The initial cost for the investors in this venture are pretty minimal. No buildings, no factory, no equipment, no reps etc. There is the cost of prototyping, molds, website design, rented space for receiving/dispatching, a small business system to keep track of the accounting, a few employees. They have limited the molds required by limiting size. They have also set the structure of purchase by having the "refundable" $50 deposit. They may very well limit the initial year to producing based on the deposits with a bit of cushion plus what ever known distribution their model has for getting the skis into the wild. Following this method they get the skis out in year one and the buzz starts more broadly than Skitalk and TGR and sales for year two build. Following this model the initial investment is actually very minimal relatively speaking. I'd guess it doesn't exceed a $1mm. This is throw away money for a well funded PE.