Skate Mod Introduction

[Skate Mod 4]

Since my arrival to this forum I created some controversy, I will share some of my bio so things are more clear.

I’m not a rep, never worked in the hockey industry in my life, also not a pro player, I could keep up with pros in a shinny game (well 5 years a go before a spine injury) now I just skate once a month for testing purposes. But if you are from Toronto area it doesn’t say much, we have thousands that can keep up with the pros in a non-contact shinny game. The advantage is in testing, I don’t have to guess if it’s my lack of ability or it’s the design of a skate. That’s why they always start testing skates on pro players first, to take out the guesswork.

In the past 15 years as I skated 3-5 times per week I conducted many experiments and reverse engineered skates to a point where I know most of the materials that are used today and were used previously, who makes them, most production methods and all intellectual property (IP) that was ever filled by all major skate brands and even smaller guys with crazy skate ideas.

Reading patents is not that hard, but the key is understanding it from an engineering point of view and being able to tell what is smart and logical IP and skate design, what is dumb and useless IP filing where its lateral improvement just to be different and not better.

Thousands of people file patents each day in all kinds of categories based on what they think would work without actual tests so a lot of it based on pure drawings, which is almost useless unless it’s something where computer simulation on the design can be 100% accurate.

In the past two years I’ve put together two projects:

(Insert an NHL Team name) Lab, this was a proposal for one individual NHL team to invest in their own hockey skate development, based on Formula 1 principle by breaking the “Even field of competition” rule, where money is no object, mass production is not an issue, lets develop the most advanced hockey skate ever made in order to win the Stanley Cup.

I did a lot of preparation and research for the project by interacting with people that have much higher skill set then your typical industrial designers that work in our industry, so solving issues related to hockey skate design would have been an easier task for them since they work in industries with far more complex problems and get paid much higher salaries as well and most importantly there was no issue with mass production to deal with so we can really go crazy on complex designs that would be impossible or too expensive to produce on mass scale.

It was aimed at an NHL owner who’s not a big fan of the Salary Cap and wanted to win by any means necessary. I knew it was a long shot, since there are many issues with this type of approach. I’m sure all of you can come up with your own list why it would never work. I had solutions to every problem that would come up for short-term success only; long term there would be too many issues where it could spill into the same thing as Formula 1 where the battle among teams on how much each team can spend on innovation still continues. This type of project would require a Jerry Jones or Robert Craft type of owner that walks the fine line of competitive advantage and is willing to spend any amount to win. We don’t have that type of owner in NHL, so all the teams I talked to passed on the project. A couple of owners were in, but their GM’s were not in, GM’s are in survival mode all the time, so it’s understandable.

The second project I put together is a start up of a hockey skate company via traditional manufacturing all made in Asia, very similar approach to Mission Hockey, so no focus on full blown custom division and full R&D division (way too costly as a start up), but a lot of emphasis on Intellectual Property filling, not just skates, but other categories as well, because without smart IP no one can survive in our industry for more then 3-4 years as far as high end category goes and significant market share. Mission had very smart IP, they lacked full time engineering on weight optimization and full time material resourcing, because of lack of a full-blown R&D division and time management. So their skates always had good design implementation but were never fully optimized to its max potential yet they still made a big dent in the industry.

My skate would be made with similar strategy, which is to fill a loophole that is present today, where the high-end model is engineered for NHL guys yet at consumer level it’s too stiff of a skate for most people to use and the overall ideology on design, production methods and direction even for lower end models is still based on designs and strategy that works for NHL players.

It’s always better to release a skate that more consumers can use since this is where most of the revenue comes in, yet it has to be decent enough to be used in NHL as well. The only way to grab both markets with one single design is it would have to break down much faster at the NHL level.

