Mark Travers and The Aussie SUP Brand: Honu Boards

As an industrial engineer with a passionate love for the ocean, Mark Travers the current owner of Honu paddle boards believes that the lifestyle of stand up paddling creates something magical that everyone should be able to experience. Every product is designed from the ground up, carefully considering every detail, component and construction method. Each and every single board are designed to perform at the highest standard for their specific purpose. Mark and his team at Honu strive to meet the challenge of fulfilling customers’ needs while protecting the environment as best as they can. This includes an annual pledge to environmental groups, offsetting their last-mile delivery emissions and designing greener packaging for all of their products.

Update: our July 2024 interview with Mark Travers, CEO of HONU

Hello Mark and welcome to TotalSUP! We are so stoked to share your brand with the paddling world this year! How are you doing today?

After a short holiday in early January, this year has been hectic for the Honu Board Team and I. We are busy setting everything up to serve Honu customers just about anywhere in the world. We are also in the final stages of prototyping some new products we have been working on for over a year. So its a very exciting time but busy time for us as well!

That sounds like a good start to the year! Can you tell us about yourself! Where you are from, and where are you based now? Did you do grow up doing water sports?

I grew up on the North West Coast of Tasmania, which is Australian State that is also an island where I spent my formative years swimming, surfing and diving in some of the world’s cleanest oceans. I now live in Narrabeen which is located on the Northern Beaches of Sydney in Australia. It’s pretty a famous surfing spot, so much so… that the Beach Boys even sang about it!

Amazing! We would love to know when was the first time you tried a stand up paddle board?

I was on holiday in Vanuatu which is a country in Oceania in the Pacific Ocean 2017! It was so beautiful and paddling along the reefs on top of the crystal clear water took my breath away.

Wow! Incredible! How did your paddling experience lead to the development of Honu? Can you describe to us your company history?

The brand was founded in 2001 in Bondi Beach by a French backpacker. It was setup to offer affordable surfboards and paddle-boards for families through a simple website, eBay and a garage. It ran virtually unchanged in this way until I purchased the business in 2019. I intended to run the business as it was and simply improve the branding, marketing and customer service. However, upon close inspection of the products, I wasn’t happy with them. Any of them. I discontinued every product and set about re-designing everything from scratch. This included the branding, products, website and even distribution channels. We also discontinued surfboards and fibreglass SUPS. The brand was then completely re-launched in October 2020 with the new branding and range of products we are now known for. So, while I didn’t start the brand in 2001, I do consider myself the founder of Honu Paddleboards, the brand you see today.

What are some of Honu’s core values? We noticed that your boards are eco-friendly and that you have a climate commitment! Tell us more about that!

I think values evolve over time as the brand takes on a life of its own. From a product point of view we are driven by performance, weight and durability. This is something that followed me from my experience in the bike industry.

One of our guiding principles is;

If we can make it better, we do and by make it better, we mean, lighter, stronger or longer lasting. Simple really.

We always want to minimize our impact. The number one thing we can do here is make our products last as long as possible. Product longevity beats recycled or upcycled materials no matter what the application. In addition to working to extend our product’s life, we also reduce all likely unnecessary plastic and packaging. Our boards come with accessories boxes, with those things that must come in bags, come in biodegradable ones. We still aren’t in control of as much as we like, but as we grow, we can have a little more influence over some of our production partners, and so we will continue to improve in this area.

Amazing! This work is definitely important for our planet! How does Honu keep track of it’s carbon footprint?

Right now, our focus is on our supply chain. Specifically, the freight related to the delivery of our products into our warehouses and then to our customers. Right now, we are in the final stages of setting up two new warehouses, which will give us a total of five warehouses and what we think is the best geographic distribution that minimizes air freight. We offset our sea freight through our freight partner, who offers a program to do so. Then, on the last-mile side, we use our sales data to calculate ground transport distances from our warehouses. This allows us to determine the amount of money needed to offset these delivery activities. Additionally we support a mix of active climate control measures such as projects that mechanically remove CO2 from the atmosphere as well as the more traditional passive activities such as tree planting. One of our goals this year is to get better at automating our scorecards related to our C02 emissions. We are hoping to have this all connected and seamless so that anyone can see our up-to-date performance.

Honu’s Carbon Footprint Tracker

Incredible! Can you describe to us the range of stand up paddle boards Honu has and the technology behind the boards?

I would say the range of boards and paddles for that matter, we offer are for those looking for high-performance equipment that is easy to store and move around. Right now we cater from SUP-surfing at one end of the spectrum to touring or recreational racing at the other. We have two new boards being released this May that will further develop the range, both of which I am excited to believe will become the standard in their category! Our X-woven material is possibly the most expensive material in the world and is in part how our boards are so light and stiff simultaneously. This material, combined with our rail construction, is the key.

One construction still unique to us is the welded carbon rail. This is where we weld a 3K carbon panel into the inner rail. This process makes the inner rail join mechanically bonded, producing an incredibly stiff board. This rail construction will be released on two new boards this year. So be sure to watch the Honu website for more details!

We will be sure to keep an eye out! Since Honu is currently based in Australia, can you tell us about Honu’s upcoming European expansion? Are you excited for this growth? Any challenges that you’re currently facing?

We are opening our EU based warehouse in the Netherlands. This will allow us to serve our European customers in the same way we do in Australia and USA. Delivery and returns will be free and folks can expect the same level of customer service we are famous for everywhere.

The UK warehouse is located in Warwickshire.

The only challenge we will have in year one is that we only speak English. Written questions and enquiries won’t be a problem, however, when folks call us, we can only speak English. But we are hoping this will be okay for the first year, and once folks realize they are actually speaking to the people behind the brand and not some outsourced customer service centre, they will appreciate the difference. In year two, we expect to have some EU-based team members who are more multilingual than us Australians.

That sounds fantastic! We are so excited for the growth of Honu! What is something about unique and special about Honu that paddlers should know?

Beyond the products at this stage, Honu is still a small, scrappy challenger brand and so we treat each customer as if they are our first and only one. The level of care and attention our customers get is unique in the market and can only be experienced to be understood. The more we have become known for this, the more we are committed to it staying that way. It has helped solidify our strategy.

Make great, high-performance products that last.
Rely on good design and use of colour, not logos.
Set the standard for service and customer care.

We love to hear that! Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us that we should know about Honu?

I think it’s worth mentioning that we are not a VC-backed brand. We are completely bootstrapped. This means we are limited in how much inventory we can send to the EU and UK this first season. You won’t see huge sales and deep discounts. You will see new, innovative products, new designs, new technology and new standards of what you can expect from an iSUP brand. For those interested, they should sign up for notifications and join our online community as we expect to sell out our first drop very quickly.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today Mark! We are stoked for the growth of Honu and cannot wait to see more boards throughout Europe and beyond!

To find out more about Honu Paddle Boards and sign-up to their newsletter, visit: www.honuboards.com
Follow Honu Paddle Boards on Instagram and Facebook