or career?
The nice part of starting a brand when you’ve barely hit the legal drinking age is you don’t quite ever think about risk. You have nothing to lose when you literally have nothing to lose. My snowboard career was my main focus right along side of starting Dang Shades so for the first 6 years I was head down focus mode for 4 months through the winter and Dang was originally my side hustle to stay busy in-between.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m a quiet person. I’ve always been shy to maybe to a fault?? I’ve always found setting a goal in my head and not necessarily telling anyone has been my way to success. I do believe success is a very open ended question as I’ve been fortunate enough to invest in real estate and retirement at a younger age looks very possible. Is my goal to retire early? Probably but at the same time I think I’d just cut some of the things out of my life that cause headache and stress. I certainly love the retailers/distributors I work with and the community of people who buy directly from the website. Something about delivering the end product with a hand written note means the world to me and I love doing it so I don’t plan on stopping that side of things. (Even though when I chat with people who are a bit more money hungry they tell me I should scale and work on the business and less in business). I get why 100% but at this point I’m doing what feels right.

Building the business was never easy but It’s taught me every side of business from working with manufacturers overseas, shipping logistics, building the website and obviously thousands other skills along the way. As of the recent years I’ve been learning more of the SEO side / Google ads and man that’s just a pay to play game. Having a niche with old school word of mouth at least for Dang has been #1 in spreading the word.

All in all I had came up with a name (hardest part of starting a brand in my eyes) and had a couple thousand dollars saved from working at Fat Trax (Snowboard shop in Massachusetts) and didn’t take a penny and just reinvested back into producing new frame styles for the first 6 years and just tested the waters of what was say on trend vs timeless styles like the OG Premium which still to this day sells and is obviously a much nicer product than what I started with but that’s what has kept my focus and keeping things as affordable as possible so it’s not a game of keeping up with the Joneses it’s more you’re apart of something that’s fun / functional and if you’ve got a pair and see someone else wearing them chances are you’ll have a cool conversation with that person.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Funny that you ask… I’ve been based in Salt Lake City, UT for about 12 years now and would load them up and would drive up to the cabin I’ve been working on the past few summers that’s just south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s a 1 acre relaxation station. The Cabin is just about 1000 sq ft with all the amenities you need! We’ve got a golf cart for the summer to hit the local courses and in the winter it’s a winter wonderland. If you’ve made it this far into the interview you may have figured out by now being from farm land Massachusetts I’m at that point of going out in downtown SLC just isn’t as fun as it once was in my 20’s. I’d rather get out of the rat race and shut down for a few days and truly be present and have no need to look at the phone that seems to run my life more and more year after year.

As long as you eat meat Wyoming has been a welcoming place.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I had grown up in a small town in Massachusetts that oddly had a decent size scene of older skateboarders and snowboarders. I payed attention as a young buck and was attracted to certain things in life and I’ll never know why exactly but something about the first time I saw snowboarding I knew that’s what I wanted to do (It was truly my first thing I got to choose in life and wasn’t told “try this”). My friend group growing up were all into action sports and less of the stick and ball sports so I do feel lucky in that manner to just have friends and their families who helped get us around to local competitions and to Blandford Ski Area (Now out of business but that was our local hill).

By age 16 I started working at a local Snowboard / Skate / BMX shop called Fat Trax and that’s when the snowball began rolling. Friends and I were always documenting aka filming each other with a handy cam and making video’s and creating sponsor me tapes at the time.

Kris Gasque, Mike Lee and Dave Durfey were the managers of the 2 Fat Trax locations in Western Ma and I do know they had my best interest and know that really helped as they saw my passion way before me. I was more just doing at the time!

Website: www.dangshades.com

Instagram: @dangshades and my personal @chris_beresford

Youtube: dangshades (recently have been posting current videos)

Image Credits
Melissa Riitano @melissariitano (Bike Photos at salt flats) Sean Black @Blackoles (Snowboard photos)