Episode 2: Claire's story

Claire recounts her journey from working as a casual employee at Boarders to buying into the business, and all that has happened since. 

Al loses a Red Bull sponsorship.

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Transcript

Here's a little recap of last week's episode of The Boardcast check it out.

I grew up skateboarding, but the business idea came in the early 90s. Ski shop, how are we gonna sell skate and snow out of a ski shop? We opened that Balgowlah store the week those plans hit that building. The Long Reef store burnt to the ground. Purple patch, this is the purple patch. In a hotel in Parramatta, lying on a bed and there's cash everywhere. If you were on your pingas you could go up to someone and go ohhhh. I don't know why, it was my creative phase.

So this is where you come in right? Yeah. Yeah. So skip a few years cause really we were just growing and growing and growing. So we’d moved from Balgowlah to Brooky. And you had Cross street. Yeah, nah we had Dale street. And then Brookvale store was massive compared to anything we’. And that's where I walked in to and handed my resume into. So this bright eyed little… how old were you? 17?

I just literally just turned 18. I still remember the day you walked in really clearly. Same. Because my impression, my first impression was okay we’ve gotta employ this girl. Why? And I’d never, you were the first, maybe second girl I think we’d ever had?

Lucy worked before me. Actually, Karina, Lucy, you. So three girls in what up to that point was 14 years or something. And god knows how many guys, hundreds of moron skateboard dudes that I’ve hired and fired over the years, and I love you all. But Jesus. There’s been some rough employees. But yeah, you walked in and for whatever reason? I don't know, that day I was like man and I was, I just, you just had this air of confidence. I don’t know if you were faking it or not. I remember if you asked me if I could grip a deck and I was like, No, but I've watched the guys do it. I think I could do it. And I think I asked you where if you’d ever worked in a slate store or something and you mentioned Trigger Brothers in Melbourne. And I was just like it doesn’t even matter. There was just something about you the way you held yourself and the confidence plus there was just something, you just had something. And I just had some idea that you’d be really good for the business. And I rang Mark, he was working at the warehouse cause I was in the shop most of the time at this point. And said hey this girl just walked in. I really want to give her a job. And he was like, dude do whatever. You’re running the shop so if you want to employ her, employ her. And I think I fired someone straight away. Cause I had some drop kicks man. There were so many bad guys it was really easy to get rid of someone and give you a job. So yeah I think I rang you the next day even.

It was later that day. Same day I remember. Didn’t even wait a day. Yeah, I remember it was like an hour later. So anyone who thinks I’ve got poor judgement, you’re wrong. Well there you go, so I got rid of someone, gave you the job. And my first impression of you, before I ask you some questions was whirl-wind, like holy shit she’s come in she wants to change the whole fucking shop.

That was day one. Day one, I’m like okay do whatever you want. I think the next day I worked because the shop had that massive wall of shoes. See this is my first question, what’s your first impression of Boarders? Thought it was a core skate shop and I'd worked at Trigger Brothers. So it didn’t even feel like a snowboard shop at that point? Nah. You know, Snowboards was like, tucked in the back like tiny small rack. I wish we’d stayed like that. and stuff. And it was there was must have been way over, no there was probably 200 SKUs of shoes on the wall. Cause you were ten high, it was on shoe ten high and it went for the whole length of the shop. I wonder if we can find a photo to slot in here. Possibly, but I, I remember… it was 40 metres long, or 30 metres long. Yeah, it was a lot of shoes. And you were like the first day you're like, if you can… No I think it was way over 200 to be honest.

Yeah. And then I remember, you're like, If you can get good at selling shoes, that's great. And I was like, Cool. And then I instantly went, Why the hell is the couch all the way at the end, not looking at the shoe wall?  It should be right in the middle of the shoe wall. And I was like, Can I rearrange the shop?

And you were like, Go for it. And then I just started pushing shit around and rearranged the entire shop on my first day. It was pretty quick. You were definitely the first person who ever knew how to like make things look right and colour coordinate and merchandise properly. Yeah. That was obvious pretty quick. So I guess the question to you is, at what point did you feel like this was something that you were gonna stick with because you were studying and like it was not your first choice of career.

Yeah, I was studying Psychology at Sydney Uni at that time. Straight after year 12. And I was working part time and studying full time and then studying just got too much for me because I was living up in Wheeler Heights and traveling in to study. Studying got too much for me in year 10. I don’t think I ever used the word “study”. Actually, it wasn't the study.

