After four years, we have decided to tentatively close our doors for a few different reasons.

  1. Turns out it’s really cluckin’ hard to run a business when you are a kid. We originally started it so I could learn about business and I did. I learned how hard it is and how much work goes into running one. I also learned that there are things that I am unable to do simply because I’m not an adult. We had to put the business in my dad’s name to make it legal because kids can’t sign legal documents.  It was a sole proprietorship and so he would have been financially liable if some crazy person decided to sue us.  My parents didn’t want to be liable and it’s too expensive for me to form an LLC (which would protect me financially) so once I have saved up money and I am 18, I will re-open it as an LLC so I am protected.
  2. If you build it they WILL NOT come.  I learned that marketing is a huge part of running a business. You could have a cool product, but no one will ever know if you don’t market it correctly. These days, marketing is mostly done through social media. But even though I’m a teenager… I really hate social media.  My least favorite part of the business was trying to post something on social media every day to gain more exposure, followers and customers.  It’s just not me. And unfortunately, we live in a world where a hot chic or a cat video gets 100K likes and a post from a 13 year old kid showing a skateboard he made with his own hands gets 6 likes…all from his immediate family.  So, maybe one day, I will be able to hire someone to do this part for me.
  3. My distributor closed. I was hand pressing boards, but those take a lot of time and I would have to sell them for way more than people want to pay to make it worth it. So, I also got boards from a distributor who screen printed my logo on them.  They closed months ago and I’ve been unable to find another place.
  4. Have you ever heard a CEO of a company say the following words? “I’m grounded and my mom won’t let me run my business till my grades are better”.  Well, now you have….there’s a first time for everything.

So that’s it. I really hope that one day I’ll be announcing that I’m back in business. Until then, I’m going to still be pressing my own boards (if anyone wants one of those, let me know) and working at my new job as a host at a local Italian restaurant so I can save the money to re-launch correctly one day. Stay tuned and thanks for the support for the past four years.