Beginnings: Strategy is Key to Success and Growth Ahead

Welcome to the EC Blog!

Here we’ll share the lessons and stories we've gathered throughout our journey, aiming to inspire fellow entrepreneurs. If our experiences help just one person, we consider it a success. As one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Gary Vaynerchuk says, “One is better than none”.

Let me take you back to our first business venture—a skate shop in a small town. It was a niche business in a small community, requiring strategic decisions that led to both great wins and significant failures. But those failures were not in vain. We learned, adapted, and ultimately thrived with something no one thought possible: a skateboard shop in a small southern town.

In 2002, at just 20 years old, I had the exciting yet nerve-racking idea of opening a skate shop in the vibrant town of Rome, GA, which I named SKATELIFE. It was a thrilling ride filled with challenges, triumphs, and invaluable lessons about running a business, mastering logo design, effective marketing, and understanding entrepreneurship—not just for myself, but for my employees and the wider community.

When I started, I had neither money nor business knowledge, just a burning itch for entrepreneurship. After meeting some skate shop owners and seeing what they’d built, a light bulb went off, and the hustle began. With no money, I had to think outside the box. My first challenge was getting funds to buy products. Thankfully, my mother believed in me and lent me $2,000. Paired with side jobs, I built some capital—hurdle one, done. Next, I needed products, so I leveraged my network and reached out to a skate shop owner who helped me get what I needed—hurdle two, done.

But while trying to secure funding and products, I never stopped doing the most crucial thing for any business owner: networking. I was a skateboarder passionate about creating a space for others like me, so I connected with the best skaters in Rome. They bought into my vision—why couldn’t we have a place for us in our beautiful small town? With a little money, some products, and customers who believed in my mission, I hit the ground running.

Every step of the way, I had a plan. Some plans failed, others thrived, but I always considered my options. If I could reach point C, what would point D look like? What were the possible outcomes—the wins and losses? Business is like a game of chess, one of my favorite games. Building a strategy is crucial, and you always have to think two steps ahead.

This strategic thinking took me from a scared 20-year-old to where I am now. I could go on about how I went from selling skateboards out of my car to opening a storefront, building an indoor skatepark, opening a storefront in our local mall, losing the skatepark due to circumstances out of our control, relocating the mall store to Rome’s beautiful downtown, and eventually selling the business. I could also go on how I helped my mother structure her business after she and my father split their business after getting divorced, or how I got into recruiting and worked with some amazing people along the way. I’ll break down those steps and lessons in future posts, but for now, remember this: strategy is key.

I had the pleasure and privilege of owning SKATELIFE for 13 years, and even after selling it in 2015, I continue to apply the lessons I learned during that time to all my current endeavors.

Learn, improve, and always think ahead to future possibilities.

Navigating small business growth is unlike anything else—it's rewarding, stressful, and life-changing.