In only eight years, Razor USA LLC has grown from an upstart company with a single product (the original Razor kick scooter) to an established earner with a lineup of more than 30 human- and electric-powered toys. The company’s successful diversification can be seen in its revenues. Sales in 2001 were $20 million; sales in 2007 were $200 million.

“The struggle for our company in the early years was to capitalize on the popularity of the original scooter while expanding the product line so there was less reliance on a single item,” explains Bob Hadley, the company’s product development manager. “We accomplished that, but our challenge now is to continually upgrade the product line with more items to maintain growth.”

Bringing a new product to market at Razor is a process of considering as many as 100 ideas each year, then narrowing that list down to 15 to 20 to develop more fully. Of those, one, two, or possibly three might actually make it to market. “In our industry it’s important to be able to vet out design ideas as quickly as possible,” says Hadley. Today the company has even more advanced technology for doing that—Solid Edge software with synchronous technology.

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