As I’ve written about in prior blog posts, we’ve worked tirelessly on making sure the product designs and quality are top notch. Of course, this doesn’t come without cost. There are many iterations of trial and error. Once we became satisfied with the result, we needed to create samples so we could take photos for the website. I just took a walk around the shop floor, and we have a number of ramps and grind boxes neatly tucked away in the back corner.

One of the byproducts of R&D is that you’re going to have “extras” leftover. In the above paragraph, I purposely used the word “samples” rather than “demos”. These ramps have never been skated on. Their sole purpose in life was to look pretty for camera.

I made mention of this on Facebook and Twitter earlier this week already. We’d be willing to sell these sample models to someone (significantly discounted) if they were willing to drive to our shop to pick it up themselves (we’re ~35 miles northwest of Philly).

When you order a new ramp from us, they are packaged as kits. Kits are much more compact and easier to ship than the assembled product.

So if you’re looking for great quality, “like new” ramps, at a price – please send along your inquiry to info@libertyskate.com. At that time I’ll be happy to discuss what items are left, and the price.

Some of our samples have already been accounted for. Only remaining: 6′ quarter pipe, 8′ quarter pipe, 4′ grind box, 6′ grind box, and an 8′ grind box.

So please feel free to tell your family and friends. Who knows – the stock of samples may go quickly, so you should probably act fast if you’re considering this deal.

I had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met,
Jason

Last week I was over at a customer’s house. He got the Liberty Skate 16′ half pipe in early July, and has really been enjoying it throughout the summer. It’s always fun to head over to his house, see it set up in his backyard, and watch people far more talented than me cut loose on it.

This particular house is located in a suburban area. Every house has plenty of land, and there’s a real sense of community. I got to talking with the owner of the house/ramp, and he was telling me that it didn’t take long for word to spread throughout the neighborhood that he has a 16′ half pipe in his backyard. Eventually the neighborhood kids got up the courage to go over to check out the ramp, and to ask permission to try it out. Of course he didn’t have an issue allowing the kids to skate on it.

Apparently the kids love to come over and work on their ramp skating skills. It’s pretty cool knowing that skaters of all ages and skill levels can get the same level of enjoyment out of the ramp. It doesn’t matter that the novices can’t land the same tricks as the more advanced skaters. Both sets of skaters are able to get their fun in on the same piece of equipment while working on honing their skills.

So if you’re thinking about a new addition for the house or neighborhood, I hope you consider Liberty Skate. We have ramps and grind boxes that will fit most any house setup. As you grow as a skater, the Liberty Skate ramps will be there.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We recently got in some new Liberty Skate stickers, so be on the lookout for your chance to have a few of them mailed to you.

I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it,

Jason

I try to keep up with skateboarding periodicals, specifically for the news and articles. I couldn’t help but notice the recent focus on art in the skateboarding world. It makes perfect sense; skateboarding takes a lot of independence, dedication, creativity and determination. Artists, from all walks of life, share these same attributes.

I’m particularly fascinated with photography in the skateboarding world. Photography probably has never inspired someone to start skateboarding. But the inverse, however, is absolutely true. Being that skateboarding is a collective passion of cohorts, eventually the desire to document (via video and stills) the tricks and lifestyle naturally presents itself.

A reoccurring theme highlighted in the articles seems to be that skateboarding helped these people discover this hidden talent, and was the catalyst towards applying and enhancing this new found skill to other areas of photography.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to suggest that buying a Liberty Skate product will guarantee admittance into the Rhode Island School of Design. That type of talent is something  you’re born with. My point is that, in many areas of the country, skateboarders are still viewed as rebellious, destructive, aimless wanderers. As the sport continues to mature, we’re seeing that this preconceived reputation  is nothing more than a stereotype.

That’s all I have for today. Hopefully everyone is able to get out there this weekend. As always, I’d like to encourage you to share any skate stories, photos, video, etc: info@libertyskate.com

If marriage was outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws,

Jason

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Some questions we’ve been getting a lot lately have to do with how our ramps are made. “What was your design process like”, “what sorts of materials do you use”, “what’s in store for the future”? It’s funny – going through the R&D on all our products was a rather laborious endeavor, and it never dawned on us that our fans / customer base would care. In retrospect, it is a rather unique process, and it now makes sense why parties not directly involved would be curious.

Here at our shop, we do have a fairly distinctive setup; with specific regard to our CAD and CNC machines. These commercial grade design and manufacturing tools allowed us to tirelessly work on the design, and perform rigorous trail and error. The design and “skateability” of the ramps is a subjective practice, so being able to do precise tangible tests was a tredmend0us advantage towards the end goal of “getting it right”. At the end of the day, it’s our name on the product, so we wanted to make certain that the design and functionality was the best they could be.

