Make a Skateboard

By Dash Hammer

It is very easy to learn how to make one with easy to find tools. Of course, many skateboarders have a dream of making skateboarding a profession instead of just something they do in their spare time. Once you learn the technique for making skateboards, assuming either you or a friend have any art talent, a logical next step would be to try to turn this into a business.

Before starting any business, you should first do market research. What this means is asking yourself if there's a market for your product - in this case, custom made skateboards. Skateboarding is a 2.5 billion dollar industry, and it's growing each year. I don't know about you, but a tiny piece of that pie would be very nice. So there is a market.

The next step is to determine if you can get people to find your business. The great news is that the Internet is an awesome tool for driving customers to your business, so once you have a cool website with a few different board designs on it, you can get customers to come to you without the expense of opening a traditional store in a strip mall. Again, if you have web skills with any design talents or know a friend who does, it should be fairly easy to make a killer website which will help drive sales.

Lastly, you'll need to figure out how to mass produce skateboards - maybe smallish quantities, but more than you could do with a wooden-block form and a shop vacuum. Fortunately, you can either make skateboard forms out of concrete or purchase them online (there are several suppliers). Then you'll just have to mount this form into a press (a hand-jack inside a custom welded frame will work until you can afford a hydraulic press) and start semi-mass producing boards. Maple veneer and epoxy are both readily available online, so this really is an easy startup compared to many other business.

Other things to remember, however, is that even though this business will relate to something you're passionate about, it will still be a business.

Most small businesses fail in the first year. This isn't because they didn't have a great product in most cases, it's because the owners didn't know how to run a business. In most towns in the US, there is a Small Business Development Center - if not an the town, nearby. They provide a free service to help small businesses succeed. I highly recommend visiting them early in the planning stage and anytime you run into a stumbling block. Any time you can find a free resource to help your business succeed, it's a huge plus.

So again, once you can make a skateboard, figure out if you can make it a business. It might not be enough to retire on, but you never know - you might be the next Paul Schmitt!

Dash Hammer is a rabid skateboarder who has been researching methods to make skateboards and skateboard related items. He enjoys the sport, and knows that skateboarding has great potential as a business. He hopes to be able to show you how you can turn it into more of a hobby, and perhaps even a business as well. Visit Dash's blog for more information on how to make a skateboard and how to develop a skateboarding business.