Brand exercise · Vol. 02
Project Molt: building the brand
Sunset Duckies started as a surf club. Project Molt asks whether it can also become a product brand built around quality, local work and communities that can shape it for themselves.
August 2026 · Tamarin, Mauritius
4 ideas
developed first
1 product
chosen from evidence
31 Oct
Tamarin launch
28 Feb
global plan
Sunset Duckies grew from afternoons in the water, families helping each other and kids learning to surf. We are now exploring whether that same community can build useful, high-quality products for surfers and surf families.
We are calling the exercise Project Molt. Tamarin is the first test, but the aim is a model that other surf communities can make their own rather than a copy of Mauritius dropped somewhere else.
Start with four
We will develop four product ideas to the same level, put them in front of families, kids, likely buyers and makers, then choose one from what we learn. No favourite gets a head start.
Make and launch one
The selected idea becomes a small proof of concept made with local people where possible. We will build interest before launching it alongside a surf competition at the end of October, then record what sold, what failed and what people would change.
Learn what can travel
The Tamarin pilot runs through February. By then we need real product standards, working economics, a local handover model and a plan for how another surf community could start without losing its own identity.
When someone says they already know which idea will win.
Chris P. Duck · via Tenor ↗The first job is deliberately small: make the four product ideas equally clear by 7 September. The interviews and the evidence come next.
Photos and clips by club parents and the club drone.
The working brief
FollowProject Molt
The workspace holds the vision, the plan, the three weeks onsite and the working documents, from the first four ideas through the Tamarin pilot.