When did Merlino come on the scene? For normal peeps like you and me, the first time we heard of Merlino was when he switch-heelflipped Wallenberg. “Wait,” you say, “When did anyone switch heel Wallenberg? I don’t remember that, and I would remember that!” You don’t remember it because he did it at the Back to the ‘Berg contest, when Cole did a switch frontside flip and a backside 360 ollie down the thing, and Catfish did his backside big spin, and Potts did a hardflip, and someone did something else. Merlino came out of nowhere and landed a switch heel, but it wasn’t the biggest news of the day, and so he didn’t get a cover, didn’t get featured, and so you forgot about it.

Think about it. If Merlino had gone there a month earlier and had switch heeled that thing, he would have gotten a cover, he would have been the hot thing going for the next few months. All eyes would have been on the guy. Instead, he fell under the radar. Yeah, he’s coming up, but he’s had to work a lot harder to get up than other people who launched there careers with a mind-bender like that. And more power to him, because he’s followed that switch-heel with tons of solid tricks, and not just bigger, better stuff, but innovative stuff, i.e. tons of NBDs.

You may feel differently than me, but I’m looking forward to Merlino gettin’ some more respect in the future. He’s earned it, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

Hey,
I have been checking out sublimited for awhile now. Great site. Thanks for taking the time. Anyways, I have always thought about opening up a shop. Recently came into some money, so I am finally starting to get more serious about it. That’s besides the point. With your industry experience and knowledge I was wondering if you could help me out with some info. When I start a shop I only want to carry skater owned brands, and as many local(colorado) brands as I can. There is always a long standing discussion between my friends and I about companies that are not skater owned. Is there any list out there that consists of non and skater owned companies, or could just just give me a quick rant on non skater owned companies. I don’t expect much, I know your busy. So no rush, and if I don’t hear back from you, no worries. Just keep posting on Sublimited, its appreciated. Thanks again.

-Matt

Disclaimer: The nice thing about having a blog is I can write whatever I want on it, without any evidence to back it up. And that’s what this answer is–just my own meandering opinions and thoughts. Take them for what they’re worth. Oh, and some of my info may be woefully out of date, like when I start talking about who owns which companies.

Answer: First off, I don’t know of any list of skater-owned vs. non skater-owned companies out there, but I’m guessing there might be one on Google somewhere. I should probably create it myself, since it would probably draw in a bit of traffic, but I’m kind of lazy. Tell you what, you create it, and I’ll post it here, fair enough

Second, it’s kind of hard to determine which companies are skater-owned vs. not. For example, is Element skater-owned? Well, it was started by a skater. It’s run by a skater. But technically it’s owned by Billabong, right? Zoo York was started by skaters, but is owned by Echo. Santa Cruz is not skater-owned, but Skip is about as down for skating as anyone, isn’t he? Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know the guy, but he seems committed to skateboarding. DC was started by Ken Block and the Way brothers. Danny is obviously a skater, and Damon and Ken…well, I don’t know if they ever skated, but they probably did. I don’t know anything about Damon, but I owe Ken a debt of gratitude because he sold product to me when I was starting my first shop 15+ years ago and nobody else would sell me stuff in small quantities. I don’t know anything about him today other than that he drives fast cars, but he was cool to me once and I won’t soon forget it. But of course now DC is owned by Quiksilver. Emerica seems like a core skater brand, right? I mean, you don’t see an Emerica surfwear line, right? What about Etnies? Yeah…not so much. But Etnies and Emerica are the same company, SoleTech, which is definitely skater-owned (Don Brown and Pierre were also cool to me when I was getting started–Pierre talked to me for 10 minutes about glue, once).

So if you’re going to draw lines as a skateshop owner, where do you draw them? Do you decide which companies are really skater owned, which are sort of skater owned, and which aren’t at all? Or do you have to go even further and decide which are skater-owned and marketed to real skaters (i.e. Emerica vs. Etnies)?

Here’s what I say–it’s all brain damage, so just sell the kids what they want, within reason.  What do I mean by “within reason”? Well, there are some products I wouldn’t sell, because I find them objectionable and I don’t think kids should have access to it. Not that I think the government should step in and ban stuff, or anything like that, I just mean that if I think a particular product has artwork or language or something that’s beyond what I find acceptable, I won’t sell it. No offense intended, that’s just the way I choose to do things. Luckily skateboarding already went through its “porn phase” over a decade ago, and hopefully it won’t come back.