The trail and error methodology carried over to the selection of the materials as well. There were three “bility”s that we kept harping on when selecting the materials (in no particular order): 1) durability 2) sustainability, and 3) skateability. If a material didn’t meet all these criteria, it was eliminated from contention. Eventually, we opted to construct the “shell” out of 3/4″ ACX grade plywood. The skate surface selection was a bit more involved. When offering a product that gets skated on, the actual surface the skateboard wheels touch is really crucial (duh). Working with a number of third parties, we found, what we believe to be, a great 3/8″ specialty surface. So far, we’ve been getting really encouraging and glowing testimonials.

We wanted our initial offering to include products for every skill level. While we certainly have ideas for the next products we’ll be developing, we also wanted to leave it fairly open so we could capitalize on the feedback from our customers. So when we’re asked “what’s in store for the future”, our honest answer is “we’re not entirely certain yet”. The one thing we can say with complete confidence is that our products will never be thrown together haphazardly. Everything will be given the same level of attention and care as our initial group of products have gotten – that much I can promise.

As more and more of you purchase and enjoy Liberty Skate, we’d love to hear from you. Late summer is a great time to be outside skateboarding and we hope you choose to let Liberty Skate be a part of the experience.

In life, it’s important to accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue,

Jason

I was re-reading an old article from Skateboarding Magazine, “The Top Six Reasons To Be Involved in Skateboarding”. I found it fascinating, and wanted to share a few thoughts on the three reasons that stuck out the most for me: challenge, exercise and friends.

Skateboarding is challenging. These challenges come in a variety of different forms as well. Skateboarders are able to share a common struggle, whether you’re first learning and trying not to fall down, or whether you’re dedicating yourself day after day to win your first competition. Skaters on both ends of this spectrum can relate to one another. It’s the challenge that keeps the sport alive. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be as fun.

Childhood obesity is a growing concern in this country. Fast food centered diets are becoming the norm, cash-strapped schools are cutting gym and recess, and outdoor activities during free time are being replaced by video games. Clearly it’d be rather presumptuous, unrealistic, and Utopic to suggest that all three of these issues can easily be reversed. Often times, the fast food diet isn’t controlled by the children. Parents are working multiple jobs to keep their household afloat, and at the end of a long day, a cheap, fast meal is the only option. Schools are always going to be crying poverty, so we can hope and pray all we want, but fact is, getting school funding to the point where “discretionary activities” return to the radar of budgetary spending is still far far away. The last issue, however, is easy to fix. Finding an outdoor activity that’s fun is all that’s needed to get kids off the couch. Skateboarding fits this mold.

Skateboarding is not a lonely sport. No matter where you see skating happening, rarely do you see someone honing their skills all by themselves. The camaraderie associated with skating brings groups together, creates competition, and inspires dedication. These are all areas of personal growth that transcend skating.

At Liberty Skate, we’re proud to be a part of an industry that also does a lot of “good”.

I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it,

Jason

References: http://skateboardingmagazine.com/blog/2008/05/23/the-top-six-reasons-to-be-involved-in-skateboarding/

We’re just about ready to launch our line of grind boxes. Last week we posted some photos on our Facebook Fan Page ( www.facebook.com/libertyskate ), and we’ve been getting some great feedback so far – thank you.
I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you the last few modifications we need to make.

We’ll be adding metal rail to both of the long sides on top. We also are going to be adding four pieces of diamond plating to the bottom corners, since one of the best features of our grind boxes is the portability. We realize these may be dragged or dropped down on the driveway / street, and the exposed corners could take a beating over time. The diamond plating will add to the overall durability, and will give it a cool look too.

After the final design is approved by the rest of the team, we’ll be ready to take showcase photos, and officially launch the grind box product line. Even though these are our most affordable products, we wanted to make sure they got the same careful attention to detail that our quarter pipes and half pipes got during their R&D. We really think you guys will love these!

Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country,
Jason out

PS – This is what the alphabet would look like without ‘Q’ and ‘R’

I hope everyone’s weekends were safe and enjoyable. A friend (a friend of a friend, not a friend of ours [nice little Sopranos + Liberty Skate Family joke for you there]) managed to cut his finger while opening a *soda* bottle. After some hot flashes and a quick trip to Urgent Care, he was all patched up and ready to get back to dreaming about super awesome Liberty Skate mini ramp half pipes.