Something along the lines of old 8090 model on the stiffness factor, where it broke down very quick at a pro level, there were still enough NHL players using it and it was soft enough for consumers to enjoy it for one season. My skate would retail around $500 but would be built from components that are usually present on high end models, as far as outsole, midsole, liner, tongue…

We all know without NHL players using it no one will buy anything, so this dilemma is always there for manufacturers as far as where to allocate resources and who’s more important.  Mission had a good balance of not catering too much to NHL players yet still had enough players using their skates while they also grabbed a big market share at a consumer level, that’s only because of smart skate designs and overall approach of what is worth pursuing from both time management and resource allocation and what is not worth it.

So I had two design strategies based on how much a potential investor is willing to put up in the beginning:

1) Radical concept ideas tried during first stages of prototyping, if they worked well then it would require more complex production method, more money for production molds, more IP filling, but also competing with Bauer and CCM right away with a better skate yet at a better price point because I can afford to make less then a large corporation with huge overhead and big payrolls.

2) Since some ideas were radical, if during prototyping it did not work 100% to my satisfaction, or too costly to produce, then switch gears and release a safer model, with more traditional design ideas using some smart expired skate IPs that everybody forgot about with some tweaks and improvements on these ideas and still compete with Bauer and CCM but very quietly, not too much advertising, no approach to NHL players, just staying in the back round based on word of mouth strategy and slowly trying to sell 20,000 pairs per year, specially in Europe where it’s far less noticeable, until I generate enough money to go back to Radical design ideas, since most of the stumbling blocks with radical designs are usually in mass production and cost of mass production and not the actual prototypes.

Creating a better skate as a prototype even though is very challenging, is doable. Mass production is where the handcuffs get really tight and a lot of creative ideas die, because of cost of tooling or complexity of molds or long production periods per each skate. So a large corporation with large payroll that needs high returns can’t innovate the same way as a smaller private company can with one owner unless they are happy with small returns or 100% confident that they can overcharge and increase their market size. If not which is the case with hockey that means they might drop a lot of complex design and ideas in favor of more simplified and cheaper production methods geared towards extremely large production volumes. Where as I can live with higher cost of molds, slower production methods, smaller volumes as long as the skate is a superior design and has some protection via IP filling just to be 10% better.

I pitched that project to everybody from the hockey industry and outside as well, also knew it was a long shot since not that many people would invest 4-5 million dollars in a plan on a piece of paper.

This start up project also got no traction, there were interested parties but only if I had prototypes and IP filling which could be in the range of $300,000 - $500,000 to get to that point if we’re going for more radical ideas right from the start. It’s safe to say if I had a functional prototype and IP, finding investors would not be an issue at all.

This is why no one can penetrate the high end skate market, wealthy enough people don’t know about skate engineering to understand it or put together the right team in place and focus on specific designs, so they usually buy existing companies without any clue what to do next. Where as poor guys like me don’t have the money to get to a stage where wealthy people would give it a much closer look.

Fast-forward to today, no more people left to pitch my project too.

I’m currently doing preparation for a crowd-funding project, where the goal would be “Pay It Forward” type approach, so people would invest in a skate (just on paper no actual prototype) knowing that the first version they’ll get for $500 might not be that good unless I raise 5 million dollars without disclosing actual specific skate designs publicly which is unlikely. If I could not find investors privately with a full plan that explains all the engineering parts and current flaws in the industry, I’m not convinced a more slimmed down public version would accomplish better results.

So the most likely scenario I can hope for is probably finding 1000 people and raising $500,000, that means I would have to use some existing Asian factory molds and tooling based of their cheaper models, that means a lot less improvements can be done on the first model, so the skate they’ll get will not be worth the $500 they would pay for it. But they’ll help push the company forward.

They are practically investing in an idea of having another company enter the space so there is more verity for the next generation.

And the charity aspect would have to continue after the end of the campaign as well convincing people to buy my skates for $500 so I can generate enough revenue for better versions and more complex designs.

