The Problem with Skateboarding Companies

right what's up and welcome guys today I'm going to be doing something a little bit different I prepared a Microsoft PowerPoint for this video and what I want to do is I want to talk about skateboard companies it's in traditional skateboard companies what I think they're doing a bit wrong in the industry and how I think things could be going a bit better and finally I'm going to end the video on some advice for any upand cominging skaters that might be trying to make a career in this world I'm not a traditional professional skateboarder but I do do this as a living obviously with YouTube and a few other platforms as well so we're going to jump into that and this is more of a discussion type video like nothing I say is gos nothing I say is fact these are just my opinions and if you want to have a conversation with me in the comments I'm more than happy to do that or debate with someone else that you see commenting some stuff anyway all that being said I've prepared a PowerPoint right here now this is things that skate companies do well we're going to start with that go over a few of those and then we're going to get into the middle of the video where I'm going to talk about a few things that they don't do well and end on some advice like I just said so things that they do well first of all we've got skate competitions now a lot of big brands do pay and put these and put these competitions on but they often times just want to give out the product or the prizes or whatever but don't really pay to get things going in some cases obviously Vans and stuff like that which I don't really consider to be a traditional skate company anymore they're more of a mainstream brand they put on a lot of stuff for skaters as well as like SLS and stuff like that but this is more of a local based thing so local skate companies they put on a lot of competitions now this what you see here this picture in the background is a competition that me and my friends put on now I own my own skate company called escapism skateboards and we do things like this as much as we possibly can the company isn't really for profit it's not really to make us millionaires or whatever it's more to just help people that want to get into skateboarding and get them on their way to that goal so as you can see we set up a little skate shop a little popup skate shop here in the back corner here this is this is our gazebo that we use we got we also had a band in the corner so we organized a bunch of this stuff just to make sure that the skaters had a nice day out and then we put on the competition and that and stuff like that the prizes we uh we got a few of the local companies to chip some stuff in but it was mainly or just from us but this is one of the best things that skate companies do well they help out the younger skaters they get people involved in skateboarding which is great to see and then when you have these big days you see the atmosphere you see the hype of someone Landing a trick which is by far my favorite part of these kind of days right if you go to something like this and there's a bunch of skateboarders there and it's well ran you'll find if someone's trying to trick everybody's getting behind them everybody's hyping them up which is one of the greatest things about skateboarding in my opinion the community aspect of it now the local communities where it was born and bred and how it survived to this day it's basally just in the UK tons of smaller companies just all looking after their local communities and helping the people that want to get into skateboarding around them so that's probably the best thing that these local companies do in my opinion but we're going to be talking about some more traditional sponsors as we go through the video now number two which is also a good thing is skate shops now local companies often will be the ones running the skate shops but the bigger companies will send products to these skate shops for the local owners to give out to the community right so for example say if you wanted to get sponsored by Lai Lai would send a bunch of shoes to a shop like this and then that shop owner would know all the local talent and be basically the ear to the ground the heart of the scene if you will and they'll be there to point Lai in the right direction say like right these are the guys that we have locally these are the best ones these are the ones that do the best for the community cuz bear in mind it's not just about whether or not you're good at skateboarding you also have to be a positive influence in the community you could be one of the best skateboarders around but if you're a complete [ __ ] a lot of companies aren't going to mess with you especially on a local level obviously there are some anomalies in this situation where if you're like top top top one% and you're earning a company so much money companies like Nike and stuff and I don't have any examples for this but they probably would still help you out regardless of whether you're arrogant or not but obviously if you're committing crimes companies like this aren't really going to [ __ ] with you but anyway skate shops are one of my favorite they're a great place for the local community sometimes you even have like little Community Days where people meet up at the skate shop play some games like skate freely like Tony Hawk and they'll just have like skate video premieres if a new skate par comes out from a local skateboarder you'll probably find that somewhere at the local skate shop being premiered at some point because it's just all about supporting the local scene which is the best thing that we see about this stuff now what we're going to get on to in the next slide though is more for like the amateur scene and the professional scene going forward now amateur skateboarders is like the in between section between just getting free product and actually being like a paid professional skateboarder because a professional in the skateboarding world world doesn't just mean that you make money from skateboarding it more means that you have your name on a board you have a signature product your name is tied to something in the skateboarding World whereas for example if someone that didn't know anything about skateboarding was to ask it's just easier to say you're a skateboarder and you make money from that as opposed to explain to them the whole nuances what is a pro skateboarder in the traditional world because Lord knows skateboarders love to gatekeep these terms now am I one of the people that likes to gatekeep them no but I also think you shouldn't really go around saying you're a pro skateboarder to people that know skateboarding cuz I'm not going to go to the local skate park and say I'm Pro because I'm making money off YouTube and I'm making money off a few sponsors you know it's more about the signature deck the signature shoe kind of thing in the traditional Skate World now when it comes to amateur skateboards the biggest problem with that is the fact that they do not get paid more often or not they just get products now let me move