This guy at the Seattle Times did an email interview with me for an article, then didn’t use any of it for the article. I did all the work of answering the questions, figure may as well post it up here. Enjoy.
Tell a little about yourself. Age, where you grew up, where you went to high school. College?
My name is Ben, I am 40 years old. I grew up in Marysville for the most part, went to Pilchuck for year, then to Tannum Sands High School in Queensland, Australia, before finishing off high school via Running Start at Everett Community College. I went to college at Western, graduated with a BA in Philosophy and Classical Greek, then went on to get my Masters in Elementary Mathematics Education via WGU.
What kind of work did you do before starting your business?
I had a number of jobs before starting Pops, but most recently was an elementary school teacher, which remains my career to this day.
Why did you decide to start it?
My friend had owned a skateshop in Marysville until about 2003, but since then there hadn’t been a stable shop. There had been a few attempts made but I don’t think any of them lasted more than a year or maybe two. Snohomish County has a strong skateboarding scene and we felt that the culture here needed a shop of their own.
What apprehensions did you have? What did your relatives, spouse, friends advise or warn you?
My wife is is rad, she was excited about getting this thing going. We both had concerns, primarily around how much time this would take from our lives, but in the end we figured it would work out. Most stuff does one way or the other. My kids were hyped. The people in my life were generally supportive.
What kind of planning did you do? What sort of research? As you looked into starting this new venture, were you vacillating about going ahead?
As I said, the person who got this thing rolling with me, had owned a shop beforehand, so he had a good idea of the basics. The skateboarding community is also tightly nit, so we had a lot of advice and help from other owners in the area. The owner of Black Market has helped us out in a number of ways, the owners of 35th Ave in Federal Way hooked us up with some much needed infrastructure. In particular, our friend Zac Garza up at the Unknown in Bellingham was massively helpful in a number of ways. He’s the best. I don’t think there was much vacillation once the project was underway.
How much money did you figure you’d need to start, and how much did you actually have on hand?
I was advised to have 20k on hand to get going, that was in the ballpark of were the start up costs ended up.
Did you end up taking a loan or borrowing from friends?
No.
Tell me about the prep work you did.
We had to get inventory, which took a lot of leg work via phone and email with various distributions. The space itself needed a ton of work fundamentally, half the store has a concrete floor which we polished and sealed, the other half was just sub flooring. We fixed holes in the drywall, painted, installed new lighting fixtures. We installed slat wall to hang products, brought in display cases, built or bought racks on which to hang boards. I could go on and on and it’s never actually stopped being being a project.
Did you need to deal with city or other government agencies? What was that like?
Getting licensed and insured wasn’t too much of an issue. It has clarified the way in which Washington’s reliance on regressive tax income, such as a nearly 10% sales tax in many counties including Snohomish County, is a burden on lower income residents and smaller businesses. A person on limited income having to pay an extra $10 for every $100 is massively impactful, people are often at the register on their phones moving money around to make it happen. On our end, we are already in stiff competition with online retailers, so raising our prices to cover the additional cost is a precarious strategy. So dealing with that aspect of government was educational. I think taxation is a necessary component of modern society, but the way Washington structures their taxes, particularly their dependence on property and sales taxes, has a significantly greater impact on small businesses and middle and lower income residents.
On a more positive note, the city of Everett has done some really cool things. They opened up a plaza on Wetmore to skating, which is cool in that they didn’t have to spend any money on a new park, it shows appreciation for a significant aspect of a youth based culture in their city, and it causes more people to engage with civic infrastructure in a positive way. Very few cities around the world have done anything like it, so it’s rad to see them as part of a movement away from fear based criminalization of a recreational activity and a reversal of some of the stereotypes skateboarders have dealt with for decades. They are also working on several small skatepark projects incorporated into existing public parks. This is cool too for the sake that it provides more spaces for more people to engage with skateboarding in a space that is welcoming to their friends and families as well, and in a way that maximizes the cities budget. Definitely love to see more cities checking out what Everett is doing in that regard.
When did you start the business?
December 2020.
What were the initial problems you hadn’t predicted?
