Starting a Skateboard Company During a Fucking Pandemic

PILLLAR Skateboards launched February 18th, 2020. On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.

Leading up to the launch, I had planned for everything; timelines, business plan, budgets, logos, board and apparel designs, website, imagery, marketing, launch party, video. EVERYTHING! 

If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s planning.

But apparently the thing I didn’t take into account, the thing I didn’t plan for, the thing that I must’ve overlooked, or maybe it was the chapter that I skipped when reading all of the “how to start a business” books, is the world turning completely upside down and the declaration of a global-fucking-pandemic. 

So what do you do?

You suck it up, quit feeling sorry for yourself and make the best of what you do have. Your family. Your friends. Your health. Your day job. And your unyielding desire to create a company that’s bigger than yourself.

That’s what keeps me going when everything I had thought was “planned” flew out the goddamn window and I now live in a world where I maybe leave my house once every three days to buy some food, get some fresh air and of course skate.

It’s the same thing that drove me to leave the last company I had worked for and to start PILLLAR in the first place; to highlight the skateboarders and skateboarding community and to show that they are more than how they are stereotypically portrayed and that they care more about this planet and what happens to it than they’re given credit for.

PILLLAR ain’t stopping and neither am I.

I can’t thank you all enough for the orders, for the engagement, for the videos, for the support, for everything you have done to keep this dream alive when everything else seems to be burning the fuck down.

Lots more to come.