It was I loved it, really enjoyed it. But I had like eight lectures, math lectures, five days a week and something like that. And I couldn't get there from Wheeler Heights cause I didn’t have a car. So I was like I was breaking up like 5 a.m. and then I was just not going because that wasn't going to happen. And yeah, like I passed some subjects and failed some in the first semester.

And then after that I decided that I wanted to do a snow season. So I yeah, I remember I booked tickets and told you that I was quitting uni and I started full time mid-year and that I was leaving in November. I don’t remember that timeline at all. And then I yeah, I worked full time at Boarders for the rest of the year and worked up at Brookie. So the intention was just to stay for that – for that six months, yeah. 

Oh yeah. Til until November. And I worked full time and I worked up at the Brookie Pub. So you never had to stay. It was more a honey trap situation. I remember leaving and you said, there'll always be a job for you if you want when you come back. I said, Cool. And I left and then I don’t even think we spoke.

How would we? Wait what year is this? 2010. 2011? Maybe. Mate I can barely use an email now. How would we have spoke? I don’t know. Let's not go into your emails. Fourteen thousand unanswered. I wouldn't have spoken to you while you were over there. Maybe, we might’ve spoken on the phone or something. Maybe by text or something like that. Text? Doubt it. We had text messages back then. Yeah I know we had text messages, I just can’t picture you having a phone over there that worked for Australia. A mobile phone? You were paying a mobile phone plan in Canada? The next day we had text messages back then. Now you find out what is this. Yeah. Or a mobile phone or something. Yeah, I had a, I bought a mobile SIM card over there.

Oh okay. Well then yeah we probably text. I don't know if we did or not. But anyway, I came back and came to see you because my plan was to work full time and then continue traveling like leave at the end of that year so work like eight, ten months and then leave at the end of that year and go do Southeast Asia and travel all around there.

Yeah. And then yeah, I kept dangling carrots in front of me. It was a battle. It was like I'm trying to dangle carrots, Mark’s trying to get rid of you. Because he never thought that we needed that in between us and the boys person which we desperately needed because the boys, all the boys, like we were selling so much skate back then. Like the boys were all pretty loose, and they needed someone. They needed someone between me and them.

Yeah. So before I left to do my snow season, I helped you guys move from 503 to the shop we're in now. And then after I got back from my snow season, I worked for you full time, and my plan was to then travel to Southeast Asia and, like, keep travelling essentially.

What should never be forgotten is the massive party that happened when we had this building, before we moved into it. Gnarlshred premier. We put in all the slat wall it was decked out had carpet that was fresh. Everything was good and then we had the premier of Gnarlshred, which was this skate video made by the entire Boarders team that were employed at the time and a guy called Melvinbird, and that was like the epitome of looseness that night. The front door’s broken to this day because of that night. There’s so much beer got spilt on the carpet. There’s stains everywhere.

That was like we broke in the store, all I remember was sitting on the back counter and thinking Jesus there’s a lot of people in this building. There was hundreds of people. There was like the whole floor, we had a projected set up at the back of the shop. And then there was just everyone sitting on seats, like everyone sitting on the floor. And the seats were filled in like 2 seconds. And yeah, it was loose. That was a big night. I remember going to the pub. Afterwards. Far out, yeah, Lani got kicked out. 

Do you remember that? Matty Dillon was like whatever I don’t care!

And we had the, we still had the shop at 503 and I remember this because it's such a big night and I remember you saying to all of us, you're like, if you guys don't turn up for work tomorrow morning, you're fired. Yeah cause everyone was hammered. I was hammered. Everyone got hammered. And then I remember seeing you like we rocked up at 9:00 to open the front door and we're both so dusty.

And you're like, If Oli West is not fucking here, I'm going to lose my shit. You opened the door, walked through the door, and as you were saying if Oli’s not here. And then you see the couch is facing this way and you just see a hand going hey and he’d let himself in that night. He’d let himself in at god knows what time. And slept for two hours and just woke up on the couch and went ‘I’m here’. The pub was only two doors up from the shop so he was like ‘well fuck it I’m not going home’.

I don’t think Oli ever really missed a shift, he loved it man, he was such a skate nerd. 

Even in this building, I've rocked up morning like Sundays to open up the shop and Oli’s, like, come down from upstairs and I’m like, where were you? I slept underneath some cardboard wedged up against the thing. He made a little lean-to. He goes, Look, I wasn't going to go home. Yeah, Oli used to turn up. He was one of my favourite people. No matter how wasted he got he would turn up to work. 

