Ski Builders Forum

Interesting article, change "suits" to "Skis/Boards" and I believe you have a pretty accurate business model and why this is a difficult business:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/magaz ... inCdnQHMgQ

Excellent article. It raises a couple questions like what's wrong making a living at something as opposed to a killing? There seems to be this idea in America that if it's not a million dollar idea or product it's not worth doing. And if the guy is wearing shorts and T-shirt, why not make a custom T-shirt at $50? One big difference between the $4000 suit and a custom ski is a custom ski can sell for about the same price range as a top of the line commercial ski. Obviously the profit margins in the small custom ski business is smaller than the big guys but the pricing is competitive. Problem the custom ski builder has is getting a guy to drop $1500 for his skis instead of Heads because Bodie skis on Heads so they must be better. It's tough from a lot of angles.

50k/ yr is not so bad unless you live in NYC I guess.

If I could make 50k/ yr making skis on a small scale I'd quit my current gig in a heartbeat.

One of the major troubles of making a "living" is that your margin is so fragile.
If you're making 50K a year and you have a major expense or a bad year, your "living" suddenly isn't looking so healthy.
I guess if you're making a good living or a lot you are in some ways safer (but not always).

Without capitalization, we're all stuck having to market our "hand crafted" businesses better or die. Although in this economy maybe we can't even afford to die on 50k a year . There's just no resiliency at this level of work...one materials shipment gets misplaced/lost and that's IT.

No doubt the margins are thin. Man, money is spent the day it is deposited. More tools, more plastic, more resin. A few extra bucks makes an R&D try. Then squeeze a trip out.

I've priced it out, me and another guy making are good for making maybe 10 decks a day at 6 days a week at 52 weeks a year, thats like 3000 decks. Unfortunately, not reality. The next problem is that everyone wants to pay in September and receive Nov 15 for commercial, Dec 1 for individuals. That gives me a 6 to 8 week window of hell on earth and a way less than 3k boards.

If it wasn't for us building our machines and digging up base grinders from shop basements, actually buying a press on the open market and all the related machinery it would have to be 500k or more. 100k if you find deal of the week on used stuff.

To start from scratch, a $100k snowboard factory, building clients, paying for overhead and paying down debt like a normal business... forget it. Our shop, a wake, water ski, snow, and ski boat repair garage costs about 5k just to open the doors per month.

I'm going to save myself the effort and fill out an application for the tv shows gigolos instead.

Prospectsnow - Nicely put! I bet everyone here has run the numbers at one time or another. My numbers told me to keep my day job :-)

skidesmond wrote:Prospectsnow - Nicely put! I bet everyone here has run the numbers at one time or another. My numbers told me to keep my day job :-)

This haha. I'm just gonna keep making skis for myself and close friends. If it works out it works out.