Lake Elmo's Fast Wax Ski Wax is a slick business

As founder of Fast Wax Ski Wax, Dan Meyer has learned that early snowfalls are good for business.

Snow in November means a fast start to the ski season, giving a critical boost to ski shops, ski areas and resorts and his Lake Elmo-based company, which makes ski and snowboard waxes.

"Snow in the front yard is a huge deal," Meyer said recently. "When you get the snow, life is good. If you don't, it's going to be a lean year."

Meyer and his wife, Rosie, have endured a few of those since they launched Fast Wax in 1994. But with careful management, endorsements from leading ski shops and elite skiers, and widespread use of their products among high school ski teams, the couple have built a steadily-growing business.

"People try it and they like it, and that's really our marketing philosophy," Dan Meyer said. "It grows slowly every year. By the time spring comes around, we're ready for a break."

Meyer's focus on product development has resulted in what he describes as a smooth-gliding wax that performs well in a wide range of temperatures and snow conditions "to guarantee fast skis," as Fast Wax's mission statement declares.

The company makes waxes for alpine and Nordic skiers and snowboarders. It receives orders from across the country and is making headway in a market that European brands largely dominate.

The company's products include traditional iron-in waxes, which Dan Meyer explains how to use in online videos shot in his Spartan "man cave," a corner workshop where he has come up with innovations such as Slick Pro, a paste wax that users rub on and buff into their skis or snowboards.

"It's unique to us," Dan Meyer said of Slick Pro, a top seller that's popular with high school ski teams and younger skiers. "It gives you the same performance of an iron-in wax but you can literally wax your skis in about five minutes."

Dan Meyer was a devoted rock climber and runner when some climbing friends got him to try skiing in the late 1980s.

As a novice, he quickly realized that waxing his skis properly helped him keep up with faster, more experienced skiers.

"I couldn't keep up to them but learned that if your skis were waxed really well that made a huge difference," he said. "So I started unraveling the mysteries of waxing. And that's how it got started. Just a natural curiosity."

His wife and friends and elite racers who wanted more of what had come to be known as "Dan's Fast Wax" encouraged him. Endorsements from Ahvo Taipale, owner Finn Sisu, a prominent Twin Cities ski shop, and Bill Simpson, a longtime coach of Stillwater Area High School's Nordic ski team, helped, too, convincing Meyer and his wife to start the business.

"Waxing has a lot of mystique to it, and Dan has a way of simplifying it and making it user-friendly and making it affordable for high school programs and others," Simpson said. "It's also as effective as or better than European products on the market."

Among those who have endorsed Meyer's product are Afton native and U.S. Olympic cross-country team member Jessie Diggins.

"Their product is as good as anybody's," Taipale said. "He's using high-quality materials. He has been capable of tackling the qualities for the wax in extremely cold conditions as well as in warm conditions. They're one of my largest suppliers and we sell lots of wax."

To help counter the seasonal nature of the business, the Meyers, who are avid cyclists, last year began offering a wax product for bicycle chains. A waxed chain, Dan Meyer said, is more efficient, smoother, quieter and cleaner than greasy chain lubricants.

"It's really been running well," Rosie Meyer said of the bike chain wax. "It's nice having that crossover for biking during the summer."

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury. His e-mail address is todd_nelson@mac.com.