Yeah he was awesome. He’s down in Melbourne tattooing now. Yeah. So yeah, then you kinda helped us move into this place I guess.

Yeah. And then I was kind of shop manager sort of thing. Slash you were starting to take me under your wing and teach me a lot more. Yeah, I remember you, we shared an office for a long time. Like, not that we ever needed an office. But we shared an office. And you were starting to do a lot of the paperwork and stuff, well more business stuff. And I think we put you through a business course maybe? Yep, Yep. Which was probably a pretty good move in hindsight cause I didn’t do it. yeah. You put me through a- You paid for me to go to TAFE and do a business management course because I was managing the shop.

And also you said instead of leaving, why don't you go for a couple of weeks or like, I think I took five weeks and went South East Asia. And then when I got back we opened Mona Vale. Right. And that was a, was that ever a percentage deal or anything? No, I was just I was just managing it. My wage went up. You bought me a car.

Yeah right, the little shit box. What was that?  A KIA or something?
Yeah, because I was. Yeah, because I was driving my parents car and they wanted it back or they moved to Melbourne. Yeaa that’s right, the green thing. No. No, not green. Silver. Same car, silver. Ironically. Mazda people mover. Soccer mum car. MPV. Yup. What a piece of shit, and you ended up buying another one. So it was all me just reeling you in. Yeah.  I kind of knew at that point that you were better than Mark. I already knew you were good at your job.

Did you know I was better than Mark at that point? I knew you were super young, and the problem with mine and Mark's relationship, which I never really spoke to about, definitely never spoken about on camerea, is that we basically had identical skill sets. Like there was no variant. I could do everything he could do, he could do everything I could do. Anything he knew, he taught me, anything I knew I taught him. And so we basically had two business partners who had no variation in our skill sets.

 
So it was getting... there was obviously issues and I was starting to struggle with it. Yeah I agree you guys had a similar skillset but I also don't completely agree with that because like when I came into the business, you've even before that, you've had so many ideas and so many things that you've wanted to do and implement and grow the business. Before I came in and you didn't because - yeah we had different ambitions. Similar skill sets, totally different goals. But he wanted security and a job that would just pay every week, didn't like risk. I still like risk to a certain extent. Like i'd still rather have a go at something new, like a podcast or you know whatever, I just don't... man we can all sit around with a mundane job and a mundane life and at the end you're gonna go 'why didn't I try stuff'. Even if it fails, the biggest lessons you learn are from your failures. You don't learn anything by taking no risk and succeeding constantly. You've gotta take a crack at things and put yourself in a position to fail. And that's when you'll do your best I think. 

Oi, more life lessons from Al. Like that? Confuscious say... whatever I just said. A wise man once told me. Yeah I dunno, that sort of leads me to my next question to a certain extent. Was like... when do you feel like... I mean obviously there was a point where Mark and my relationship had completely deteriorated, he wanted to get out and I offered you his half.

There's a few key milestones that happened before that point though. Which were? We started a business together outside of Boarders. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, we're currently sitting in it right now. Yeah right, Plan C. So the evolution for you was that trip to Japan. Well, no, I've we yeah, we went on a trip to Japan and on a chairlift we were talking and we were talking about my future and because ever since I came into the business and you took me under your wing, you've been like a mentor to me up until I bought in, which is something that's quite interesting, that our dynamic and our friendship and our business relationship changed massively.


But prior to that point, you were always a mentor to me. You always guided me, you always giving me advice and direction. And we were talking about my future and where I wanted to go. And I said, Look, you know, I went to uni to do psychology, it interests me. But what I really am passionate about is fashion.


But I've always had the narrative or been told that it's a really hard industry to make it in, and it's like, yeah, all that kind of stuff. And so I just didn't know what I wanted to do on it and how I wanted to pursue it and how to make money out of it. Really? Yeah, have you figured that out yet? Figuring it out still. Still trying to work that out.


So Plan C evolved on a chairlift in Japan. Yeah. And you the way you pitched Plan C to me was Let's start a t shirt printing business. I know how to do that already. I've got the backing. Big Day Out. Yeah. Rehab is for Quitters. Let's start a an apparel business, a t shirt printing business where we can create apparel and you can start to use that as a base and a platform to grow into fashion to where you want to go.


