We had the good fortune of connecting with Maxine Chapman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maxine, what is the most important factor behind your success?
We see success as talent mixed with purpose. Talent means having great people on your team and great people by your side. In other words, the whole community around your brand really matters. Luckily for us, people of that caliber tend to gravitate around a worthy cause. At SurfDurt we’re always striving to do the most we can to uplift sustainable systems: from creating a product that’s meant to stop ocean pollution, to sourcing ingredients that can help rejuvenate bee colonies and support farmers. We ask ourselves about the impact of every step in our production and then we ask ourselves, ‘how can we can we make it better?’ We’ve had so many overqualified people conspire together to help make SurfDurt exist and that’s because they know what this company stands for. Having a clear mission to leave the world just a little better off, that’s really the foundation for any of our successes.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Honestly, entrepreneurship is so hard! I think both of us would say the challenges are pretty endless seeming but of course, that makes sense because entrepreneurship means trying to bring something brand new into existence. It’s so rewarding but there’s really no one-size-fits-all manual. We’re overcoming a challenge of some kind every single day and some days are definitely harder than others! But as cofounders, we communicate with each other extensively in order to navigate through it all. We also have the coolest community of people surrounding our brand: people who are outside doing the rad things all over. They share their adventures with us; where they take their SurfDurt and how proud they are to have it with them. That inspiration is so helpful.

Any great local spots you’d like to shoutout?
What a fun question! Naturally, we’d have to take them surfing and if time allowed that would mean a coastal tour to find the best spot of the day, anywhere from Sunset Cliffs to Encinitas. One of our favorite spots to visit when we’re in North County is Seaweed and Gravel, which was one of the first shops to carry SurfDurt – they always have the most eclectic collection of novel and vintage goods to shop through. Since we’re often by the beaches we love visiting some of our friends at Miss B’s Coconut Club in Mission Beach for cocktails and if we’re in the downtown area, we’d definitely go for some mezcal at Tahona Mezcaleria. The best part of San Diego is there’s a pocket in this city for taste and person. It’s a great time just to cruise around by the water and see all that it stows away for us.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Absolutely! There really are so many people who helped along the way but we gained a lot of wisdom and support from the whole community at Connect All at the Jacob’s Center. We were lucky enough to be a part of the first cohort in their accelerator program for budding business and it really changed the game for us.

Website: www.surfdurt.com
Instagram: Instagram.com/surfdurt
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/surfdurt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surfdurt/

Image Credits
The photograph of Nikki Remmel is by Anthony Frijia, the photo of Maxine Chapman is by Christian Guerra and the photos of both founders are by Nico Ricoy of Ricoy Photo taken at Connect All at the Jacob’s center.