foot bindings on top complete the freebord design. >>: strand started designing the first freebord in 1995 while doing a masters degree in product design at stanford university in california. but with a background in high finance at lehman brothers ratherthan building boards, it's fair to say his first efforts didn't quite hit the mark. >>strand: i look back on my early boards and they're just a joke to me right? but you put something out there and you start building some sales and some enthusiasm and you use that momentum to go back in and redesign and keep evolving the product till you get to something that really can become the foundationof an ongoing category. and that can take years because there's so much knowledge and revisioning that has to go on. >>reporter: so he did what my entrepreneurs have done: went to work in the garage to fine tune the product andgoing into debt. by 1999, strand had started freebord manufacturing based in a warehouse in san francisco. and it's not just the board design that changed over the years... >>kendall: the average freeborder has changed a bit