Surfer/entrepreneur father and son combination stumble upon their “Steve Jobs moment,” create line of neckties crafted from boardshort material!

"It’s a perfect fit for missionaries!"

We, each of us here, have likely had an idea pop into head, at one point or another, that seemed a genius money-making scheme. Some spark that felt instantaneously unique and wonderful. Very few, though, have likely taken any steps to activate and there it died on the vine. Or maybe flowed to China where it became produced on the cheap without our participation. I have a friend who once told me “any time a plan is spoken but not realized it enters the ‘river of ideas’ that heads straight to China.”

Makes sense but that fate, thankfully, did not befall Gregg Greer and his son Zeke. The two live in Utah and recently brought their dream to life but let us turn to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints organ Deseret News to learn more and celebrate American success.

Picture this, a father and son on a beach in Hawaii, taking a break from a surf session, swinging in their hammocks, noodling about a business they could start together.

This wasn’t the first time they’d done this. For years, Gregg Greer and his youngest son Zeke had been tossing ideas around. It had become their hobby, trying to envision something nobody thought of until they thought of it; looking for their Steve Jobs moment.

Since action sports is their thing — surfing, snowboarding, skating, anything in the mountains — the ideal for them was to find a way to mix business with pleasure; figure out something they could sell connected to what they love.

They’d run through all the usual outdoor gear retail suspects: hats, shirts, shorts, shoes and so forth and come up empty. At one point they thought about a dating site for action sports participants. They went so far as to pay for a domain name: shreddersonly.com. But after that the idea more or less fell off a cliff. What did they know about online dating?

Lounging in the hammocks in the summer of 2017, they were back to square one.

Then, suddenly, they had it.

Neckties.

Boom.

The ties are made from technical boardshort material and sell under the name Bombora. The inspiration was, of course, socks as the two saw the explosion of Stance in their Mormon pews. Elders wearing colorful foot coverings under pressed black slacks or maybe pressed khaki slacks. The two, anyhow, went to work and soon possessed the must-have church accessory of the year. “It’s a perfect fit for missionaries,” Gregg told Deseret News. “You can bend it, scrunch it, throw it in the back of your car and drive around for a month and put it on and it looks the same.”

Covid severely disrupted the production but Bombora survived and now you, too, can buy here.

Success.