In a different vein, there are products I might just not want to support, even if the kids want them, because I think it’s just going too far outside skateboarding. A few years ago I felt that way about Nike, although I’ve since changed my mind because they sent me a million dollars. But I kid, they’ve never sent me anything, I just changed my mind because I feel like they’ve proved their commitment to skateboarding, and because Koston threatened to send his goons after me to break my knees. I can’t think of another product at the moment that I feel that way about, but I’m sure they’re out there. You can probably think of a few.

So would I carry Element? Sure. DC? Probably. Etnies? Yeah. Zoo York? Why not. As long as kids buy the stuff, and it’s not crazy stuff like skateboards with 16 wheels or Snakeboards then it’s within reason for me.

That said, I happen to like certain brands better than others, and a lot of it has to do with them being “real” skater-owned companies. Girl/Chocolate/Lakai/Fourstar, for example.  Zero/Mystery/Fallen is another. Alien Workshop, Habitat, and pretty much anything Steve Berra reps is dope, even though DVS is run by a fat, washed-up, has-been of a skater (just kidding, Tim!…well, sort of). Baker, Deathwish, etc. Those are some of the brands I would go out of my way to promote. Others, like Element, I would have up there just in case kids want them. There are plenty of others as well, I just mention those because they spring to mind.

The Internet changes everything. It’s not all that hard to slap together a website, create a profile on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. If you’re a skateshop it’s a piece of cake for skaters to find you…right? Well, maybe you’ve got the system down, but even if you do, you could probably use a little more foot traffic or online sales. As you can tell if you follow this blog, writing posts here is not my full time job. Have I even written 10 times on here in the last year? Nay, my full time job is doing search engine optimization for other companies that have nothing to do with skateboarding. And recently, I launched a new business that builds online directories. I’m going to stick up one for every state and one for every major metro/city, but for now we’ve got a few up and running.

SkateShopDirectory.net

BostonSkateboardShops.com

CaliforniaSkateboardShops.com

LosAngelesSkateboardShops.com

NewYorkSkateboardShops.com

UtahSkateboardShops.com

You can go and list your skateshop on any of these websites for free. You get a whole page where you can put whatever information in there that you want, as well as a link to your website. If you know anything about getting better rankings in Google for your website, you’ll know a big part of it is getting links back from sites that are relevant to what you do. These websites are highly relevant, and as such are going to help your rankings quite a bit.

There’s no catch, other than this–if you want to be on the homepage, it costs $20/month (or $50/month on the national one, $20/month for a featured listing on a state-level page). You’ll still get some value and some traffic if you get a free listing, don’t get me wrong, but you’ll get a lot more traffic and SEO value if you’re on the homepage with a featured listing. Trust me, I know how money can be tight when you’re running a shop, but for $20/month, you can’t beat this deal.

Yeah, I know the websites don’t look like anything to do with skateboarding. My company has launched 723 of these in the last week (see DeclareMedia.com) and we might customized the look and feel down the road, but there’s no time for that at the moment. And hey, it doesn’t really matter. You’re still going to get traffic and SEO results, no matter what the sites look like.

But what I wanted to comment on today is this whole recession thing, and if you think we’re coming out of it…well, we’ll see where we’re at a year from now. But a few years ago there was a big to-do in the skateboarding business world about shop decks and blank decks and how they were hurting sales of pro models, and how we should imagine a world without pros and how bad that would be. Now look, I love the pros as much as anyone. Those guys kill themselves to get where they are, and they deserve whatever they can get, and frankly, after years of riding blanks (I wasn’t buying them, I was getting them for free, and do you think I’m going to go spend $50 on a pro deck when I can ride a decent blank for $0?) I think there is something to be said for pro decks. I’m not sure if it’s worth $20 to everyone out there, but I think it might be worth it to me. But it’s hard to blame a kid who only has $30 for buying a blank instead of waiting another month to save up another $20 so he can get a pro deck. But that’s not my point here.

The point is that whatever damage might have been done to sales of pro decks due to competition from blanks has been compounded by the bad economy, and I’d be willing to wager the recession has done a lot more damage to pros than blanks ever did, because while there are blank decks and wheels that are decent, I’ve never seen decent blank trucks or shoes. This economy is hitting soft goods and well as hard goods, and that means there’s less money to go around for everybody from every source, not just smaller deck sales. But do we see pros giving up? Do we see pros not skating anymore? No, they’re killing it just as much as ever, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe they’re having even more fun than they were before.