I predicted all of the problems and they all came true.
What were those first months like? Were you losing money at the beginning? When did you start to break even? What is your income now?
The initial months were during the last year of the pandemic, so they were interesting to say the least. Everyone masked up, wary of going outside. Skateboarding was actually enjoying a period of increased popularity as it was something that could be done individually and outside. There was also a novelty to the project, being a new shop in town. So that got us through that first winter, which is known to be a very slow period for our industry. In general, the skateshop has basically broken even year after year, which includes the income made by the people working behind the counter.
How many employees do you have? Had you ever managed employees? What were the biggest hurdles?
We tend to keep one employee at a time. It is a part time job, they work while I am at school, then either I or my wife, who is also a teacher, go in to close up on afternoons and work weekends. I had previously managed employees in a different lifetime as a mortgage broker in Seattle, so I had some experience, but it’s a lot different when it’s one person, usually someone I’ve know beforehand. The struggle there is balancing the relationship of being a friend and an employer. I love my people, but the shop opens at noon! Be on time!
How have you dealt with health insurance for yourself, for employees?
As I said, it’s a part time job in an establishment with tight margins, we have not yet been able to provide health care for anyone. I’d love to do so, but I also feel that residents of Washington and of the United States ought to have access to healthcare strictly on the basis of paying taxes. It would be a simple yet extremely profound way of demonstrating the value of government to the people who pay for it in a society where that value is often unclear. Unfortunately, the privatization of health care makes certain people extremely wealthy, and it is those people who both control the media driven narrative around universal healthcare and fund the campaigns of our political representatives.
Was there any point in the business when you thought of calling it quits? Why did you keep going?
No. As I said, Pops is here for the culture of skateboarding in Snohomish County and beyond, we’re in it for the long haul. We keep going because otherwise a lot of people in our area would be stuck with mall shops and online shopping. Some people, astoundingly, still choose to use such evil monopolistic edifices of corporate greed, but we’ll be here when they are ready to come home.
What are the biggest rewards you’ve gotten?
Every time we set up someone’s first board is the best. Acting as a gathering place for people meeting up to go skate. Bringing in artists to make amazing stuff for our brand. My five year old daughter actually designed a shirt we just put out, which is the coolest thing ever. Hosting contests and events around the county, bringing people together from all over the state. We made a video, big shout out to Jefferson and Austin for making it happen, that will be something the people that ride for us and are part of our scene can look back at for years and years to come. The people I’ve met and worked with at the shop, connecting the defining culture of my whole life in a more fundamental way. Reconnecting with old friends in a way that never would have happened without the shop.The list goes on and on, there’s been plenty of difficulties, but it’s been amazing all the way through.
What would be 3 things you’d tell someone thinking about ditching their company job and going on their own?
1. Move to a warm climate.
2. Find a cave near a beach.
3. Learn how to spear fish with a sharpened stick.
If you meant opening your own businesses, I guess the following might be slightly more helpful.
1. I know a lot of people who have opened myriad varieties of businesses, almost none of them made almost any money for a very long time. Either save up a year’s salary or more, or be ready to somehow work both jobs until you can switch over.
2. Anything very likely to make lots of money costs lots of money to open, so if you want to open anything involving booze you’re gonna pay for it up front. If you want to pursue something you love, make sure you love it fundamentally, it has to be more than just that it’s your favorite thing to do. After all, if you turn your favorite thing to do in your free time into your job, what are you going to do for fun? You have to care about its existence outside of your participation.
3. If your thinking about it, you should do it. The fact is, our culture insists that it is totally normal to spend most hours of every day, most days of every week, most weeks of every year, working for someone else. That’s a fairly new dynamic, and it’s actually kind of insane. I think if society continues to exist for a few hundred more years they will look back on this era with something like horror, or at least confusion. So either find a job you love and feel is meaningful and important and where you are properly valued, or create that job for yourself. It’s hard, but lots of stuff is hard, may as well do something worth doing.
Anything else that’d show readers something bout yourself and your business?
We’re the best skateshop in Everett. Come say hi.
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