About Us
It all started from a love of surfing, the ocean, the outdoors, and in spreading the joy of it all with others.
Surfing is a true lifetime gift. It keeps you in shape, puts you in touch with nature, teaches you lessons in overcoming adversity and the power of self. Developing confidence, always learning, being humbled, facing and overcoming challenges that would surprise your younger self—these are all gifts one receives from a lifetime surfing. Sharing these experiences with others also creates strong bonds between people, friends and family.
In 2015, Nick Naylor, founder of Rock-It, was looking for a way to participate in passing along these life lessons and build a business while doing it. Having three young children + living at the beach provided plenty of motivation and a full R&D team! The soft board market at the time was divided between cheap, low quality offerings and expensive hyper-marketed brands. We saw an opportunity to offer a middle ground that better targets the real market for soft boards. Great quality, great board designs, unique features, and great value. We wanted to make the best overall product-market-fit for the beginner surfers and help people find success at learning to surf well! It started with focusing on children, but we’ve expanded over time to beginners of all shapes, sizes, and ages. As the soft board market grew it also became common for experienced surfers to have these boards in their quiver; so we have worked to cater to this as well with more performance options and design features.
We’re a small business based in Virginia Beach, VA. We are full of gratitude for a great community & local support that has helped us grow our brand.
Rock-It Surf boards are now available in stores and distribution points across many parts of the country and in some overseas markets as well.
We will also sell and ship most of our boards directly to you (as long as you are in the lower 48 states), for a flat fee of $25-$75 depending on size. The 9’ and 10’ models often have shipping restrictions due to cost & options of freight companies (they are too big for FedEx or UPS).
Rock-It surf pledges 2% of net profits will go to better causes, and in practice, we've usually done a lot better than that! We are not limited in scope or geographical location in this pledge, and look at it as doing our little part to make this world a better place.
Got any suggestions for how we can sponsor a contest, donate to a good cause or help those in need? Reach out to us on Facebook or send us an email at admin@1stlightproducts.com.
R&D Trip 2015 / Tai Long Wan - the beginning
Testing 1st Gen Big Softy
2016-2017: R&D in Virginia Beach & Germany's Eisbach river wave, 1st Surf Expo, distribution to Bali, Indonesia
2018-2019: Expansion to Europe (via Amazon), partnership with Maldives resort, improved board construction & expanded lineup launched
2020-2021: Surf school business growing, partnership with Grant "Twiggy" Baker & his daughter Billi, partnership with OneTeam El Salvador to help autistic children gain access to the joys of surfing
2022-2024: Partnership with Steve Houser (NJ), Surfboard Factory Hawaii, Ollie Fix (Hawaii), California State Parks, Amazon Top Seller