The overall goal is not just to built a successful skate company, but to shake up the skate industry upside down and focus their direction into skate designs that actually make us skate better and less focus on skates that are super light, are cheap and easy to mass produce but create so many issues where it even forced NHL players into wearing something like a hobby skate made by VH with zero engineering behind it.

All of today’s mass produced skates are too simplified in design and production methods so we lost a lot of people because of that strategy. These people simply gave up on the sport too early either from cost, or lack of good boot design that works for people with poor ability to hold edges and learn quick enough to stick with it for long term. We need to make a skate for people with weak ankle strength that will never develop good ankle strength because of their biology, we don’t have that at the moment, so we’re loosing a lot of people.

VH is kind of following that skate design model of very anatomical shape, but without any expertise on overall skate design, material property, geometry or mass production. It’s a hobby at best and will stay that way.

Bauer or CCM won’t change their strategy unless someone takes at least 20% of retail market share from them, then they’ll try to buy them out first since it’s cheaper and less painful and no need to restructure the whole process of R&D and production methods which might be more costly then buying someone out.

Crowdfunding business model is far more risky at being copied since I have to disclose enough information where people would believe that I could come up with something better without an actual prototype or too many details on specific design.

It’s not how I wanted to go about things, since I know how fast Bauer can capitalize on “light bulb ideas”, case and point the QuikBlade Holder was copied and became an Edge holder because Rick (the inventor) did not optimize the design well enough and sat on one single mold size trying to find investors or skate manufacturers to buy it, so he was left in the dust very quickly.

But at this stage of my life I’m a bit arrogant where even if I go publicly, which I’m already doing by posting on this forum, I think I can still produce a better skate then Bauer even with all of their R&D expertise, if only I had sufficient funds.

And it’s not because I think I’m smarter the them, it’s because my approach is not based on pure 100% Intellectual Property or nothing else, it’s based on making the best possible skate, so that means combing old ideas that we simply can’t improve on, adding new ideas where we can improve, not simplifying things too much to save cost and not worrying about releasing skates that can only be patented 100% from all angles of the design, just enough IP to have only 10% advantage is more then enough to be successful at retail.

If Scott Van Horne has gotten that far without any knowledge on hockey skate engineering or scaling production, I think I can go much further.

So my goal in my crowd funding presentation would be to publicly expose a lot of flaws in current skate designs, expose flaws in production methods, their cost of production and every other flaw in their strategy on how and why we got to this point of a big drop in hockey participation from young people….

Some of these issues (not all) are purely from skate design and financial strategy build around specific skate design or to be more precise lack of understanding skate design at an executive level and flawed business strategy around these designs.

Which is why both Bauer and CCM were sold in the past year and dropped their company value by at least half, and their value will drop by another half in the next 5 years.

What they don’t realize is they are all in the same boat, if participation goes down because of their highly competitive nature to beat each other up, all of them will go down with the same ship.

The biggest advantage we have today is in the past 20 years Bauer and Easton spend so much money and time in trying out ideas, material combos, designs going into many different directions without any real focus from the top…. they really did everybody a favor in narrowing down what works in the skate design and what doesn’t.

So starting out today for a new comer like me is so much easier and cheaper then 20 years a go. I can simply go back to any skate past or present where I liked something about it from an engineering point of view or liked how certain material felt when you flex the boot, I can look at their IP to see what is covered what is not covered, what is expired what is too close and not worth copying, and simply start working on improvements right away without wasting millions in getting to a starting position and figuring out what thickness I should start with, where to get that material, what density I should start with. All these tiny details in figuring out millimeters and tens of millimeters could cost millions of dollars if the company has no knowledge on the engineering side.

That’s why CCM sits and waits, then reverse engineers Bauer skates so no wasted cost on Prototyping too much. This works well for CCM only because there is no real third competitor on mass production scale, if there was one, they would be diluted very quickly since they have no real innovation strategy, their rise to fame is purely based on elimination of Easton and Mission from the market place, the same way as VH is getting any traction, it’s simply something different then Bauer. So CCM;s strategy is if Bauer makes a stiff skate, lets make a softer skate, they are simply following a strategy of lets be different rather then lets be better.