I thought I’d take some time to talk about a couple of our sales strategies. Of course, there’s our website for online purchases 24/7. However, a different avenue we’re starting to get some traction with is local skate shops. The more of these shops we talk to, the more we keep hearing the same thing: “we get asked all the time by our customers where they buy skateboard ramps for either themselves or for a relative”. We have some really cool and unique ideas for getting our products into skate shops across the country, but we also need your help! If you’d like to see Liberty Skate products be offered at your local haunt, drop us an email with the shop name, city, and state and we’ll do whatever we have to to work with the shop.

Of course if you really wanted to be a Liberty Skate All-Star, march down to your local skate shop right this second (well not this second – finish reading this post, then march down) and demand it!  Tell the shop owner to reach out and grab that beautiful butterfly.

Sorry – I think i got a little carried away with today’s post. My heart was in the right place, its just all this darn coffee and Coke Zero pumping through my veins. Go out and buy some ramps so Papa can get himself into a 12 stepper.

I’ll talk to you all later in the week.

Be good, and if you can’t be good, be safe, and if you can’t be safe, don’t blame me,
Jason out

I’ve been busy today doing research and development on a number of new Liberty Skate products. Overall, I think the most progress was made on the grind boxes. We finalized the design of the 4′, 6′, and 8′ grind boxes, and built demo models of each.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to get out and snap a bunch of pictures for the Grind Box section of our website. It’s still not clear if the hustle-and-bustle of a Friday will allow for the photo shoot, but I promise that at a bare-minimum I’ll take some shots using my cell phone camera. Keep your eyes peeled, as I’ll be alerting you all that the photos are up via Twitter and Facebook.

A few other products that are in the works (in no special order here): wedges, launch ramps, rails, kickers and mini-spines. What do you all think? What would blow your hair back?

Do you all have any feedback for me re: the blog, Facebook, or Twitter? To be honest, I’ve been pretty focused on our sales strategy the last few weeks, and I fear I’ve been a bit singularly focused, and neglectful. So let’s hear it. What have you liked, what would you like to see improved, etc? I’m not that thick skinned, but I’m able to get over things quickly – so hit me with your best shot… Or… Alternatively… Sing my praises and I’ll be your best friend.

OK – back at it. The blood on my whip is starting to dry…

I’ll leave you all today with a quote from a great man a friend of mine met at a gourmet food store (let the record show that God blessed this human being with both Tourette’s and a stutter – if God has that kind of a sense of humor, than so should you).

Buh Buh Buh Buh Buh… Bu Bu Bu… Bu…. AH SCREW THE BUTTER GIVE ME CHEESE!,

Love,

Jason

We aim to change that. We want our customers to return to our site on a regular basis. We want our customers to take pride in knowing they contributed the lions share of the content.

This is why we keep asking for stuff. We’ve been getting some great photos and videos so far. But we want to get our hands on as much as possible. What’s more – we want product suggestions, t-shirt ideas, anything, everything… We plan to continue to incentivize for content, as well. It could be something silly, like today’s Hi-Liter, it could be a mystery, it could be free t-shirts, coupons towards skate ramps, or much much more. The bigger we get, the better our prizes will get. In fact, I’m trying to convince one of the other founders to offer up his car as a prize when we start reaching some major sales milestones. With your help, I’m sure we’ll get him (seriously).

So please. Keep sending us pictures and video. We really do look at it all, and we really do want to use it on our site.

info@libertyskate.com

My fake plants died because I didn’t pretend to water them,

Jason

As a new company, one of our biggest challenges is getting our name out there, and getting noticed. We’ve been experimenting with a number of different avenues – Twitter, Facebook, this blog, word of mouth, etc. It’s amazing the snowball effect all these social mediums have. Take Twitter for instance. In the beginning, it felt like we had to solicit every follower one-by-one. Now, it’s to the point where people are finding us, and following us all on their own. Grant it, we’re still very new to Twitter (just shy of 200 followers), but it’s still encouraging to witness our growth trend. At this rate, it seems as though we’ll be at 1,000 in no time.

For all of you that have been reading my blog posts (and that are reading this one now) – thank you. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to try to build a brand, and it means a lot to already have a core contingent of supporters. Stick with us – we’ll be taking good care of our loyal fan base with contests, prizes, promotions, etc. Tell all your friends about us too. The more of a following we get, the better the rewards will be.

Alright, I think that’s all I have for today. There’s still a million things I need to get done before the end of business today. Ahh the perks of being involved in a start-up… I love it though.

Everything has an end, and a sausage has two (thanks Bern),

Jason