What really gets me thinking is Circa and ExpeditionOne. Just a year ago you could have written off both of these companies. Sure, Circa’s shoes are no different than those from any other company, and ExpeditionOne’s decks are just as good as those from any other company, but we should all know by now that branding/marketing and team members are what sell skate products, and not so much quality, because the quality of everything is pretty much the same with minor exceptions. And when it came to those two factors, Circa and ExpeditionOne didn’t have bad branding/marketing, and they had some good riders–some dang good riders, in fact–but…well, they just didn’t seem to be on the same level with the other companies. But all of a sudden Gallant is off Plan B/DC and on Circa/ExpeditionOne. Now Matt Miller is on Expedition. Suddenly Expedition’s team is like…wow, that’s a really, really solid team. And Circa’s team is really, really solid too.

But why is this happening? Could it be that the recession has made skaters appreciate things other than money a bit more? Maybe pros are realizing life is too short to focus on cash flow, and they’re going where they feel like they can enjoy life the most. Not that there’s anything wrong with the corporate thing, maybe some skaters like that and that’s part of the fun for them. But maybe that’s not the right thing for other skaters who just want to skate and hang out with friends, rather than doing tons of demos, signings, travel, etc., and maybe it’s worth giving up the huge paycheck for a more relaxed lifestyle.

I’m not in the industry so I don’t really have a clue. But I think it’s worth asking whether money is all it’s cracked up to be in skateboarding. Maybe the recession will turn out the be the thing that keeps skateboarding real just a little bit longer.

Hi Joshua!

Check out this AWESOME skate video: Dennis Busenitz doing what he does best, landing so many tricks that it’s almost unbelievable! See Dennis kick-push: http://chunnel.tv/street/774/dennis-busenitz-pro-skater:

Dennis Busenitz puts together more tricks in 3 minutes and 50 seconds than most skaters do in a 6 or 7 minute spot.  It’s ridiculous, plus the insane amount of tricks performed over gaps, and possibly the best Kalis 360 flip ever made! This is definitely a top video spot for 2009!

Thanks, and please share this with your readers!

Best,
Carrie

The video is really good though. Can’t wait for it to come out so I can see a higher-res versino of Dennis’ kick-push.

Unless you have a very small park, you’re going to be looking at spending a good $50-75K on ramps (including labor) if you buy them, and you could spend quite a bit more. You might think you’ll save a lot of money building the ramps yourself, and hey, how hard could it be? But bear in mind you’re lying to yourself. Building an indoor skatepark takes a lot of time, especially if you’re not an expert. If it takes you four months to do what a professional team can do in two weeks, you may have just blown through an extra three months of rent and now you’re not saving any money. Plus you might mess up the ramps, and as a result the kids won’t like them and so you’ve only got half the customers coming in that you would otherwise have. So trust me, unless you absolutely know what you’re doing go and pay someone else to build those ramps for you. And don’t just pay the 18-year old kid who built a halfpipe in his backyard once and who has some “cool ideas”, I mean really hire a professional company, like Team Payne.

Another way to find out who to hire is to find out who built some of the private indoor parks that are in videos so much these days. Unfortunately I don’t know exactly who built the Berrics, or the Blackbox skatepark, or any of the others, but I bet someone else does and will comment on this post.

Plan B could give these guys ownership in the company, but that’s a pretty big risk for Danny to take, and I’m not sure I would take it if I were in his shoes. It’s one thing when you start a company as a group (like Girl), but another when you start a company and then bring guys in.

It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out for Plan B. Maybe they’ll just be a temporary haven for the guys who are the best of the moment until those guys move on to start their own companies. Could that work for them? Who knows.

1. Shop name

2. Owner’s name

3. Contact info (address, phone, email, etc.)

4. Website

5. Year shop opened

6. What made you want to open a skate shop?

7. How did you start it? Where’d you get the money, how did you decide on the location, etc.?

8. What challenges have you faced in starting/running the shop?

9. What would you do differently if you could do it again?

10. What do you like about running a skate shop?

11. If you weren’t running a skate shop what would you be doing? If you do other things, what else do you do?

12. Do you sell online? If so, how’s that working out for you? If not, why not?

13. Where do you think the business of skateboarding is headed?

14. If you could change one thing about the skateboarding industry what would it be and why?

15. Do you have a shop team? How does that benefit your shop?

16. Who’s coming up in Utah?

17. What do you think about the Utah skate scene?

18. What’s your opinion on Salt Lake outlawing skateboard ramps in backyards?

19. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on your skate shop (not on burritos or jewelry for your wife or anything), what would you do with it?

20. What’s the best trick you’ve done in the last year?

21. Anything else you want to say?