 probably started let's see it was around 2012 okay so at the time I I had just finished school I got a master's degree in San Diego and then I moved back home and then I got this job that I it was for a consulting firm doing transportation planning consulting so we did like needs impact studies and like best practices and made maps and charts and graphs for like bus companies I hated it I got laid off thankfully I probably got laid off because I was over it and like yeah yeah yeah that kind of thing fired essentially while I was doing that you know I kind of had this like epiphany of I should probably do something I care about and I was like oh I want to do something within skateboarding so I kind of like wrote out this little business plan I was gonna do a thing where like you know get like a van or like a box truck and fill it full of like little obstacles yeah and then go to like schools and park parks and rec departments and say hey we can teach how to skate and I looked it up and then sure enough there was a company doing it close to where I grew up in Long Beach met animals like oh this is cool and then you know kind of had two feelings upon meeting him and doing that little interview I was like one I like like him yeah I don't want to like fucking over especially because we're in the same area of course yeah and then on top of that I was like I looked at how much his instructors had to interact with like parents and the kids like there's a lot I'm a little shy yeah and I like that's not me yeah all right like back to the drawing board yeah and and then I was just thinking like well I you know was pretty handy and I made a lot of things as a kid maybe it makes hate ramps yeah and I made one for a nephew's birthday and then everyone like liked it and was like oh this is really cool it looks professional did you buy it I was like oh you guys think I bought this all right that's a good sign and so then I started selling them just on Craigslist and I made flyers and went to skate shops and they're just a lot of ramps like like just a lot of just went for it you know over time I was like well I'm making these ramps and I didn't have it like a name for it I just was like I make ranch yeah that's it you know I don't want some cheeseball name I was like my last name is cool yes do that keen rent rooms like and keen is an adjective for you know sleek fast sharp like like that works you know one thing just led to another it was like alright like social media like all right website gotta get insurance gotta get employees yeah for a good truck yeah it was just stacked up yeah he's pretty much glossed roots yeah and it just yeah it wasn't like deliberate it was like okay it was like organic yeah it was like very organic in the sense that it was almost like a backup plan I was like I'll just do this while I figure out the next move yeah and then in doing it I was like maybe this is the move maybe yeah don't seem to like do something else I want to get more of our obstacles and more people's hands and it's not in in a way that it's like I want to make more money it's just like when we make these things it kind of like changes some kids lives and like they love it and now their friends are over yeah and it's like that is really like keeping them motivated to skate whereas maybe if they didn't have the ramp they might have like fallen back and they might have tried my bike instead oh yeah they might end up doing something else so seeing what it does for kids like for their friendships for their progression for like their their bonds with their their siblings and their family members like seeing that is like really really exciting so like all right I want to do impact as many lives as possible right yeah so from here like the goal is just to to get more of it out there yeah whether it's overseas whether it's you know eventually I'd like to find ways to end up in like bigger retailers of course and stuff like that so yeah just like from here on out fine-tune the obstacles come up with some new obstacles do some cool like co-labs maybe some signature series they have pros yeah try to do some cool events that was always kind of in the back of my mind so Dan was working for us in the shop and then he was like hey I'm gonna try this YouTube thing I was like okay cool yeah and then I was like ooh that'd be cool to have Dan like kind of manage and run like our YouTube as well and then so from there I was like all right what what what kind of stuff should be on our YouTube like yeah you know and I was just trying to think outside the box a little bit and I was like I want to get people like valuable information yeah whether it's how to cut a radius okay or you know how to countersink your your material like what is skate like what's the difference like so that was that's what sort of like started it was thinking about what was valuable ramp building information we can give yeah and then from there we were just thinking of like oh we can show people how to make cool stuff for potentially free yeah and then that that kind of became the theme for like three or four videos yeah those videos are really well yeah those those are great and it's super fun for us because you know I felt like a little kid again going around finding trash and yeah making something skatable and it's like I'm like more than happy to share that knowledge and it's like yeah maybe we will lose some sales like a handful of sales yeah but we're gonna get a couple hundred thousand eyeballs yeah on our brand exactly and then maybe we lost 20 sales out of making that video but maybe we gained like 200 loyal lifelong customers exactly yeah it's like the thinking like long-term overall yeah totally yeah let's see the biggest piece of advice would probably be like don't quit your day job like like keep it a side hustle and that's just across the board whether it's skateboarding or not skateboarding it's like if you have some passion project that you eventually want to turn into like your main thing like don't necessarily put all your eggs in one basket and be like I gotta get investors and like there's no right or wrong way to do it but a lot of those ones where people like they're like all right we got to build a team and get money and get a facility and get all these things it's like you really don't yeah and a lot of times when you build a team like a lot of those partnerships will unfortunately fail exactly yeah try to stay try to keep it your own if you can yeah you know hire employees don't don't don't bring in like too many partners or you do like make sure you guys have a great relationship great like lines of communication yeah and then yeah just be like very authentic in your brand right yeah because everything you do it's like you're representing yourself now you're representing your brand which is essentially reflecting on your product or your service yeah like whatever it might be so it's like you know the way you do one thing is the way you do everything and so if you're gonna if you're gonna like make a shitty logo if you know if you're gonna like have asked things it's gonna it's gonna carry on to everything else so it's like just do everything the best you can exactly make that bet yeah and like you said like it doesn't like it's all learning process mm-hmm like no one knows exactly this is like there's no set guideline of total how to start your skateboard business one I want to say like it's just and a lot of people are like oh you know did you do a business plan did you do projections you know you don't need to do that now you know you just go for it yeah and then hopefully there's some money in the bank in a couple months yeah and then you can build upon that but yeah it's like you could there's no right or wrong way to do it it's it's very much so like an art form in that way yeah yeah you know I didn't start it with any money like I was actually um I was unemployed at the time that I started doing this and the first job that I ever did I went to someone's house and was like yeah I offer rent building services and I was kind of like hey can I get that deposit check so I can buy material yeah it was literally like that you know it's like I needed that money just to get the materials going and then I got paid on that first job you know hustle made sure like he was super happy yeah make sure that he's gonna tell all his friends that it was great and to buy for me which which he did and I got you know probably like 15 other customers out of it and that that happens like across the board lights the power of like word of mouth is insane because it's like it's like a it's like a chain right and like if you break one link now the whole chain like won't hold exactly yeah and so it's like you have to be careful about every interaction every sale every like every step of the way you want to make sure that you're not burning somebody because you don't know who they know he might know somebody that wants a custom hundred thousand dollars skatepark and because they thought I'm a dick that's a really traditional work ethic yeah kind of you know that's really cool to see because I feel like in this day and age most of that is like lost in white definitely yeah yeah it's like you can't get greedy like you know you can't let your ego get in the way yeah and you can't like let money I know you got to make money but yeah it's like sometimes you got to bite the bullet like there's definitely jobs that we've done where we've had a you know it's called in high maintenance customers oh yeah that are like you know this scene isn't nice or this happen yeah and it rained and I thought it was gonna be more waterproof or whatever the case might be yeah and you know we always like hold our tongue kill them with kindness customers always right yeah okay what do we got to do to like make it right keep you happy like whether it's free shirts stickers come back when you do stuff yeah there's times you lose money on those things but it's like at least the the name is still in good standing of course yeah