So at this point anyone with 5 million bucks can come in and shove CCM a side by simply trying out old ideas with newer materials and small improvements, which is what they have been doing all this time.

I hope now you understand my view of True/VH, because of my understanding of the skate industry from inside out from every angle.

So taking them seriously would be a real disservice. Without a skate with production numbers of 50,000+ pairs per year at a consumer level since there is no real revenue in catering to pro players, it’s a hobby and will stay a hobby, and judging by the funky color schemes they are now offering just to keep a lid on a failed business model, is prime example where it’s going to end up, on Etsy.

No one starts a skate company backwards by making a skate first, starting to produce it in small numbers then figuring out a long the way how to mass produce it without any compromises on the design, it has to be done at it’s earliest stages as early as you start to draw the design on paper and figuring out if this design is even worth prototyping or not.

The irony is True has a decent marketing team, established dealer network, R&D location in USA (stick based) not sure what it actually looks like from an engineering point of view – could be a hobby shop.

So they do have a lot of components in place, and enough resources where if a team of 2-3 guys was assembled specifically for skate development only, as long as there is proper long term vision and expertise on engineering part of the skate, they could give a serious run for the top spot or at least take over CCM’s share and compete with the big boys on long term basis via normal way of traditionally built skate via mass production.

But given the lack of understanding of the industry from an engineering point of view and overall misguided direction on hockey in general they bought VH, and rumor has it tried to buy other brands before VH, so the goal was lets just get in, we’ll worry about long term strategy afterwards, which never works in a long run. Warrior is slowly learning this as well since now True is taking some of their market share.

The only thing good that came out of VH is they slowly opened the door for consumers not to get fixated too much on the weight of the skate and it’s aesthetics which is a good strategy when the main goal is to focus on improving skate functionally without any compromises in design. But if no one else will hold that torch with at least 20% market share on long-term basis, the industry won’t shift in its direction.

My plan was the same, put a side weight and aesthetics and focus on pure function and feel of the skate, so it works on both sides, extreme anatomical fit and function, and it works for someone that plays 5 times per week without long term complications. Only then worry about shaving weight and aesthetics but only if it doesn’t compromise on the functionally or the fit of the skate.

Understating materials property, it’s impact on both skate design and human body over a long run is critical, which is what I tried to do in the past 15 years in learning and teaching my body to understand how one material feels vs. another material.

A Hockey skate is as much about feel as about science, because we could have two different materials with very similar mechanical properties that would show similar results during testing, but once we make a skate out of it with different geometry, one would feel good and one would feel awkward, this is where no R&D or any advanced engineer can really offer any input.

And this is why Bauer goes overboard with over engineering every two years, and then dials it back while loosing long-term participants at a consumer level along the way. A lot of high end skates from Bauer today still have some internal materials that were used 20 years a go, that’s because newer lighter stuff just doesn’t feel as good or won’t bond or wont mold properly under low temps, so the goal is always to

push new stuff on people to see if they will adopt or not.  Judging by the drop of participation we’re not adopting to newer, lighter and much stiffer materials as well as they projected and I’m not even talking about VH carbon fiber here, I’m talking about much softer materials present in High end models.

 

 

As far as my skate mods, it’s half ass, I’m breaking the most important rule of skate engineering, which is reducing lateral strength in favor of more forward flex, it’s mostly aimed at 10-16 year olds that want a high end skate, but can’t flex it, since they are not 200lb it won’t break laterally as fast as a pro player would break it, so no pro player and no real focus on pro players either. There is only so much that can be done to an existing skate that is not engineered properly, so I’m squeezing as much as I can out of it, which is about 10 % - 15% improvement

 

I welcome all criticism, including personal attacks :-)

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

[IPv6Freely 2093]

“VH is a hobby skate” completely discredits every other word of your post.