And that's why we started it, because I was like, Well, this is going to be a stepping stone for me, and it's going to enable me to find a pathway which is a difficult pathway. Yeah, yeah. Let's face it. Fashion's probably the hardest pathway. And yeah. And it was when we started that and we were still working at Boarders for a year and then I left Boarders and I went full time at the t shirt printing business because you've got to go full time to make something work. Yeah 100%


And so I left Boarders, gave you back the company car and yeah walked away from a full time - not in the condition that we gave it to you. Pfft, minor details. And that's about to happen again. No shit, that's your car though not mine. I guess that would be the period where we sort of knew that- we entered into a business, yeah we were gonna be tied together a little bit. Well we started off, Mark was involved, yeah for ten minutes though, and then we bought him out. Yep, similar story to the other one.


Yep. And then it was just you and I and you pitched it to again pitched to me as 'Claire this is your business. Take it in the direction you want to do.' And it was our first cracks in our business relationship too. Yeah and we were 50/50 at that point equal in the printing business. Yeah but there was no way it was 50/50 workload. You were doing too much of that work. I ended up just doing. Like cause Mark had basically just given up at that point so any work at Boarders that got done was me. I was working so many hours and I couldn't put in the effort for Plan C. 

 Yeah. I was the driving force for the T-shirt printing business - and I'd come over at night and print - and, and we would print jobs together. Yeah it sucked, it was hard. And I, cause we weren't pulling a wage from that I took a part-time job working at a bar at night, so I was working till like three am at nights and going home and then coming to work at like 9 a.m. just to pay my rent.

The whole thing didn't really make sense.

But I did that for a year and then start of 2018 and actually for that whole year I remember this and this is the thing that you go manifestation's bullshit. But for an entire year you said, you said, I wish. Can you just buy Mark out? I wish you could buy Mark out. And I'm like, He's never leaving.

It's he's in it. He's getting a paycheck. It's comfortable. He's happy. He's not going to walk away from that. And then... He was, I didn't see it coming. Yes, but for an entire year you were like, can you can you just buy Mark out? And I'm like, I don't think that's going to happen. But yeah, sure, if it gets happened and we just would talk about it off the cuff as an imagination thing. Yeah, it was just fantasy. Get rid of him, get rid of him.


Yeah. But then he walked in one day and said 'I want out'. He'd gone back to Canada and something happened, and he wanted out.  But I think that put you in the mindset of I don't want this current relationship business relationship set up and the one that we had worked well and you started putting more effort into our business and less into Boarders. Yeah 100%. And so that then triggered Mark's response.

I forced him out to a certain extent. When I stopped putting effort into Boarders, he was like well I'm not gonna be able to get my wage soon. He could see the writing on the wall. It was going backwards at a rate, it had debt, it wasn't doing well, the stock was getting worse and worse cause I wasn't even ordering good stock anymore. I just couldn't care less. I just didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be there, I didn't want to be there and eventually, he just bailed out. 
he went on a trip to Canada and came back and had a whole different attitude.

Yeah, get me out of here. And all he wanted was a, you know he wanted some, the business arrangement was messy in the end. But you got in pretty cheap in reality. Like in hindsight it was pretty cheap. Oh, yeah, But it also comes with these strings of like shit can go pear shaped in a business this size. Yeah, I was 25 years old. Just turned 25 and you came to me and said, Mark, wants out, do you want to buy in?


And I think I was there for the phone call. I think or something. And then you offered it to me on the spot and you were like, Wait, let me go away and think about this. And I was like, I need an offer on the table. I need to know, am I buying 20%? Am I buying 30%, am I buying 5%, am I buying 50?

Like, come back to me with an offer and a dollar figure. Yeah well I had to do, like a little bit of soul searching too. Cause it was an opportunity to get out completely. There was a lot going on in my head where I was like what's the thing even worth? We've let it kind of grind to a halt in the last couple of years. Why did you decide to stay then? You, you, I thought if you come in, I'll stay. If you'd if you had said no, in the end I was done, I was out of there. For sure I would have shut Boarders down or evolved it into something else.
 
I just had lost my passion for the business. Do, you know, what's really funny because I don't think I said yes to buying in because of the business. Because the business wasn't like. It was like, Hey, do you want to buy into this debt? Like you have heaps of stock, but you also have heaps of debt. And I was 25 going, okay, I'm now liable for this amount of money and I've got to. Yeah you were buying debt, for sure.

