Page 94 - Sorry, We're Not Hiring Any Visionaries Today

SORRY, WE’RE NOT HIRING ANY VISIONARIES TODAY
cigarettes, and when he saw me and heard my idea for a skateshop, he said, “Sure, I’ll rent you the store for $350 a month.” I told him I could afford that. Stephen, one of my friends who was a computer engineer, became partners with me. We put in something like $1,000 each to start.
My first shop was named Skateboard Central. And that was at 338 Lonsdale, and that was my first taste of business. But truthfully, I was more of a skater than a businessman. There was a note on the door that explained our work/life philosophy. When we were closed, if you wanted to buy a skate, you had to go all the way to North Vancouver and pick me up at the local skatepark. I’d come to the store, open it up, sell you the skate, and the customer would have to drive me back to the skatepark.
I didn’t make a lot of money doing Skateboard Central. But I did make enough money to pay rent. I was up there for about a year. After that, I decided to do it seriously. But I had to start from scratch, again. I began by selling stuff out of my closet because skateboarding was in a horrible economic state.
At the time, there was practically nobody who wanted to buy skateboards. They closed down Northwest Skateboards and so I had no job. But I had some connections because I answered the phone at Northwest Skateboards. I knew Tom Sims and Rich Novak (Santa Cruz/Independent Trucks).
At one point, I drove my van down to California. I told all the skateboard com- panies I was going to come down. Since the skateboarding business was in the toilet, anybody would accept any dollar they could.
I decided to open a new shop and call it California Streets. Thankfully, I was welcomed down there. I saved a lot of money by selling skateboards out of my closet.
I went to Vans, and I met Steve Van Doren. Vans was going out of business at that time. It was only me, Steve and the whole warehouse. He turned to me and said, “Rick, this whole section is all the Vans shoes that nobody ever picked up. It’s all the custom ones.” He sold them to me for $5 a pair. So I
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