EP 17 | Julia Keller - kite harness design, product engineering & female health

Julia Keller is a mechanical engineer who spent three and a half years designing kitesurfing gear — first a bachelor's thesis project at Duotone, then harnesses and accessories at ION, where she led the redesign of ION's women's harness from scratch. In this episode she walks through that design process: starting with her own pain points, cutting foam prototypes in her basement, and testing them against her own well-loved gear until she realized how much she'd been putting up with.

The conversation also covers how working in the industry she loved slowly took the joy out of kitesurfing itself, the financial and emotional toll that led her to leave, and the Tarifa session that brought her passion back.

She talks about riding Cape Town's Women's Downwinder in over 50 knots, why a good harness matters more than a new kite, and the research gap in sports science and nutrition for women — the problem she's now building a startup to solve with her co-founder Alessa.

00:00 Welcome — meet Julia Keller, engineer and harness designer

02:15 Who is Julia — 11 years kitesurfing, now running her own startup

03:43 Discovering kitesurfing on a backpacking trip through Colombia

08:00 Buying her own gear and adjusting to cold, choppy home conditions

10:17 Balancing a full-time job with chasing the wind

14:35 What drives her — designing to fix her own pain points

17:08 How an internship in Cape Town led her into the kite industry

18:50 A quarter-life crisis and the push toward the kite industry

20:17 Hired right before lockdown — and furloughed weeks later

21:33 Working flat out at a kite school in Greece during COVID

23:13 Her bachelor's thesis — redesigning Duotone's click bar

24:08 Moving to ION and joining the harness team

25:05 Choosing to design a harness that actually works for women

28:14 Prototyping, company politics, and why good ideas stall

30:22 Burning out — financial struggle and losing the joy of kiting

38:23 Leaving the industry — and a session in Tarifa that brought the joy back

44:16 Riding Cape Town's Women's Downwinder in 50+ knots

50:35 Back to the harness — the problem with "shrink it and pink it"

54:29 Building the first prototype from foam scraps in her basement

1:02:12 Pro riders using her harness, and the matching spreader bar

1:08:14 Why a good harness matters more than a new kite or board

1:12:16 Self-taught riders, YouTube tutorials, and skipping lessons

1:15:26 Building a female health app with her co-founder Alessa

1:21:27 Bone density, nutrition, and the research gap for women

1:34:48 Advice for breaking into the kite industry

1:36:35 Wrap-up