Joe Sexton has been around the block a time or two and still remains one of street snowboarding’s constant bar-setters. Now, he’s stepping things up by running his own brand.

Mike Basher: How has the journey been going from professional rider to starting your own brand, managing it and also riding for it?

Joe Sexton: When we started Public [in 2015], I was 27. And at that time I really wasn’t looking at the end of my career coming up, by any means. I felt like I was still producing stuff, and I had really good sponsors, and I was pretty happy with where I was. I had been riding for Stepchild for quite a while and had sort of hit the ceiling there. I called them and ran the idea past them of doing another board brand under a different name—something completely separate—and they were into it. But it was tricky because, at the time of that conversation, the SIA trade show was a month and a half away. I just had to figure out a name and build a company.

Oh, NBD. [Laughs.]

Right? We had to create a whole brand and get samples in time for the show, and I pulled it off by just grinding and finding tons of inspiration to figure out what I wanted to do. 

How has it been, growing the business?

The first year, we had two boards, and it was Darrell [Mathes] and I on the team, and we each had a board. It was just really, really small, and it was launched side by side with Stepchild. They helped out a ton, since we booked everything under them at first—all the same reps, all the same distributors and all sorts of stuff. Immediately, we had the sales kind of in place, which would’ve been really hard to do on our own with a brand-new brand. So yeah, I definitely wanna thank them for helping with the training wheels.

After a few seasons, though, we grew to the point where we wanted to take the training wheels off and learn this stuff on our own. It became obvious that I wanted to focus on everything, and then that’s also the time when I had to put my own money up to get the boards going, and I really took a lot more ownership of the brand at that point.

It’s actually really funny, in this full-circle sort of standpoint, that my first sponsor was Nitro, and I used to get boards from the local rep here. Now, that rep carries Public. It’s pretty awesome.

So, in that month-and-a-half cram phase, how did you arrive on the name Public?

I really came up with a name when I was thinking about what was missing from snowboarding at that time. And I remember seeing an Instagram post from a kid who was DM’ing a brand and being like, “Hey, I’ve messaged you guys a bunch and I’m getting no response. I’m just checking in on this thing,” and just no one seemed to pay attention to him. 

I was like, Man, that sucks. Like, what if that kid mowed lawns or just whatever to buy that board from this brand that he really wanted to support, and now they’re, like, ignoring him? So something kind of clicked, and I was like, I wanna create something that if somebody reaches out, we’ll get back to them, and we’ll make them feel like they’re a part of this thing. So then this “community” word started popping up, and community really matters. And then I just thought of “public,” and it was like, That’s what I want this thing to be. It’s public—like, everyone’s a part of this brand, and everyone can feel a part of it.

Where do you want to take this thing?

That’s a good question. I kind of struggle with that because I don’t necessarily want it to get so big that we lose the commitment to the culture and what we started it under. But, at the same time, I like building a business, and it’s fun to grow and scale and see what you can do. I just wanna keep creating new, exciting products.

It’s fair to say that Public is seen as a jib-centric brand. Are you looking to change that?

Yeah, I think it understandably started that way. We’ve got one freeride board currently in the line and are developing a corduroy-killer for next season. When we’re gonna do something, we want to do it right. So, in developing a freeride board, we put the time and the effort into making it the best it can be. For the Research to win awards in its first year was really special, and I think it just proves our commitment to caring about everything that we make. The same goes for the team. It’s a really well-thought-out team, and yeah, a lot of it’s street-based, but I think with the Research, there’s an opportunity to build a well-rounded team. We don’t wanna be looked at as just a street brand by retailers or kids, because we can now offer more. I want to be a snowboard brand with things that we really specialize in.

What’s it like being a pro rider and a team manager at the same time?

Managing the team is actually still a trip to me. It’s kind of hard to explain. I’m still competitive, because I’m a team rider as well, and they’re all my friends. It’s hard having the tough conversations with them about things that naturally have to happen when you have a business and a team. These guys and girls have been awesome, and a lot of them have been with us for a long time. It’s really cool to have the support from them, and we always try to do our best, because I want them to be proud of what they’re riding.

I really try my best to support them, and it’s so fun to be able to send them on trips and do stuff like that. I do wish we were a little bit bigger and could do a ton and pay them a bunch of crazy money, of course, but they understand, and they can see that we support them. I really try to go above and beyond to make them feel supported.

What’s next for you?

I wanna keep filming, too. I’m not done filming any parts yet. I think with what I’m doing with both Public and my own career, I still wanna put some of my best stuff out there and try to film this upcoming winter. Last year, I was on the road a lot. I decided to do more of the trade show and demo circuit and made a conscious effort to go and visit retailers and our reps and really get in front of the brand a little bit. This upcoming season, I’m gonna hit that again, but also make time to get out there and get some clips for sure.