Josh Naab came to Ireland from Germany, aged nine, with his Irish father and German mother. Moving to Dublin from his childhood home in rural wine lands, with “not much English”, was “a bit of a culture shock”, he says.
He had no grand plan after secondary school but by that stage was so totally “sick of classrooms”, his preference was to hit the road and travel rather than continue his studies. So he worked and volunteered his way around the world for two years. “I didn’t know where I was going but I knew I was young and had no responsibilities so that was the time to do it,” he says.
One thing was clear however: “I always wanted to do my own thing.”
He fetched up in New Zealand and while there took up surfing. “I’ve always loved being around the sea. I got a guy there to build me a board and was amazed by his workshop when I visited,” he says. Always creative, that first visit caused a ripple that would build into a wave.
He moved back to Ireland and signed up for a degree in outdoor education, in Mayo, specialising in water sports.
That gave him plenty of time to polish his surfing skills. But when the pandemic hit and, like the rest of the country in lockdown, he had even more time on his hands. His thoughts returned to that visit to the surfboard workshop in New Zealand.
“I started reading up about making surfboards online and watching YouTube videos. I ordered materials and built a couple of boards,” he says.
As he honed his craft, he became increasingly interested in the fins that sit underneath, an essential part of every board. “You can’t surf without them. Well you can but you’d want to be very good,” he explains.
“Most boards have removable fins, so you can take them off and change them depending on the weather, the conditions and your own weight. Most surfers have up to 10 fins.”
It’s the area he decided to focus on, developing high performance fins made from a variety of materials, starting with plywood and moving on to bamboo and carbon fibre.
He began to incorporate alternatives to the petrochemical materials typically standard in board making, including plant-based resins which are more sustainable as well as high performing and long lasting.
Globally the fin market is dominated by a choice of goods that are either high performance and command a premium price, or lower quality, cheaper items that wear down fast. From the beginning he took a different approach. “My products are premium, hand crafted and don’t skimp on materials, but at a fair price which I’m glad to be charging,” he says.
Having perfected his craft, he finally secured a workshop of his own, in Gorey, Co Wexford, and launched Panza Fins, in March 2023. News that he had won a Three Grant for Small Businesses later that year simply couldn’t have come at a better time for the 28-year-old.
The initiative, which is now in its fourth year, sees 10 small businesses each receive a share of a €100,000 bursary, made up of a mix of cash, advice, support and connectivity solutions from Three Ireland’s expert business advisers.
“I was on holidays in September 2023 when I saw an ad on my phone advertising the grants, so I applied, was asked to submit a video entry, and won,” he explains.
It was just the boost his business needed. “I got €5,000 in cash and €5,000 in goods and services from Three Ireland, including an iPhone 14. The phone is great for social media because it takes really good photos and videos. In this market you build your business through influencer marketing, which means sponsoring surfers and posting images of them online,” he explains.
Panza Fins already sponsors Oscar Choo, a rising teenage star from Strandhill in Sligo who is on the Irish surf team. In the coming months Naab plans to sponsor more.
His ability to take top notch photos and videos is therefore critical. “All my sales come through Instagram and Etsy. People see the fins and click through to the website. My old phone had a cracked lens with dust in it, so the pictures weren’t great. I used to have to borrow my girlfriend’s phone for pictures. The iPhone 14 has really stepped up my game,” says Naab.
Today the business sells to customers around the world, from Florida and California to the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Naab invested the cash element of the award into his workshop, spending it on raw materials and a dust extraction system, which has improved workplace health and safety enormously. “I used some of it to buy tools I needed,” he says.
As well as boosting the business, winning the grant has boosted his self-image too, an important part of the make-up of any successful entrepreneur. “The win gave me confidence. Knowing that people rate my business just made me glad,” says Naab, who recently launched his own line of Panza Fins hoodies.
“Winning enabled me to fulfil orders on time that I would have struggled to without all the new tools. That, in turn, meant I didn’t have to stress quite so much about money either. And my girlfriend’s delighted too because I don’t have to borrow her phone any more.”