myself out the way right here now as a skateboarder who has received products before I can tell you that if you're on Flow for a team you shouldn't be expecting to get paid the flow is basically just like the introductory offer of them throwing you some free stuff in order for you wearing it in your videos in your skate Clips or whatever that may be even if it's just a local scene and you're just supporting them by showing it in local skate parks but once you become an amateur more often than not you're still not getting paid now the problem with this is skateboarding is such a dangerous sport that I feel like everyone that's doing it and is part of a team once you're really part of that team on the amateur section you should really be getting paid and I know I don't think that you should be getting paid at full wage from every company like some pros don't even get by the way some pros skate for a company for years and don't even have a contract to say that they're getting paid and don't even know if they're going to be getting paid in the future months or at all so the sad thing is the products that you get as an amateur skateboarder they're not going to help you pay the bills really a lot of amateur and pro skateboarders find themselves having to work second jobs having to risk their life just to try and get to a point where they're actually being paid in my opinion skateboarders who are risking their lives I mean literally risking their lives for this Sport and for the companies They Ride for they should be getting paid even if it's just like a few companies that pay them like $1 to $200 per month you get four or five of those five or six of those and you're living pretty good especially if your travel and stuff is paid for because you're not going to spend a lot of time at home you can often just live with your family if you're still young and in that stage of skateboarding because a lot of the amateur skateboarders are still like teenagers to like early 20s but that's up for discussion I'd love to hear what you guys think about the amateur skateboards team and whether or not you think they should get paid but I think if someone's going to be throwing themselves down a huge stair set in pursuit of becoming a professional skateboarder in the traditional sense I think they should definitely be paid and like I said even if it's not too much but I can see why these companies take advantage of these skaters and don't want to pay them in the first place and I'm about to tell you why that is because they will always be a kid that's younger better than you and willing to do it for free a lot of younger kids they don't even need the money because they're still living at home their parents are still providing for them and they're happy to do it just for the fact to say that they're sponsored by one of these companies so they there'll be like a 5-year-old Asian kid that's super super incredibly talented at skateboarding and they'll be willing to support a brand like DC let's say for argument sake for free because they don't need the money they've also got a much brighter future and a longer career ahead of them so you can see why a company would rather stick with someone like them who's not going to ask to be paid opposed to someone who's like late teens early 20s who actually needs that money to keep their career going that's why a lot of these skaters never even make it to prostatus and so many of you will fail even trying to do this so you need to keep that in mind and always remember that there is always a kid that's going to be better than you and sadly they're willing to do it for free parents if you're watching this and you've got a kid that's aspiring for skateboarding please if your kid is risking its life and potentially breaking bones in one of the most key developmental stages of a younger kid's life then you really need to be pushing for your child to be paid like your child if it's throwing itself down huge St sets please try and push for them to get paid because we need to see a change in the skate world that gets more of these younger skaters and actually amateur skateboarders of all ages paid in some way or another not by free product and don't get me wrong I know some of these companies they'll fly people out they'll pay for you to go to competitions and stuff like that which is great but you do need money to survive and it should be dealt with on a caseby casee basis you should have a young team you should have an older amateur team that you pay or at least give them a pathway so that they can earn money in the future because nobody wants to throw themselves downstairs and not even be guaranteed a paycheck at the end of the day I think that is ridiculous and one of the worst things about this I watched an interview of Mikey Taylor an interview of Mikey Taylor shows that most skate companies don't even have proper contracts with their skaters and this is for multitude of reasons but I feel like the biggest reason is so that they don't have to pay you if something goes wrong if you break a leg if you have an injury that could potentially stop you from skating for 2 or 3 years these companies aren't going to keep paying you for that time if you are being paid if you're getting like $2 $300 a month all of a sudden you break a leg and you can't skate or promote the brand for a few months I think that they're going to drop you as soon as possible which is why a lot of these bigger companies avoid contracts they don't want to have any commitment to these people in case one they do something controversial or two they break a leg and can't do anything for you because then you're just paying them for no reason don't get me wrong smaller independent companies obviously can't afford to pay skaters in every single aspect in every single team but I think there's a big difference between a bigger company like DC or element or something like that amate even if it's the amateur team and say like a local skate shop for me like escapism like escapism obviously is a very very new brand very very local to us pretty much nonprofit We just do it to support the local skate scene and help people that we know out but at the end of the day you want to make sure that you get a contract if you're going to be getting paid if you're going to be put on one of these teams properly make sure that you get a contract because you do not want to be left in the dust when something bad happens to you because more than likely you're going to break a leg at some point if you break an arm it's it's not really as bad like I skated of a broken arm still incredibly dangerous don't get me wrong but make sure you get contracts people let's get on to the next slide now one thing I've noticed is a lot of these companies they like to call guide people right so if you think think about it like this if you reach out to a skate company and you send them your sponsor tape or something like that more often than not at least in my case maybe it's because of the world that I live in maybe it's because of the way that I do my job or that I do videos or whatever but I