Now they are Dobermann, and (in my opinion) are poised to kick some serious ass. They are putting out frames that just destroy others with thier attention to detail, and the features they offer. These guys know whats on the market, and know what they had to do to make Dobermann bikes work.

We sat down (sort of) with Alain and Mat, and picked thier brains to see just what Dobermann is about.

1) who are you guys, and what do you do?

We are Dobermann and we make bicycle frames.

We are located on the Québec side of the Ottawa region...Gatineau...or Aylmer to be more precise. We are actually 15 minutes from Camp Fortune; we can see the Gatineau park mountain when we open up the back door of the shop.

Dobermann is Mat, myself (Alain) and Hooligan (Puppydog).

2) What is Dobermann? How did it start? (a bit of your history would be good)

Dobermann Fab. is a small frame building factory, at the moment we only focus on MTB park and street hardtail.
We do a bit of custom frames work and little production for other companies. We are very proud to say that we make 98% of the frame parts in house, we even do our own powder coating and brew our own beer

The Dobermann idea have been in our mind long before Mat and I have met. We met at a bike shop were we both were mechanic. I was just starting out my distribution business with 24B and Mat was in school to become a welder after dropping out of 2 years of engineering school.

Many years later when having a beer we suddenly realized that we had all our cards aligned to start our own frame building company. Mat had all the skills, experience (at the time he just got back from MTL were he was working for Balfa) and talent to design and build some real sweet frames, and I add allot of experience and contact in the industry plus i know a little bit on how to start and run a small business.

Now... we need to find some $$...i could go on for days on explaining how we manage to get the financial help for our project but.. i will leave it at this. Everything we own is mortgaged to the max, it took us about a year to do our business plan. We are not rich kids we did not have allot of $$ but, with allot of confidence in our self and our project we manage to get the help we needed. I strongly believe that anybody can create there own business, if they work as hard as we did, the help is there you just have to move your ass and go get it.

3) what separates you guys from all the rest of the frame builders out there?

First you cant compare orange with apples...there is many different types of "frame builders."

Actualy...there are not allot of true "frame builder" in North America.
Most "bike companies" are importer distributors that have there frames made in Asia or in the US...or sometime even by us. Some actually design there own unique frames and some are just asking for some tweak on the Taiwanese design. Its all good it give the consumer allot of options.

For us who produce frame from A to Z with our own sweat and blood it is a bit frustrating to see how easy to it is to send email to Asia and have some frames made. But it really pays off when we see the final result and see the face of our riders and consumer when they try them out.

One thing that truly set us aside from the other real frame builder is our capacity to offer 100% Canadian made frames that truly rock at a very competitive price (we even have a frame that compete the Taiwanese made frames). To be able to sell them at those prices we need to think volume, what take the most time on making a frame is the set up of the machinery before each operation, it take the same time to set up the machinery to do one frame or 100 frames. This is why a one off custom is so pricey or why some low volume frame company have to sell direct to be able to sell them at a good price.

4) How difficult is it starting a new company in the hardtail market? It seems there are hardtails everywhere you look.

So far its pretty easy...you just have to make better frames the the otters at a reasonable price. Personally im very impress to see the amount of junk on the market...it is very easy to do better with out having them made over sea.

5) Do you see Dobermann expanding beyond hardtails? Maybe DH/ freeride frame? Road? Street unicycles with 8" travel?

Yes absolutely, we are frame builder we can make any type of frames...we started with the street and park hardtail because it is natural for us, we grew in to this market and know it very well. As we speak we are working on a freeride full-suspension design, we are hoping to have a proto ready for the summer.

6) Whats the key to avoid being a flash in the pan? How are you going to help Dobermann stay around, and not just be the flavor of the week?

We do our best to design frames that are different and unique. Our frame do not have the same regular type of dropouts or basic parts like you will see on most frames...because we do them our self, they do not come from the drop out of the mount deal at the Taipei factory.

We are true frame builder we did not jump in that wagon to make a quick buck like so many did, we are in this business because it is our life, we are unable to do anything else...When you see a company named after a very well known riding place in the Vancouver region but are actually base in Europe and the frames are made in Taiwan ?...or a company that simply do not say where they are based out, but have distributor all over the world? Its time to ask your self some questions.

Educating people on our jobs and showing them how cool it is to actually work the metal to make a nice frame out of it and mostly keeping a good down to earth relation with all of our consumers. Always stay in touch with the kids help them as much as possible and going to as many event possible to feel the vibe and see whats going on and what the people want. We do our best to get out of the shop as much as possible and helping out as many event as possible.

On the business side...having a good dealer network and having distributor all over the globe.

7) Last words?

Starting a new business is always tight, but so far business is good for us we are close to have pre-sold our first 100 frame. After a year without any personal income, Mat and I will most-likely be able to hit the minimum salary anytime soone OOoooYaaAaa baby show me the money!!!

Also...last week at our biggest surprise, we won first place in a local "new business contest" ? We are very touch by this award because it means that we did plan everything right? Those big businessman, bankers and lawers in the jury believed our business was the one that add the best chances of success, rentability and that ad the best business plan out of all the new business in our region. After teh warad seremony we add many suits coming up to us offering us there help to get finance at the bank and blablabla...pretty funny. We are now going to the national part of the contest...i don't think we have a chances...but we never know ? Hooligan mite scrares some jugges should be funny...

Finally we would like to thank everyone for there support !

Cheers!

Alain Lavoie
Dobermann Bikes