By All Means

Scott Olson is the founder of one of the most iconic lifestyle products to come out of Minnesota in the 20th Century: the Rollerblade. He didn’t invent the inline skate, but he improved on a design that had virtually no market traction and made it an international fitness phenomenon and a product that endures still today. Launched in 1980, Rollerblade steadily grew into a hot commodity. But by 1986, Olson was out of the company. Just 19 when he started working on the product, he had the vision and drive, but lacked the business know-how to scale the brand. Money problems forced him to sell to Robert Sturgis and Robert Naegele, who soon took over the company and eventually sold it to Nordica, which is now a division of Technica Group and still the parent company to Rollerblade. "I was bummed out for a day or two," Olson recalls. But I had to regroup. I still had the goal of being successful with this product." And despite the disappointment, he considers his Rollerblade run a success. It's the product that d