I’m always looking for ways to bring entrepreneurship into my hobbies. I have toyed with a few different ESK8 related business ideas, but I haven’t actually gone through with anything yet because I think I still need to do more research. I think I would be quite good at building ESK8s for customers, because I have a good attention to detail and I’m very thorough. My plan would be to sell just a few different products (longboard, off road board, and a smaller board) with a very cohesive design and color scheme rather than an infinitely configurable board. If y’all have seen the BioBoards guy, I have taken some inspiration from him regarding the business model. Thing is, before I start putting the time + money into a business like this, I want to get a better grasp of the market. Do you guys think there is enough of a demand for a business like this? These boards certainly wouldn’t be cheap. I welcome all feedback and constructive criticism!
Here at the forum… no there is not much market. However if you promote locally and even on reddit and other sites where people don’t already know how to build their own boards, then yes, I think it could be
I remember @kuphjr trying to do the same. I think he failed because there wasn’t enough demand for it. In my opinion, it’s pretty difficult to compete with the high-end boards out there.
My opinion is it can be profitable only if your reputation is good enough to justify the necessary markup.
You would need to streamline your labor hours to the point that your income for both billable and non-billable labor, business expenses, marketing and covers the cost of customer support and returns just to break even.
I don’t believe it’s possible without figuring a billable rate of at least $200. If you had all the parts, and they all fit together well, how long would it take to assemble, test, box and ship a board? I imagine it would be 2-3 hours. Could you manage to get the parts for 300$ less than ordering from china?
Completes are a very hard-fought area, the types of completes that would tantalise the audience here would kill you you without a strong premium end-user market to target… Bioboards type operation.
The cool unique thing is done very well by LHB, Kaly, Ollins and Psycho etc.
Then when you have your part made, be ready for someone to make it for half the price 4-6 months later. So it helps to be talented like Jenso, to ride what you make and improve and constantly improve what you make keep switching. Also make your own stuff, don’t get hoodwinked in Shenzen.
Or you can do the reseller thing. Buy X number of Maytech motors/ESCs/Remotes, sell them at N. Have Maytech fulfill the order directly. But where’s the fun in that?
etc
Enjoy the hobby (sorry Brian)
Edit: Hand on a second, didn’t you post something like this before? high school entrepreneur?
Ahhhhh, what changed since last time that needed a new thread?
Yes I am the same person who posted earlier about a business idea. Apologies for creating a new thread instead of just adding on to the old one. I was so wrapped up in ideas that I forgot I could reuse an older thread lol.
Yep. This is pretty much the case. Unfortunately I just don’t have any customers that could vouch for me in order to get more future customers. If I lived in Cal or NYC or another place with more of a “longboard” culture I could probably more easily find customers that could meet me in person so there would be more of a trust factor. But I live in Minneapolis and half the year you can’t even go outside so not much of a longboard culture here.
It is what it is. I own another business too so I just put more time into that one and honestly it has paid off better than my electric longboard business would have anyway. I’d still build someone a board, but I’m no longer focusing on promoting it or making any real profit.
Also, liability can be a concern too if you are just selling to anyone online. I just don’t know enough about product liability and no budget or time to talk to a lawyer.
Only way to be profitable is to make stuff people really want. It’s not easy but best thing is making a bad ass board for your self and see if people are interested in your work.
Hmm I think it would be difficult because most of the members here build there own board + somebody who don’t know esk8 will buy faster a boosted or evolve board.
We need more good quality parts. Such like a reliable remote
I wanna make custom esk8 truck plates so people can send me a pic of a custom logo in black and white and I can CNC it into an aluminum plate they can mount to the top of their board.
Also, for people that have drop thru decks but choose to top mount their board over the trucks, I can cut a plate that holds the standard battery monitor that I’m sure all of us have. I prefer having my batt monitor on the top of my board instead of underneath so I don’t need to get off to check my voltage:
