Small Business Startups, Building A Skateboard Shop

Krusty's Board and Skate:

The first thing that you notice when walking into Krusty's Board and Skate Shop out in Challis, Idaho is the wall of colorful skateboard decks from Baker, Element, Speed Demon, Birdhouse and Pig, and Bottega Montana. The second thing that you notice is that the pricing of everything in Cory Rice's shop is about 30% cheaper than any skate shop that you have ever been in. This small fact has never been lost on the multitudes of kids that come into the shop to hang out and buy from the excellent selection ( I mean to say that Cory has exceptional taste in selecting his stuff to sell.) We have found really great shirts like a Rob Dyrdek signature shirt (not even kidding you--$15) or an obscure Baker team shirt. It's obvious that Cory loves skateboarding and more importantly he loves the kids in his community and will often save bearings and parts that are still decent to give to the kids when they can't afford to buy new ones. The kids in Challis have told me that Cory will open his shop any time that he can be available even if it's two in the morning--they might have been stretching it on that one but, I like to try to take their word for it!
I talked with Cory and asked him how he got started with Krusty's Board and Skate Shop and he told me that it all came about when they worked on bringing in the new skateboard park (Cory was a key figure in Challis to bring in a skateboard park for the kids in his community.) The builder that they decided to use is Mark Garroad from Driggs, Idaho. Mark got Cory interested in starting his own skateboard shop and connected him with Habitat Skateboard to obtain a license. He then bootstrapped his operation and used three thousand dollars of his own money to buy a bunch of Speed Demon complete skateboards with the deck,wheels and trucks in place. Those Speed Demon completes sold out as soon as he hung them on the rack. He then invested that money and a little more of his own to convert his garage into a shop to keep his overhead to a minimum and built up a substantial inventory. Cory still keeps his day job and operates his shop in his free time. He hopes to build up the business by reinvesting any profits coming into it.
Krusty's Board and Skate Shop is located in Challis, Idaho operated by Cory Rice and family @
(208) 879-5742

Five-O Skate Shop of Idaho Falls:

I went to Five-O skate shop in Idaho Falls recently and talked to Peter to see how they were doing. He said that sales were off but, that it was starting to pick back up. He also told me that they have a lot of fun and exciting things planned for the summer! They are working on bringing in the Vox Pro skate team in to do a demo at the Skate park in Idaho Falls, they are planning numerous skate competitions at the park, he said that they might be as often as once a week--some with cash payouts! They are planning their annual giant game of skate in the parking lot and also they are planning a huge skate shoe sale! Peter said they were thinking putting every shoe in the shop in the sale and they will be going for between $15 and $50! They have some great new Enjoi and Volcom shirts hanging on the racks.

Uberskater and Artist Jared Garcia is now hand painting decks for Five-O! The designs are sic! For $35 gripped, the decks are flying out of the store! Go to Five-O and ask for one of Garcia's custom decks!

One marketing idea that Mark, the Owner of Five-O came up with was to implement text message advertising into the mix. You enter a number into your cell phone from business cards that they hand out and whenever they have a sale or competition it sends a text message to the network of cell phone users! Pretty hot idea!