And I was just I didn't have any money in my bank account either. I was working part time at a bar to pay my rent, so I took out a business loan to buy debt and buy in. And again, going back to what I said before, the money that you gave me to buy in, I used that money to pay the debt. Yeah. And you put it straight back in the. That was one of the arrangements. I didn't put any of it into my pocket at all.


Yeah. I just went fuck, if we're gonna start this we've gotta start it with complete trust so I'm just gonna use the money you buy half the business with to pay the debt and I'm getting nothing for my own, I basically gave you half the business. I was just giving it away. Yeah. It was not a financial benefit to me, it was more a human benefit. Like I felt like I was going from a really bad toxic partnership to a really healthy one. Yeah. Which had a tough start because like we still had the other business.

And there was no way the workload was ever gonna be 50/50. Actually that's I was like, I was trying to put my timeline together because I was like, it started in 2018. That's when it happened. That's when Mark came. And I remember signing the check or whatever it was, at the bank in April 2018, and I was like, and I remember jumping on board as soon as Mark left, I was back in the shop that February, but I didn't actually buy in until April.


So there was a period where I was just I just started working again for you guys. And then I was wondering why there was a period of like because I remember 2019 was like a great year for us was amazing. And I was like, What happened in 2018? And, and now I remember and this was a huge pivotal moment because I was still working over there full time at the print shop.


And I was like, Well, I need to be present. I've just bought into Boarders. I need to show up here and like there was, you know, I now had employees and all that kind of stuff. And I remember trying to be present in Boarders and I remember you saying, Don't worry, I've got this like you abandoned ship at the T-shirt printing business.

Yeah that was the problem. 
You walked away and you were like, I've got to spill all my effort into making Boarders work again. Well, cause it was dying. We bought a dying business. I mean as much as you bought in, I felt like I bought back in. And I was like, I've gotta save it. Leave it with me. But I forgot that you were over there. And so, yes, I was working full time at the print shop and also still being heavily involved and like the crazy thing that happened in our relationship was we went from me, you being a mentor to me and me being like, Hey, what do you think about this?


And getting your advice to literally the next day being like, Hey, Claire, we've got to spend this much money, What do you think? And I went, woah, holy fuck, like Mentor gone in and in an instant. Yeah I was like, hey you gotta make these decisions, they're not just my decisions anymore. Yeah. And it's like thrown into the fucking deep end. And the money was significant. Yeah, everything's like woah overwhelming. Like T-shirt printing business was like chump change compared to what I got thrown into.

I remember, early on in the new deal you went over to New Zealand. It was end of 2018. There was six months and then I went to New Zealand. And you were broken before you left. Yep. And I was broken. I was that was, that was the year I came back for my birthday and I was barely talking to you. Well you were driving around New Zealand in a van or something. Still doing work. And I was still trying to fucking ring you every day because shit was going - Rowy was working over there, Al's wife and she would call me and I would literally be driving a van and then I would pull over to find and do graphic design work to send it back to Rowy.


And I was like working the entire time while trying to drive around New Zealand. Yeah, and I was trying to run the shop. And you were, it was by the time you got back I remember coming to your birthday down at the Steyne or something and just thinking oh fuck we're in trouble. Yeah, I was like. You just did not even want to talk to me. I was in a shit mood, everything about it was like fuck this is not good. It was hectic. Yeah, we sorted that out pretty quick. because that's also what happened, sparked my memory in Plan C printing. I remember there was a when I was full time working over there, I was like, Hey, this isn't exactly meeting everything that I wanted to do in fashion. No, we were printing fucking shirts for plumbers.


So I was like, Do you want? Yeah. It was like, This isn't really sparking me. I want to do a fashion course. And so I did, and I took that on and it was a it was a year, a yearlong course. And then six months into that course is when the buy in for Boarders came. And I remember because I only had like a couple of months, six months left to go.

And I think after that I extended an extended and extended because I bought into Boarders. I was working at the print shop full time, trying to be as present as I possibly could and show face because I had to. I remember because, like Jez was kind of like - she bought into it but she's never here. And so I was like, Well, I need to show face and like, be present in the business.


So I was showing up to work and going over there and coming back- yeah it was a mess, it was too much - and trying to study. I had three things and it was like a mental breakdown - and you were a 25 year old kid essentially.  Yeah, I was 25 - it was a lot. Studying - debt, having a business loan to pay off - and working in two businesses. So and to be honest, I thought nothing of it until, you brought it to my attention. Until I had a complete mental breakdown.


