STUFF MEETS
ELECTRIC SKATEBOARD BRAND EVOLVE’S FOUNDER ON PLANS, BEAN CANS AND CAMPER VANS
Evolve was born out of my love of skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding… and also a chance sighting of a guy on an early electric skateboard.
Istarted skating when Iwas eight. Then at 10 Iwatched The Search for Animal Chin, alegendary skate video, and Iwas hooked. But it was always just for fun –at 14 Igot into surfing, then cricket, and later snowboarding. Icame back from my first boarding trip and saw aguy skating on the flat but not pushing – Iwasn’t sure how he was doing it, but on acloser look Isaw it was an electric skateboard. Ihadn’t even known they existed until then; but Iinstantly knew that with one of these, living on the Gold Coast where it’s sunny all year, Icould skate all the time.
Ididn’tsetouttostartmyown company – I just wanted a decent electric skateboard.
Ibought one and, while it was a lot of fun, it was rubbish quality and there was no authenticity with regard to longboard or skateboard design. Idecided Iwanted to take the electrics off this board and put them on aproper one. At the time Iwas a structural landscaper, so no background in electronics, but I did have a vision for aconcept.
I made a template from a baked bean can and some cardboard, and took this to a local fabricator.
Iknew Ineeded a special gear that would lock into the wheels. Itook some 97mm Sector 9 wheels from aboard Ihad and went from there. Six weeks later Ibolted it all together and it worked… much better than the board I originally brought.
When my surf mates saw the new board, the five of them all asked me to make them one.
I’m good at getting shit done, so Igot started straight away. The first hurdle was getting enough Sector 9wheels so I called Billabong, who own the company, and asked if Icould buy 10 sets at awholesale price. I couldn’t believe it when they invited me to their HQ and said they wanted a look.
Sector 9’s brand manager had a go on my board and thought it was the best thing ever.
Imet his boss, and they were all frothing at the mouth. Iknew nothing about meetings like this, but it did force me to find electrics on abigger scale and look at the numbers –they wanted to get costs down and setup a licence agreement.
It was a kick in the guts when they decided they weren’t ready to take it to market a
