How Did I Get Here by Tony Hawk, Pat Hawk Page A

did it with Tum Yeto, and Jamie Thomas did it with Zero. In the surf world, Richard Woolcott did it with Volcom, and Conan Hayes did it with RVCA.
    I jumped into a venture once with that kind of potential. It was a denim company started by Jade Howe, a surfer and former Quiksilver designer who’d launched his own line of über-fresh pants and shirts—a look that would ultimately be copied by dozens of established denim companies.
    But this story is not about success. It’s a cautionary tale about a venture that cost me a lot of money and ultimately caused me to sever ties with my original business partner, Per Welinder. But I still look back on it as a worthwhile effort with great potential—and as a valuable lesson.
    Per and I had started Birdhouse skateboards back in 1992, then added Blitz Distribution. Through Blitz, we helped to finance and market start-up skate companies and nurtured a few skate teams.
    The Birdhouse team and brand was my primary business interest for more than 15 years. Obviously, I know from experience what it’s like to live the life of a sponsored pro, living from one royalty check to the next. So I always tried hard to treat our teams with respect, and to make sure the riders got paid what they deserved. For several years, I put my own royalty checks (from the sales of the various products with my name on it) back into the company so we could keep the business afloat and pay the team.
    How to Build a Buzz
    In 2002, after a run of profitable years, Per pitched the idea of getting into the denim-apparel business. Howe was a great designer, and we had room in our warehouse and office for his inventory and small staff. We decided to invest and become his partners as a way of expanding and diversifying the business.
    Both Per and I believed deeply in Jade’s talent as a designer; he was way ahead of his time. I used to wear his stuff all the time, especially to high-profile events and during television appearances. Per initially limited distribution to trendsetting boutique retailers with reputations for carrying the hippest city-chic streetwear—places like Fred Segal and Maxfield in Los Angeles. Other buyers nationwide monitor such stores, and Hollywood stylists scour them to outfit their actors.
    Howe began to build a buzz right away. (I truly believe Jade should get credit for the last decade’s widespread trend to stitch off-center gothic graphics on shirts, as well as the vertical-stripe look that came to dominate clubs around the same time.) His stuff was progressive, and it was expensive. Maybe a little too much of both.
    Within a year Howe’s sales rocketed to $1 million and continued to climb. But the brand’s overhead and manufacturing costs were so high we could never pull a profit. In fact, in the 15 years that we ran Blitz, no other company sucked cash the way Howe did. Blitz was doing more than $20 million in annual sales at the time, and Per had always done a good job of controlling overhead for skateboards and accessories. And even though the skate brands were doing well, Blitz was showing net losses—all because of a single apparel line.
    It was becoming apparent that we knew skateboards, but we didn’t know apparel. Most of Blitz’s experience in that realm had been with T-shirts and hoodies, and that was easy: You buy blank, ready-made shirts from somebody else and simply silk-screen your own graphics on them.
    Now, we were suddenly in the high-end clothing business— terra incognita. You need designers, pattern makers, garment workers, custom fabrics, buttons, zippers—the list goes on and on. I knew from the early days at Hawk Clothing that this was going to be a difficult business, but I had no idea how difficult. Making skateboards and skate accessories is like baking cookies: a few ingredients and a simple recipe. High-end apparel, in comparison, is a six-course gourmet meal.
    Jade started to get discouraged because he wanted a bigger marketing budget and a wider