Yeah. And I guess since then it's been. And then 2000 after that, because I remember you coming to my birthday and I was like, I don't want to talk to you about anything right now, but I love you still. But we can't. We need to talk. And then I remember like that next week when I like that next Monday, when I came back to work, we sat down.


We had a massive talk because you knew what was wrong and I knew what was wrong. Yeah it was a mess. That's when we got Scotty. We chased someone good to help with everything and we got Scotty. And then 2019 was really good because I remember 2019, I was way more present. We both were kind of like - it was the clean up year. We kind of let Plan C, we let the printing business settle down. I think we had Dean working for us too over there.


And so I could step away a little bit more and then I was way more present at Boarders and then that's when I think I came in. It was like, Right, we're renovating, we're pulling down the shop wall, we're doing this. And every time I'd come to work, Al would be like, Fucking, what are we doing? And I'm like, But the shop looks so much better than it did.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. And it's a functioning store, it works really well. But we did a lot of renovations. We changed a lot. Yeah we cleaned the whole business up. 2019 was a good year. Within tqo years it was back on track. And then there was this little thing that happened. Hey hey. Some call it Covid-19, I call it a cluster fuck. Yeah, it was horrible. Yep. So we signed a lease to open a new store with Scotty up in Willoughby and March, no February 2020 we signed the lease. Yeah. And we were end, end of 2019 we were like this is a great year. Business is doing well. We had a future plan. We were like, let's do this, let's do this. Yeah, yeah we had it all mapped out. And we were - bricks and water mate, that's the future. Gung ho. And no, but I'd worked ever since I came into the business. I was working on the website and I was building that and growing that.


And that was my all of 2019. And I was like, cool. I think I like grew it like 300% or something like that. Yeah, it was going really well. Like month on, month on month. In 2019, it was crazy. And - we should have seen the writing on the wall, that should have been enough for us to go we don't need another store. I was like, Hey, I'm just marketing this and like working online and this is growing. It made no sense to open another store at all. But then the pandemic just crushed it.

Yeah, we, I remember we were like, We've got to sign a lease before we got on a plane to Japan, so we need to have it sorted. So then when we come back from Japan. Cause the guys worked on the fit out while we were gone. Yeah, we were like, while we're away, like Lewis can do the build and then we'll fly back in and then we can remerch and we can open.


And I remember signing the lease before we got on a plane to Japan, jumped on a plane had the most epic two weeks. Yeah it was amazing. And getting phone calls from your wife being like, Are you guys okay? Like, shit's going down over here. We were in the middle of nowhere up in Hokaido and didn't, like we kind of knew because everyone was wearing masks. But it's Japan. It's Japan and they always wear masks. So we were like what's the problem.
And then we started looking at news and stuff it and it was much because we were up north and we were out of the main towns, too. We were at like really back tiny little mountains in the back countries and stuff like that. There was noone there, we should have noticed that. We were in, they were little towns so. But there was literally noone there. W hen we got back to Tokyo, we were like, Oh fuck, something's going on.


I remember I got scammed at the airport, or somewhere, where I bought the keepcup. Oh yeah. I got a coffee and I was like, I'll do the right thing, I'll get a keepcup. And I drank the coffee and I went back to get a refill and they were like no I can't refill.  No, we're not taking it. That's the whole point of a keepcup! What do you mean? I bought a keep cup and she was like, oh no, Covid, pandemic. And I was like oh right, this stuff, this has really got bad. And yeah, we flew back in. Rowy was calling you, being like, you're going to have to isolate. Yeah, you're gonna have to go to a hotel. We flew in two days yet before you had to isolate for a whole week.

All that nonsense happened. So we got back in and couldn't open the new store. Yeah, we were sitting on a fully fitted out, brand new store, fully stocked couldn't open till two months later, maybe 3. I think we opened. Yeah. And then we were open with massive restrictions. No I think we only opened in June. Possibly. We were meant to open April, before school holidays. That was our plan to be open and then have May into into the snow season. That never happened. And we and we didn't open until the end of June.

God, it was a disaster. That whole two years up there was a disaster because there was restrictions and half the time Scotty wasn't even able to come to work cause he lived on the central coast and he was outside the fucking 5kms. It was nuts, so. That was a train wreck. The whole reason we wanted to do this whole thing was here we are in 2023, partnership's healthy, business is not, because of covid. But our business. And skateboarding's quiet. There's so much going on. We just had a really crap snow season.

