Our R&D approach

The spirit of pioneers

We, you, everyone can become a pioneer. Innovate within their vision of the world, within their passions, within their sport, in their relation to others, within the love they have for nature, everyone can do it.

At GONG it is our culture. Looking further, into unknown territory, or exploring your own garden and all its hidden corners. It’s all a source for positive adventures. Our job is to open the garden gate for you, and make it all possible.

Innovate for passion

Passionate about water and nature, we love being surrounded by it as much as possible.

In order to live this dream, we’ve been building boards for over 30 years now. And it all started in a garage!

Why? Simply because we couldn’t afford to buy them in stores. So with a group of buddies, we tinkered with every piece foam we could find, home sewed kites, molded fins etc…. the adventure had started and we weren’t yet aware.

The desire to surf was stronger than material limitations. It devoured us and even took our attention away from school…

We have the incredible chance to live from our passion and to have been able to make a career out of it.

Our R&D DNA

Based in Brittany, we design products for use around the world.

Our tests are carried out in demanding conditions, pushing our creations towards greater tolerance in the efficiency.

Even though we have testers around the globe, our local weather forces us to be very versatile. Surf, kite, SUP, Foil, are all solutions to our daily pleasure to go on the water. Each sport nourishes the others, challenges the supports and asks questions whose answers are sometimes global.

It is in this demanding context, which is at the same time close to everyday use, that we lay the foundations for our developments, which are then confirmed around the globe.

A unique R&D vision

Our R&D approach is that of passionate riders with the tools and skills to create, innovate and optimize the equipment for your sessions. The desire to have fun on the water is the driving force behind all our developments. Inspired by our own sessions, those of our team riders or the many users who share their sensations with us, each product we develop is rich in these shared experiences.

This sharing is made possible by our direct relationship with our users, of course. But it's also made possible by feedback from our team riders, whose performance in free sessions and competitions feeds and stimulates our development. Thanks to an R&D department with the human and technical resources to rapidly implement ideas, a new product can be developed, tested and validated in an extremely short space of time. This responsiveness has made us a force to be reckoned with in the sliding sports market.

Experience

To innovate is to experience time because a bright idea is only valid if it becomes a lasting truth.

We test each idea, we select the best ones, and we ripen them, mature them to the breaking point.

Each concept passes the mill of time, but also uses. Each individual will have his own use, some will be gentle, others will be brutal. This sampling of testers is valuable for calibrating the qualities and flaws of our ideas.

Time x Humans = Lasting answer.

This rule is our ultimate barrier against excess marketing. It brings back to the raw truth of the ruthless user.

Validation

When the idea is good, it is tested, it must be validated.

The concept then becomes a reality with its industrial, budgetary and commercial constraints.

The decision belongs to the collective. While in some previous phases were in isolation to secretly innovate, it is now a question of confronting the product with all the constraints and potentials to know if we must give it a global scale.

Throughout the R&D process we give considerable importance to the feelings of our clients, whether verbalized or not. At this stage, you decide, often without even knowing it.

Tools

The sources of progress are infinite.

First you have to manipulate: in the workshop, in the factories, in the water. You must have “Hands ON”.

Then we must feed on all that is not our universe: read a lot, discuss with those who know, maintain an effective and structured watch.

Finally, you have to work because if the hand is a nice tool, the machine has become the rule to ensure a faultless accuracy in the reproduction of the validated prototype. It’s an exciting and expensive job.

Quality above all

Our products come out of the best factories, in which you can find up to 40 of the most well-known brands. The difference in price at GONG can only be explained by direct sales without intermediaries.

We are also training new producers, often on new types of products. We were the first brand to fully digitize our work. At the same time on the sales, but also on the creation: shape 3D, design, process, everything is virtualized to be at the same time ultra precise in its mass production, and to simulate the whole life of the product.

While many brands buy finished products designed in Asia, GONG deploys its methods to the nearest gram. All this virtual pre-production makes it possible to anticipate the worries, to precisely target the objectives and to guarantee performances. Clearly, when you arrive in a factory, everything is explained in infinite detail, the costs are calculated to the nearest penny for each step.