“Washburn’s business model was too slow – I was so frustrated”: Why YouTube star Ola Englund launched his own company, Solar Guitars
The intersection of heavy metal and guitar YouTube has proved to be a verdant ground for innovative new guitar companies to bloom. Alongside Rob Chapman’s Chapman Guitars, Ola Englund’s Solar Guitars has been another key success story in this area.
Now nearly 10 years later, Solar is a widely revered guitar company catering to the heavier inclined, but what prompted Englund – who was with Washburn at the time – to do his own thing in the first place?
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As he explains in the new issue of Guitar World magazine, Englund felt disillusioned with the speed at which his designs with Washburn became available to the public, and was inspired to start his own brand instead.
“I had a successful model with Washburn,” he says. “I brought them my designs, they released it and it did very well. But being a social media, YouTube guy. I know the world moves so fast now and people’s attention spans are so short.
“I felt that Washburn’s business model; was too slow. There was a bureaucracy behind everything – the making of the guitars, selling to dealers and getting them to distributors.
“It’s such a long process before an actual customer gets to see the guitar – like, about a year – and I was so frustrated because I knew people wanted the guitars but had to wait a long time before they could get them.”
Englund – who has nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers, and also plays guitar in bands The Haunted and Feared – explains that upon the expiration of his three-year contract with Washburn, he was faced with a decision: either renew for another three years, or take matters into his own hands.
“After my three-year contract ended, I figured I could stay there for another three years, but I knew I could do so much better if I could find some people to do a new company with me,” he continues.
“The guy I worked with at Washburn had just left the company, so I gave him a call and we decided to create a model that went straight from us to the consumer because we know exactly what the audience wants. They tell me.
“I took my designs out of Washburn, and we formed Solar. We launched in late 2017 and had 300 guitars to sell and ship immediately. We’ve grown very fast.”
In other news, Extreme guitar legend Nuno Bettencourt made waves in the guitar industry late last year when he followed in Ola Englund’s footsteps, ending his 35-year relationship with Washburn to start his own guitar company, Nuno Guitars.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
