How Ryan Pelletier Turned a High-School Idea into the First Modular, Ultra-Portable Longboard

Founder Ryan Pelletier joined me to share how a locker-sized idea from 2018 evolved into Morphite Boards — an ultra-portable, modular longboard built for last-mile transportation. His journey bridges student inventor scrappiness, university maker-space innovation, and the real grind of taking a physical product to market. For founders and operators building hardware, this conversation offers a rare inside view of prototyping, fundraising, customer psychology, and the mental resilience required to push through friction.

Guest Snapshot

Name: Ryan Pelletier
Role: Founder & CEO, Morphite Boards
Credentials: Creator of the first fully modular longboard designed to collapse small enough to fit inside a standard backpack; developed through Saginaw Valley State University’s Product Innovation Lab
Current Focus: Completing Morphite’s first production run, scaling manufacturing, and building a modular ecosystem of interchangeable longboard components and accessories

The Origin: A High-School Problem That Wouldn’t Go Away

Pelletier’s founding insight emerged from a simple, lived frustration: his longboard didn’t fit in his school locker. That constraint pushed him into DIY prototyping in his garage — an early version that sat untouched for five years until he reached Saginaw Valley State University. There, a mentor invited him into the campus Product Innovation Lab, giving him the technical support and equipment to build a truly rideable version. By July 2023, the first working prototype proved the idea wasn’t just clever — it was commercially viable.

Turning Vision Into a Buildable Product

Pelletier arrived with pages of notes capturing every detail of what the longboard should become. That clarity mattered. Hardware founders don’t just pitch a product — they must transfer a mental picture into the minds of engineers, suppliers, and investors. His ability to articulate use cases, constraints, and requirements helped the lab’s lead engineer, a 37-patent veteran, translate vision into actual components.

Morphite’s core thesis became concise and strategic: “ultra-portable last-mile transportation.” The board would move with commuters — not burden them.

The Real Work: Prototyping, Suppliers, and Wearing Every Hat

As the project evolved, Pelletier stepped fully into the entrepreneurial reality of doing everything: product design, supplier management, manufacturing timelines, fundraising, marketing, customer research, and brand positioning.
He found unexpected energy in supplier relationships — from plastics manufacturing to hardware sourcing — and built a network of partners who champion the product within the skateboard market.

The hardest part wasn’t the engineering. It was the psychology: learning to walk the line between inexperience and credibility. Pelletier leaned into transparency, admitting what he didn’t know while demonstrating a willingness to learn quickly — a posture that earns trust rather than erodes it.

Fundraising: Grit, Momentum, and Asking for Advice

Despite strong traction, fundraising was far from effortless. Pelletier is raising $400,000 and has secured $89,000 to begin manufacturing, with more investor pitches underway. His biggest takeaway echoes advice I often give founders: investors fund the founder as much as the product. Long-term relationship-building — coffees, conversations, follow-ups — laid the foundation long before checks were written.

He learned to start by asking for advice, not money. It opened doors, created mutual respect, and positioned him as a coachable founder worth betting on.

Marketing That Works: A Viral Formula

Pelletier’s first viral moment didn’t come from luck. It came from reverse-engineering. After studying a creator whose content consistently pulled multi-million-view videos, he analyzed clip timing, pacing, and audio — then rebuilt a reel using the same structure but with Morphite footage. It hit 2.1 million views, instantly validating demand and giving investors a tangible signal of market pull.

His advice to founders:
– Study formats that already work
– Use trending audio
– Keep edits tight
– Invest in basic audio equipment
– And above all, start — momentum compounds through consistent creation

Beyond the Product: Building a Platform and Community

Pelletier doesn’t see Morphite as a single board. He’s building a modular ecosystem of decks, kicktails, colors, LED components, accessories, apparel — and eventually, an open-source design community where riders can 3D-print and trade parts. He imagines students swapping kicktails like collectibles, universities selling branded models in bookstores, and even micro-scale “tech deck” versions as novelty extensions.

Key Ideas From This Episode

• Great physical products often emerge from personal frustration — founders experience the problem before they try to solve it.
• Early prototypes don’t need to be polished; they need to prove that a solution is possible.
• Universities and maker spaces are under-leveraged resources for hardware founders.
• Communicating your vision clearly accelerates engineering alignment.
• Founders earn trust by combining honesty about inexperience with visible willingness to learn.
• Investors often “fund the person,” not just the product — relationships matter more than pitch decks.
• Asking for advice is one of the fastest ways to build meaningful investor connections.
• Viral content tends to follow recognizable structure — pacing, clip timing, and audio selection matter.
• A modular product can become a platform — creating community, upgradability, and recurring revenue.
• Young founders benefit from innate digital fluency, especially in content creation and distribution.
• Entrepreneurship requires sacrifice — long hours, missed social events, and the willingness to endure prolonged uncertainty.
• Time is the founder’s scarcest resource; personal brand and skill development create long-term leverage.

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