Cryptic topic name, the background needs some explanation.
In all the years I’ve been making skate stuff, trying to build or introduce new things, one of the lessons I learned was don’t try to do everything. If you’re trying to re-invent the wheel, don’t also be trying to re-invent the engine or whatever. Focus on your contribution, don’t be any more than you need to be.
An example might be, A truck company comes in. They want to make and sell the best trucks. But they need decks, and they need wheels to sell them on as a complete. Its tempting for people to come in and say “Lets make our own decks, lets make out own wheels, lets get our own branded bearings!”
You end up with a Truck company, that’s also trying to be a board company, and a wheel company.
And the entire scope of what you’re trying to do has just exploded. And you always see people failing because of that, or at least that’s what I’ve seen from my interpretation.
One of the things I’ve always thought Boosted did right, one of the big reasons for their success was them handling this right. Boosted was an ESk8 company. Their contribution was the electronification of skateboards. They only provided that, and stuck within their own expertise. They found another company that already makes some of the best decks, some of the best trucks, some of the best wheels, and were already capable of providing all of that to a market at scale. Put all of it together, and you have a really good recipe for success.
One of the reasons I feel boosted failed is when they stepped away from this strategy. They eventually did try and become a company of everything. They decided to make their own wheels, make their own trucks, make their own decks. Some hotshot new CEO thinks they can come in and start making trucks right away that can stand favorably against brands who have been making trucks for decades? No, its not easy, its not simple. They went through growing pains, were stretched too thin trying to develop all of everything all at once, and weren’t able to survive what should have been survivable global economic waves in 2018. (TrumpsTariffs)
Since then, I’ve sort of been waiting. Hoping to see another company coming in and doing it right.
Always asking myself, who’s going to be the next Esk8 company who build their product onto established skate brands, instead of coming in and trying to electrify their own bespoke garbage?
But lately I’ve been realizing, well that’s an awfully one sided way to look at it. Boosted came at it innovating the electronification, and attached itself to established skate brands because that’s sort of how it needed to be at the time since the electronification side of things was so underdeveloped in 2012.
Now though, the electronification a vastly different landscape. Maybe this problem can be looked at now from the other side. An SK8 company attaching itself to an established and developed brand who builds and has developed excellent electronics for Esk8.
And now we finally get to my question.
If we had a brand, For funsies, lets say Seismic decides to create a line of prebuilt Esk8 completes.
Who would be the best company to look towards and partner with to electronifiy their setups?
flipsky?
Or maybe one of the brands making prebuilts themselves already, like Exway?
