2024-10-26
9 分钟Newlane co-founder Dominic Cotton talks about creating a foldable bike helmet for urban commuters. He shares how a London bike ride sparked the idea, challenges of achieving certification and how key partnerships have propelled their growth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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I'm Laura Kramer.
Dominic Cotton is the co founder of nulane, a foldable bike helmet tailored for urban commuters.
It all started after co founder Josh Cohen felt unexpectedly vulnerable on a bike in busy London traffic.
So the pair set out to design a helmet that's both safe and ultra portable.
So how do you turn this ambitious idea into a fully certified product?
And how do you scale it from startup to partnering with brands like Selfridges?
Here's Dom with more on how the journey began.
I set this business up with a friend of mine.
We were working on another business together.
Josh is his name, he's my co founder and he was riding across Waterloo Bridge, busy day in London Standard, and got onto a Santander bike and felt kind of exposed, felt a bit scared actually.
And he's not the kind of person who normally feels scared of anything.
He's quite the reverse, in fact.
And so he was sort of confused about that because, you know, kind of the, the received wisdom is that you should use bikes to get around towns and cities.
It's better for everything, the planet, your heart and congestion around towns.
So he's like, okay, that's the thing.
And he met me and I have ridden around London for many years on a regular bike and like lots of people in London, I have a helmet dangling off the back of my rucksack once I've got off my bike.
So we've got a problem for the regular rider.