So we thought it would be a good time to sort of start documenting, along with doing the guest thing, documenting how we're going to pivot. Because we've got we still have the T-shirt printing business. We've got Boarders, which is one store, Brookvale, that's flagship and online. We still sell on eBay. And also we have a few new business ventures So under the heading of Boarders, we've got four avenues, essentially. The fourth one hasn't yet been announced. It's in the shop, but not publicly. We'll talk about that later. Go into depth with it.


We'll see if the journeys worth documenting. We'll talk about different aspects of it, and keep you guys kind of informed in what's going on with Boarders and Snowboarding and skateboarding and fashion and shoes and footwear and dunks and god knows what other crap you guys wanna buy. Yeah but yeah but looking back at the last four years, it would have been really cool to have a podcast to document - ah it would've been amazing to document Covid.  Yeah.


And what we went through and the ups and downs and I'm going to say the next years to come through that we're going to have ups and downs and we're going to grow and expand and contract in areas. And so it's going to be a kind of cool journey to document I reckon. And even if no one watches this, I'll watch it one day. And we can look back and go, fuck we did it. I won't remember any of it, I clearly don't remember the first bit. You're gonna need a podcast to remember the timeline. This is gonna become my memory. Anyway that's a wrap for number one. Number two possibly because we might have broken this up into two parts.

So yeah, see you soon. That's the Boardcast. Do you want me to say listen and subscribe? Click subscribe, click the little thumb. What is that? I think you actually, I think you've gotta hit follow the actual podcast. You've gotta subscribe to our podcast and then that makes us good and then we can get sponsors. Yeah get us some sponsors. I want a whoop band. I want. What do you want Al? What's a really big? What's your dream sponsor? What's a really big podcast sponsor? Me Undies. That's a big one. I hear that all the time. Well that's just you. Death. What's that? Oh, the water? It's not death is it? Liquid Death. Liquid Death. Come on get on board Liquid Death. I'll take that over Red Bull. You wanted Red Bull. I want Red Bull. Red Bull, Red Bull's the great enabler. We'll get some money out of that. Nothing wrong with a Red Bull sponsorship. I wouldn't drink it, I'd just tell everyone else to drink it. There goes that sponsorship. Fucking Red Bull's over. We spoke about this the other day, they just bottle. Yeah apparently some of the Red Bull cans have water in them so the athletes don't have to die. They can still crack a Red Bull can and drink. I think - I don't know if that's true -  I think there is a fine I think there's a fine with marketing where you're pushing the white lies to full blown- do you reckon it's even true?

 
If they're drinking a Red Bull water bottle with water in it, I think that's okay. Do you reckon they're opening cans of Red Bull with water in them? If they're opening cans of Red Bull - then that's false advertising - and drinking water, I think that is completely wrong. But if they're drinking a water bottle with a logo, that's fine, because it's a water bottle. This is a whole separate podcast, but if you think about Red Bull on a different level. Forget what it is, forget the product. It's not Marlboro, it's Red Bull. Maybe in 20 years we'll think of it as Marlboro. How much money are Red Bull putting into - every single sport - every single sport? Like they have two formula 1 teams, they sponsor skaters. Yes. Ryan Sheckler, little Red Bull hat, it's probably bought him three houses. It's, it's an enabler. It enables people to go do what they love for a living.

Yeah. They've put their money, they've done whoever does the marketing for Red Bull's fucking smart. Oh yeah, it's genius. 50 percent of the profit goes into marketing or something. It's an insane amount of money.


So yeah. Yeah it is. This is the same thing that you could get angry about the whole Nike situation, but they do put money into those sports. You can't get angry at Nike for doing what Nike do anymore. They've just, because they're better than everyone else they won the war. I guess our whole economy just works on the fact of marketing. Who sells the most hamburgers? Not the best hamburger joint. At least Nike shoes are good. You're wearing some. Pan down. That's why, I was fucking backing them just then. I said, You can't get angry at Nike. I actually didn't know I was wearing them. I dunno. Don't trust her. Anyway. I said, you can't get angry at Nike. Let's wrap this thing up! I got things to do. I said, At least Nike puts money back into the sports. Hundred percent they do. Millions and trillions. Nah, not trillions, but millions. But it is not good for the smaller companies.


No, But do they even exist anymore? Sorry. Let's do a podcast on the death of small companies leter. Yeah. Anyway. Peace. Bye.