What if you could just go to a site and build your next electric skateboard?

General Discussion
#1

I’m building it. I’ve been talking about it for a year in certain circles, but i’ve finally almost got it going.

The idea is that you walk through a wizard in which you choose a deck, choose your wheels and bearings, choose your primary and accent colors, type up a breif description of aesthetics, possibly upload some napkin art to better explain what you want, pick your weel pulleys/ratio, and pick your battery pack.

The first phase won’t be very graphically intense but will be very usable and pretty. My ultimate goal is to have 3D models or at least well calculated photographs that can update with your selections for a visual preview of sorts.

The first phase is almost ready for showtime. I expect to have something to show people within a couple of months. IT will likely be on my current domain but i’ve registered the esk8.build domain for it so i have the option of it being a standalone site at some point.

So far i’ve moved my shop and blog to Shopify where they have crazy APIs that let you do things in a pretty awesome environment that makes wordpress and woocommerce look lame af.

Now i’ve got some code going that will eventually allow you to build your custom esk8 the same way you build a Dell computer or Bustin pusher. Obviously The Conversation will still be a huge part of it but over time i hope this will eliminate a huge amount of back and forth as well as be able to tie into a ticketing system that will allow me to build more boards in a more organized fashion and do it faster.

Pardon me while i attempt to turn this esk8 industry on its head.

31 Likes
#2

Makes sense. What you’re describing exists for several other industries. The “build your own” tool on most automobile manufacturers website comes to mind.

I know squat about IT, but I suspect this will require a lot of work to implement with a simple and effective user interface. I hope you’re able to monetize your vision and efforts so that you continue to push this industry forward.

1 Like
#3

If you think you’ll need some user-testing, let me know. As long as you have the bandwidth and some decent security for SQL tables and such, you should be in good shape. I’d love to go through some test cases and see how the system reacts to unlikely combinations of requests, input, etc.

1 Like
#4

It sad that buildesk8.com is already taken… :joy::joy::joy:

1 Like
#5

Congrats and best of luck. Its so nice to be on this forum and witness so many new beginnings from so many people.

1 Like
#6

Concerning the site name… there is already this site everyone has forgotten about:

http://esk8builds.com/

Funny thing…

3 Likes
#7

i wonder why they didn’t go after the .build TLD like i did. Oh well.

In the original founding spirit of the internet i won’t be hanging on to domains i don’t actually use. If i decide its not worth it to run those extra domains i’m going to release them. I’ll also consider hosting sites for free on them provided they are doing something constructive with it.

@kibo I’m using Shopify as my platform, so any holes you find i’m sure they’ll like to know about them. I have a feeling i’m going to be pushing the envelope a little on their APIs.

All i need is for them to shove an arbitrary product with notes into the cart and shoot an extra email at my ticketing system when the sale happens. I may have to write a shopify app to get the level of access i need but i’m hoping i can get away with using the shopping cart’s ajax API somehow.

I’ll have something for people in this thread to play with soon. I’m still doing basic styling on the UI before its ready for a non-cart-functional demo.

#8

@longhairedboy oh man this is an awesome idea! I can imagine a systematic ordering system saving you a lot of time.

It will also give those new to the building process a new way to explore the options, which I think is desperately needed. What do we tell people now, who want to learn about what components to use in a new esk8 build? We tell them to go and read 5,000 threads on the esk8 forum to learn for themselves! I suspect that a lot of people end up with a pre-built esk8 simple to avoid the overwhelming number of options and the steep learning curve associated with building their own.

A site that lists options could really help raise awareness of the choices available, and of course will help generate new builds that come your way! Looking forward to seeing it.

3 Likes
#9

I think it is a downright terrific idea, and if successfully implemented, as you say, would definitely shake up the industry. If it was as huge of a draw as I think it would be, would you be able to keep up with demand? The lack of readily available components seems to be a huge limiting factor in the esk8 world.

