By Protecting Skiers, This Babson-Born Venture Scores on the Olympic Slopes
When Victor Wiacek ’22 demonstrates how well his product works, he likes to pull out a sharp and impossibly long knife.
Wiacek is the founder of Vix Protection, which sells cut-resistant base layers for skiers designed to prevent lacerations. Caused by the sharp edges of skis, those cuts can be nasty, severe injuries, potentially even fatal.
In his demonstrations, Wiacek wears a layer of Vix and repeatedly slashes it with the knife. The Wix never tears. It’s an attention-grabbing display. “It gets a strong reaction out of people,” Wiacek says.
Wiacek founded Vix as a Babson student, and with the help of family and a favorite professor, not to mention relentless networking and eye-catching marketing, the company has experienced tremendous growth. At the recently completed Winter Olympics in Italy, Wiacek says the entire U.S. ski team, and more than 70% of alpine racers overall, wore Vix.
Olympic athletes aren’t the only ones sporting Vix. On a regular basis, skiers of all levels reach out to Wiacek and express gratitude for his product. They tell him of the injuries they nearly suffered if not for the layer of Vix protecting them. They often send pictures of outfits shredded in scary accidents save for the layer of Vix underneath. “The Vix will be at the bottom intact,” Wiacek says.
Customers tell Wiacek that Vix saved their ski season, or even their lives. The lifelong skier feels proud to provide such a much-needed product to a beautiful but sometimes dangerous sport, one that has given him good times but also his own share of perilous moments.
“Vix has given me the opportunity to give back to the sport,” Wiacek says. “The sport has given me so much. It feels really special to have this opportunity.”
A Family on the Slopes
Wiacek comes from a skiing family. He and his two siblings, Lucas Wiacek ’24 and Julia Wiacek ’27, are all current or former members of Babson’s alpine ski teams. In fact, Julia became the first individual champion in Babson women’s skiing history in March, winning the giant slalom at the U.S. Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association National Championships.
Wiacek spoke with Julia soon after she won. “She was crying tears of joy,” he says. “I am really happy for her.”
Today, both younger Wiacek siblings help their older brother with Vix. Lucas serves as chief operations officer while Julia assists with sales and business development. Ryan Combes ’23, an old roommate of Wiacek, serves as chief technology officer. “It’s a full Babson business,” Wiacek says.
“Vix has given me the opportunity to give back to the sport. The sport has given me so much. It feels really special to have this opportunity.”
Victor Wiacek '22, the founder of Vix Protection
Skiing brought the Wiacek family close together as they were growing up, though winters spent on mountains aren’t always easy. “You are always cold. You are always uncomfortable,” Wiacek says. “You are always on the verge of hurting yourself.”
Injuries in skiing are not uncommon, a fact that Wiacek knows all too well. He founded Vix after a life-threatening accident in 2019, when he was cut badly after one of his skies popped off and sliced him across the thigh. He lost so much blood that he almost died.
With Vix, he hopes to eliminate those types of skiing injuries in the future. “Everybody knows someone who has been cut really badly,” he says.
Two Lessons from an Old Professor
To grow Vix, Wiacek is constantly trying to reach potential customers. Often accompanied by Lucas, he travels to ski competitions across the United States, as well as Canada and Europe, and sets up a pop-up store, speaking with the many skiers, coaches, and parents gathered there. “We talk to anybody who is willing to listen,” Wiacek says.
Wiacek travels so much that, growing tired of staying in hotels, he gutted the inside of a box truck and turned it into a rolling home on wheels. “It’s got all the amenities. Full-size shower. Full-sized fridge,” he says. “This is mostly home at the moment.”
Wiacek’s emphasis on relationship building is something he learned from Len Green H’25, a longtime professor of entrepreneurship at Babson. “I have to give Len Green a lot of credit,” Wiacek says. “One thing I picked up from him is that business is an art of people. You can’t do well in this world without really forming tremendous relationships.”
From Green, Wiacek also learned the importance of marketing that can’t be ignored. “His class really taught me what it takes to capture someone’s attention,” Wiacek says. “You create something they’ll never forget.”
To be unforgettable, Wiacek uses two main marketing tools to show the critical need for Vix garments: photos of his injury and the knife demonstration. “Those two pieces of marketing do 90% of the work for us,” he says.
Sometimes those measures grab too much attention. While in Italy for the Olympics, Wiacek appeared in a story for a Boston TV station. As part of his TV appearance, he pulled out his long knife as he usually does. That knife, however, alarmed local police, who arrested Wiacek once he was done filming. He briefly spent time in jail before being released.
Despite the dustup, Wiacek enjoyed his time at the Olympics. Growing up, he dreamed of competing in the Games, but while he never got that opportunity, he was able to participate in another way with Vix. He met a slew of elite skiers, athletes competing on the biggest stage while, in many cases, wearing a product that he developed.
“It was ridiculously cool,” Wiacek says. “It was wonderful to spend time with them.”
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