Onda Sports: Personalizing the Surf Experience
On August 1, 2025, the vibrant surf community of Santa Cruz gathered at the storied Steamer Lane Lighthouse Lawn to celebrate the debut of Onda Sports, Inc., a groundbreaking surf app destined to transform how surfers interact with the ocean. The brainchild of Quincy Carroll, founder and CEO of Onda Sports, Inc.—and a former Chief Product Officer at Crunchyroll—Onda merges cutting-edge AI, session tracking, and community interaction into one seamless experience.
Currently covering the surf-rich stretch from Marin to Monterey, Onda is designed to close the gaps that leave many surfers frustrated: fragmented forecast apps, impersonal weather data, and the hassle of juggling multiple platforms. At the launch, Quincy guided the audience through these shared pain points and then introduced Onda’s answer: an all-in-one tool that not only logs your surf sessions and forecasts conditions but tunes them to your individual style and local knowledge.
The live demo showed Onda’s three main pillars:
Surf session logging with detailed notes and performance data.
AI-generated personalized forecasts that adapt to each surfer’s style, location, and history.
Community chat features for real-time conditions, tips, and shared stoke.
The goal is simple: recommendations and planning tools that feel as personal as talking to your most trusted surf buddy.
Quincy’s vision for Onda is rooted in a lifetime immersed in surf culture. “I grew up in Malibu in the 70s and 80s surfing with my dad and his friends,” he recalls. “Two notable local personalities were Johnny Fain and Angie Reno. My dad worked in the surf clothing industry, so I got to travel to places like Hawaii for contests and surf spots most people only dream about.”
Though the family couldn’t truly afford it, they lived in an apartment on the water along Malibu Road—home to little-known breaks that would fire on the right swell, but were known only to residents. As a teen, Quincy was captivated by the style and grace of surf icons like MR, Gerry Lopez, and Larry Bertlemann, watching Hal Jepsen’s Super Sessionsover and over. That upbringing taught him the camaraderie, style, and sheer joy of scoring uncrowded waves, as well as the localism and pride that comes with protecting a spot.
Fast forward to his adult life in the Bay Area, Quincy pivoted to a career in tech, landing his first major role at Apple as a product manager for the debut release of GarageBand. With a background in music and technical fluency, the role was a natural fit. From there, he worked his way up to senior leadership roles, eventually becoming Chief Product Officer managing large product teams. But success brought its own questions. “I started to ask myself if this is all there is,” Quincy says. “I took some time off and dug deep into what I wanted to do with the next 20 years. The answer kept coming back to surfing.”
As AI technology began to reach mainstream capability, Quincy saw an opportunity. “What if you could use AI to dial in your surf sessions, combining your own history with your friends’ experiences, so together you score more good waves?” he thought.
The idea gained momentum in a group chat with his surf buddies. They imagined AI pulling from years of chat history and session logs to give hyper-relevant advice. Quincy built a prototype using emerging “vibe coding” tools, then reached out to trusted colleagues from his Crunchyroll days—a product and engineering lead and a head of design. They joined the effort, and together they funded Onda’s early development with Quincy’s personal investment supplemented by angel backing.
At the launch, Quincy outlined a clear business plan: Onda will remain free while the team refines the experience through real-world feedback, then transition to a subscription model with premium features like advanced analytics, deep-dive forecasting, and exclusive community tools. The go-to-market plan is phased—own the local region first, then expand to other surf-rich coasts worldwide.
The presentation also highlighted the size of the opportunity in the multi-billion-dollar global surf market, early user traction, and a competitive analysis that positioned Onda as the only platform combining AI personalization, detailed logging, and real-time social connection. The team’s combined experience in product design, engineering, and surf culture was the final selling point.
For Quincy, Onda is more than just an app launch—it’s a way to merge decades of surf passion with cutting-edge tech. “I’ve seen how technology can bring communities together,” he says. “Now we’re using it to help surfers make the most of every single wave.”
With Santa Cruz as its launchpad, a founder deeply embedded in both tech and surf worlds, and a vision built on community and personalization, Onda is poised to become an essential companion for surfers everywhere.