1 Like
#10

my biggest issue right now is not having a build object. I work almost entirely out of emails which is not efficient. The biggest reason i started this project was so i could have the customer help me build an object that could then be linked to the sale, the build, the inventory, the customer, and the ongoing support ticket history over the life of the board. This object would always be the reference for what needs to happen next as it would contain references to every aspect of the build, sale, and ownership of the board.

Also i want to use this to bring choice to the customer. More than just wheels and colors and battery size. We have a fucton of awesome vendors around here now. There are so many mounts and motors available, variations of VESCs, other ESCs that are based on VESCs, multiple kinds of remotes, and even peripherals like Shredlights and underglow sticks and things like that.

I’m hoping to allow customers to eventually choose if they want DIY mounts over Enertion style mounts or 5055 motors over 6355 motors or AXLE VESCs or VESC-Xs and let them do some research before choosing. Possibly even save their builds for later.

but for now i’ll be happy just to give them something to play with and see what’s possible while allowing them to see exactly what goes into a build and why it costs so much.

2 Likes
#11

@longhairedboy I think what you are trying to achieve here is a tool called ‘‘Configurator’’

Im not sure whenever you will succeed in creating one in the environment you chose (Shopify system?)…

But on a side note, maybe some other smart mind can help you out who deal with these things daily… maybe @makevoid could give some tips or @rpasichnyk

– So yeh, if you in the end manage to get a configurator which even ‘‘compiles’’ a 3d image out of the selected parts, that would be really sweet :slight_smile:

1 Like
#12

I basically have the interface built already. ITs just a matter of getting it to create something that can then be shoved into Shopify’s shopping cart/ordering system and getting shopify to see it and treat it like a product so it can be paid for and archived, then get it to trigger a new ticket in my ticketing system somehow.

Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform with a shitload of customization capabilities. They wrote their own templating language which is amazing btw and then open sourced it. They have a bunch of APIs and a whole coding environment built into it. ITs crazy. I can’t believe i was actually trying to make it on wordpress and woocommerce. That was terrible.

1 Like
#13

Cool. Thanks for short intro about shopify. I had a few ‘‘touches’’ with it when at uni but otherwise havent went very deep into.

Good to know then that it is possible to make it a lot more customized and specialized for the individual’s needs when opening up a shop/

#14

I haven’t even tapped the surface yet. Most people just go in, load up some products, pick a theme, and go. And for 99% of the cases, that’s great. It automatically provides you with a cross platform shopping experience out of the box, s its quick and easy and done.

but then there is all the other shit you can do… seriously i thought wordpress was flexible. I’ve written plugins and themes for it but it was nothing like this. I have found the light.

1 Like
#15

yeh… that’‘s how it usually looks like - u pick a theme and that’'s all!

Good to know shopify’s platform is a lot more ‘‘flexible’’ than the one wordpress use… I’'ve heard wordpress is a lot more ‘‘rigid’’ and it is a bit hard to make ‘‘mods’’ there to do more stuff…

#16

I wish you all the succes!!! Good thing you are doing. I myself are building a webshop for the lazy guys who just wanna ride on a cool e-skateboard … my plan is to monthly add more deck designs … it is all in a pretty early stage my website: www.x-deck.nl let me know what you all think

1 Like
#17

Basically a PC Part Picker for ESK8

1 Like
#18

so i managed to atomize my components and create “invisible” products in shopify that i can then add to the cart individually once the parts are “picked” by the “configurator” and allow the person to have a complete itemized list of everything that goes into the board, including fees and labor, in their cart with a total.

So now I have to get the javascript written to actually add that shit to the cart, but i’m soooo on the home stretch with this thing.

this is kind of amazing. Shopify is letting me do whatever the fuck i want basically.

I have something to play with ready, but i’m so close to having it tied into the cart and actually working that i might hold off on posting the link until its done.

1 Like
#19

Do It! I want to check this out. I’ll configure a 4x carvon v3 on a 12s6p and drool on my keyboard for a while

1 Like
#20

Oh man - this is so friggin cool of an idea ! I’m going to lose hours. Should have an alcohol lock on this website - I’ve drunk ebayed before and had an arbor axis turn up that I didn’t even remember ordering.

1 Like