found out that a lot of these companies you could take all the effort to write a really nice message to them tell them you love the company show them all the products of theirs that you've bought in the past respect and support the crap out of these companies and you can send them a message and they will just read it and not reply don't get me wrong this isn't the case of All Brands the sponsors that I have at the moment have looked after me pretty well and they always get back to me when I need them to but the majority of them have just left me on red and not even dignifi me of response like if I'm going out of my way to support your brand to buy your product and then I message you to try and work something with you because I like your product that much like obviously I'm not going to reach out and I suggest you not to reach out to anyone that you don't respect love or support already like if you want to get sponsored by a company support them and buy their products for a bit first cuz that really shows that you support and love them just as much as they should to you in the future and if you run a skateboard Company please take the time to reply to the people that apply especially if they're actually skateboarders and you can see they're putting in the Blood Sweat and Tears Don't get me wrong if a random guy that's only skated once or twice in their life comes up to you and is like oh let me get sponsored for this that or the other of course you don't have to apply to every single one of those but if you can see that someone's putting in the Blood Sweat and Tears I feel like they need to be supported at least for a message back at least reply to them and tell them right we're not accepting people at this time or you're not the right fit for us or just something anything to let them move on just don't leave people in the dark because to me that just makes your company look like an [ __ ] anyway we're going to get into the advice section of the video right now for any up and cominging skateboarders my advice don't much if you're going to be reaching out to skate companies and you want to ride for them if you want to be a traditional professional skateboarder do not expect much in the first place and even at all like you can ride for some of these companies for so long and you can even be really really good but there are a few things that are going to stop you from getting a good sponsorship and that is if you have almost no social media presence I feel like most companies won't even give you a second look because one they want more people to see the people that they're sponsoring because they want brand recognition you're essentially just a walking billboard for them if you're not being paid so just know your worth and if you're really committed to a company and you've been with them for a long time and they're still refusing to pay you reach out to other companies and try and get yourself in a position of power so you can actually say right this company's offering me this and then compare things to each other because the last thing you want to do is be a simp to these skate companies and just do as your told for no money and if you do get on one of the companies make sure that they know that if they're just giving you product for free that you don't really owe them anything you just owe them a bit of promotion every now and then but at the end of the day the law states that if a company gives you product for free and they're not paying you you don't legally have to post anything obviously they don't legally have to keep sending your product either but do not expect much from some of these companies because trust me you will be very much disappointed and my second to last slide is become self-sufficient there are so many things that you can do in the skateboarding world to get paid outside of hoping for these more traditional companies to pay for you you could do all sorts of things like Tik Tok for example example you can upload skate Clips on there if your videos are longer than a minute you can actually get paid some really decent money I posted a video last two weeks ago now and it got 2 million views and I got nearly £500 for that don't get me wrong not everyone's going to get 2 million views right off the bat it's taking me a few years of grinding to get my account to the size that it is now to get these kind of views so it is going to take a little while but you can make yourself money outside of the traditional sponsors and that mean and that also means that the money you earn determined by the amount of work you put in and you can really control your income like that which is a way better way of doing things than trying to rely on other companies to pay for you and it also just makes you feel a lot better about yourself because the money is something that you've earned and don't get me wrong you've earned it with a traditional skate company but they can take it away at a moment's notice whereas if you're getting paid from stuff like Tik Tok or YouTube YouTube is obviously the best one I don't know why I went with Tik Tok first and you can be creative with it and do any kind of videos you want if they're around skateboarding then you're doing what you love and you're getting paid for it but don't get me wrong you're going to have to work your ass off like crazy because YouTube yoube has taken me many many years like what I say many years it's taken me about 3 years of consistent posting to actually get to a point now where I'm making good enough money to survive just off my social media platforms I do have a couple of skate sponsors I've had a couple of paid ones in the past but to be honest I ended up leaving them because they just expected too much from me for how little they were paying me and I was offering them all kinds of like don't wrong I have businesses myself so I'm all right at running a business and I was trying to offer help to them because they were struggling and they were literally just cool guy just leave you on red not even give you a look in because to them you're just someone who's working for them but at the end of the day you need to know your worth and make yourself self-sufficient so you're not at the whim of these companies like everybody expects you to be in the Skate World these days is know that it's going to take an incredible amount of work and the majority of people are going to fail the ones that make it through are the ones that just keep pushing and you'll end up working for years for no money so get started young and honestly just get yourself out there and make as much content as you can around skateboarding whether it be just getting Clips just skating with the homies filming for the boys or running your own YouTube channel just be prepared to fail a shitload because trust me it may look like your favorite Creator just blew up overnight but I promise you that overnight success took three four 5 years to get there anyway that's my problem with skate companies these days I wish you guys all the best of luck let's discuss it in the comments and I'll see you guys in the next video peace