Our aim at Duotone is to be the market leader in innovation. We help to develop the sports we love as well as support everyone who enjoys it. 

With that in mind, we’ve been working diligently for many, many months on a new version of our Academy App. It was a complex process, yet one we thrived on, knowing it will make your kiteboarding journey smoother, faster, safer, even more successful and ultimately more exciting!

Thanks to our partnership with Porsche, you can expect some serious strokes of genius within the revamped app. For a start, you’ll find 35 tailored kite-specific fitness workouts (split into warm up, strengthening and cool down exercises) led by the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, bringing their vast training experience and expertise to kiteboarding. There is nothing holding you back now from being at the top of your game, both mentally and physically!

Looking back at the last 12 months, Digital Marketing and App Project Manager, Patrick Dudek — the brain behind both the original app and the upgraded version — admits having totally underestimated the extent of the revamp mission, yet he’s immensely proud of the final product. To get there, Patrick had to double his team of three software developers, all passionate water sports enthusiasts themselves. With everybody working in the same direction with 100% commitment to the project, Patrick's team achieved everything and more that he had envisioned:

Having joined the team in early 2021, software engineer Dennis Olschowka is responsible for the backend system (this is where all customer data, lesson videos and the entire content of the app is located). His original work load per week tripled during the busiest time of the upgrade process. Dennis remembers, “The deployment and publication of the backend system even required a night shift until 2:30am, with work continuing at 8am that same morning. But it was all worth it! The software quality we delivered is incredibly high, plus both the kiteboarding and the foil wing apps are absolutely unique on the market.”

International team rider and Brazilian superstar Reno Romeu aka “the trick machine” is the new protagonist of 24 additional hooked tricks that were recently filmed at Jeremie Tronet’s Pro Center in Union Island. We asked Reno why he thought that every kiter should have the app on their phone: “I think the main benefit is that everything is right at your fingertips, just a few minutes before you hit the water. To be able to watch the video as many times as you want, with all the key steps from anywhere in the world, exactly when you want and even get tips from professional kiters… that’s absolutely sensational! Also the interaction with other people is awesome, you upload your video and the community can check it out and give you feedback. Plus, you can learn pretty much any trick that’s out there in the kiteboarding world. It really blows my mind, the app is just freaking amazing and a super helpful tool.”

With all the videos shot in 4K, completely cost free and also available offline, you can get the pointers that will make the difference, from anywhere, at any time! And if you’re still struggling, the super coaches are just a message away and so is the whole community, which is growing by the second.

Duotone Marketing Director Thomas Kaiser, has been responsible for all the shooting since the very first series of videos were filmed for the app in 2015. The rebranding of the company in 2018 called for the entire video library to be filmed again. That represented the perfect opportunity for Duotone to refine things from scratch and improve on basically everything: the film quality and perspectives, the technical aspects of the app, the animations of the videos, new features were added etc. Since then the app has continuously been developed further. Right now for example, 20 additional wave videos are being filmed in Cape Verde. A massive effort in terms of logistics, finances and time is required for these shootings.

We were curious and wanted to know of Thomas “what exactly” he puts the success of the app down to?

“The app is so successful because it is 100% about the user, no matter how many kites they own, the kite brand or their level. All features as well as the app community are entirely focused on the improvement of the user and nothing else. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity with the support from B&M, Duotone and Porsche to continuously develop this product further and essentially help every app user out there to become a better kiter.”