The ugly underside of starting and running a skateshop is paperwork and the "business" of running a shop. It's unfortunate, but you've got to take care of it or it will take care of you in a bad way. The good news is that while it can seem overwhelming and confusing at first, once you get through it all it's really not that bad. What I'm talking about is all the basic stuff like business licenses, permits, reseller numbers, accounting, and the like.

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You're serious. You've got the money. Before you start contacting companies to buy stuff you're going to need a few other things, one of which is a location. Now, you don't actually need to have a location leased and built out, but you will at least need to have a location identified and you will need to do your best to prove to the companies that you've got everything in place to move in, you're just waiting to get the inventory because you don't want to pay rent for three months before you have anything to sell.

That might work with some companies, and it might not with others. Most companies would prefer that you've got a spot with a sign on it before they start shipping you goods. But if all else fails, tell them you'll pay $10K in cash up front on the first order and that should do it.

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Per request after my last starting a skateshop tip, here's my philosophy on raising the money to start a skate shop.

You've got two options--debt, or equity financing.

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Alright kids, here's the bad news--you can't start a skateshop without a bunch of money. I know someone who started a shop with $40K that he put on credit cards, but that's pretty risky. Not only will that not be enough money for most of you to successfully get a shop up and running, but putting it on credit cards is going to ruin your credit and you'll be stuck with some outrageous interest rates.

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You're looking at the inside of Trickwood skateshop in Washington. Click on the photo above to see a much larger version.

So far, that is the closest I've seen to what I want the interior of Sublimited to look like. Others have come 80% of the way there, but this is just about 100%.

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We've created a new section over at MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com just for people who want to buy skateboard decks in bulk. Some of the graphics are pretty lame, but it's all the same good wood as the blanks we're selling, and for as little as $13 a pop the price is hard to beat. Pick up a box of griptape in bulk while you're at it.

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Finally! I present you with the launch of MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com. This is the first of hopefully many related projects for Sublimited Skateshops.

At MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com we sell lots of blank skateboard products like blank decks, blank wheels, griptape, bearings, and hardware. We also sell some graphic decks and graphic wheels when we have 'em.

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We're going to give away ten free blank decks to people who respond to this survey. It doesn't matter what your answers are, as long as they're real answers and not just stuff you made up to fill out the survey. We'll take all the people who submit reasonable answers and pick ten at random and then send them an email letting them know they won and asking where to send the deck to, so make sure you enter a valid email address.

The reason I ask these questions is because we're considering opening an online store selling blank products, but we're trying to do a little research first. We've already got the domain registered at www.myblankskateboarddeck.com, but as of yet nothing is set up there.

1. Do you buy blank decks? Why or why not?

2. If you buy blank decks, how often do you buy a new deck?

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Ha, I finally found some photos of another skateshop's interior that come fairly close to what I'm envisioning for Sublimited's first location. The shop is Lockwood Skateshop in Antwerp (or Antwerpen), Belgium.

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Man, I must be even better at search engine optimization than I thought. Yesterday DC Shoes Clothing dot-com read "under construction" on it. Today I started building out the site and it's already up to #16 on Google when you search for the keywords "dc shoes clothing". By the time you click on this link it may have moved even higher.

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Ok, I've been working almost all day on setting up a Yahoo Store for DCShoesClothing.com and the first thing I have to say is that it's a lot more work than I thought it would be.

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Ok, just got the call from Mike at DC Shoes and I'm approved to place orders and start selling stuff. I've bought the domain www.dcshoesclothing.com and I'm going to set up a Yahoo! Store and start selling stuff there first.

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In the near future we will be opening our online skateshop. In the meantime, we'd be interested in hearing any suggestions you have for it.

If you buy from online skateshops we'd like to hear from you. Here are some questions to get you started, but feel free to give us any comments you might have.

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But there's more to ULINE than just custom printing your logo on tape.

You also need boxes to put stuff in and stuff to put in with the other stuff so the first stuff doesn't get damaged. See, when you were starting your online shop you didn't put this all in your business plan did you? But it all adds up.

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So you want to seal your boxes shut with tape that has your logo on it before you ship them out but don't know where to find it? Well, neither did I until Mike the chef helped me out, and now I pass the secret on to you.

http://www.uline.com/CustomStaticCartonTape.asp

It's nice to know that people approve of you. I just got approval from DLXSF the other day to start buying and selling their stuff. That means that through them I can get Real, Thunder, Spitfire, Indy, Venture, Krooked, Anti-Hero, and Rasa Libre.

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Yesterday I attended a hotel show in Salt Lake City. It was somewhat different than what I wrote in a previous post about it.

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So much of starting a skateshop revolves around developing relationships with the sales reps who are going to take care of you. Anything you can do to meet these people in person and get to know them is going to help. One event you can take advantage of is the "hotel show."

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As I'm going through the motions of starting a skateshop, there are little valuable tidbits I learn each day. I'm going to start calling these "tips" and list them here for the benefit of the three people who ever visit this website.

Tip #1 - Be Serious.

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People keep asking if we at Sublimited think we can run a shop that doesn't sell anything but skateboard stuff. "What about during the winter? How will you survive in Utah or anywhere else outside of California without selling snowboards?"

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If you've ever wanted to start a skateshop, allow me to inform you a bit about what it takes. Everybody and their mom wants to start a skateshop at some point, but they usually give up once they figure out how much work it takes.

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Ha, I just the business license for Sublimited from the nice people with the city of...well, I don't want to give away to the world the exact location of the first Sublimited shop just yet.

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This is where we will post information about the Sublimited chain of skateshops.

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