[Monty22 833]

Sweet manifesto bro. 

 Is this you?

[Skoda10 14]

I thought this was an interesting read and a refreshing change of pace from the usual posts.

Skate Mod - maybe referring to VH as a boutique manufacturer would make people take it less harshly.

 

 

[Skate Mod 4]

1 hour ago, Skoda10 said:

I thought this was an interesting read and a refreshing change of pace from the usual posts.

Skate Mod - maybe referring to VH as a boutique manufacturer would make people take it less harshly.

 

 

Perhaps you right, lets call it a boutique, except it was a boutique when it was one owner company, now it’s kind of in no man’s land, which is a boutique ideology with mass scaling approach which is the opposite of boutique and personal customization.

 

IPv6

 

My credibility has nothing to do with anything, talk to NHL EQs about the quality control of VH skates, talk to NHL players that ditched the skate, talk to experienced people that understand skate manufacturing, understand engineering, and ask their point of view on the design and overall strategy. 

Then come back here and make an argument where you can back up your point of view. The same way as I did.

[IPv6Freely 2093]

I genuinely don’t care enough. 

[jbatafuco 6]

3 hours ago, Skate Mod said:

 

My credibility has nothing to do with anything, talk to NHL EQs about the quality control of VH skates, talk to NHL players that ditched the skate, talk to experienced people that understand skate manufacturing, understand engineering, and ask their point of view on the design and overall strategy. 

 

Then come back here and make an argument where you can back up your point of view. The same way as I did.

 

What sort of things are you hearing from players and EQ managers on the VH skates?

 

Blake Wheeler is the only guy I’ve noticed go to VH and then back to his vapors, but admittedly, I don’t follow it that closely. 

 

I personally have only heard good things about the skates from the people I know that have them so I’m curious about other feedback. 

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

I would say something but I cant skate. So I will let it just go on!

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

Not sure why people who have a (potentially) legitimate alternative to the most important piece of equipment look to take shots at an established brand. You have a website and interesting content. Instead of intentionally trying to rub people the wrong way, why not just let people know that there may be something out there for them to consider? It baffles me when someone has no leverage looks to not take any opportunity to gain some. Not good business.

[start_today 770]

Nope. Not going to engage. If I'm responding to threads like this, it's time to put down the internet and go play outside. 

[boo10 323]

I'm usually willing to listen to anyone, but this just made me laugh.  Can't believe I read the whole post, but here's what I got from it....

My ideas for skate manufacturing are awesome, but nobody will invest in said ideas.......VH sucks, in spite of the fact that they have been growing market share and attracted large investment from an established player in the industry.

Uhm, okay.

[marka 526]

Howdy,

 

Fundamentally, there's no way for me to evaluate if you're someone with a real clue who isn't particularly wonderful at marketing / needs a break or if you're a crackpot with a discount smartphone, a cheap website, and a dremel tool.

Frankly, the odds are that you're a nut job.  It would be cool if you weren't, but I'm not going to give you $500 on that small chance and I seriously doubt anyone else will either.

Good luck regardless.

Mark

[Skoda10 14]

While I don't agree with everything he posted, or necessarily the way he puts things I do think VH will come to or is at an interesting crossroad.

Their current model goes against the increasing consumer mindset of if I can't get it in two days then I'm buying it elsewhere. 

And as the sales grow the wait times will likely increase causing discomfort for those customers. Just look at the recent posts in that thread, it was several I've been waiting 4 weeks and I haven't gotten a tracking number.

I'm interested to see if they plan to stay focused on (fully custom, bespoke, boutique whichever one won't offend you guys) or try to ramp up and fully compete with CCM/Bauer.

[Cavs019 708]

This reminds me of the Brooklynite guy from back in the day. 

[Monty22 833]

33 minutes ago, Cavs019 said:

This reminds me of the Brooklynite guy from back in the day. 

12KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! 

[adam14 182]

there is so much spewed nonsense and blatant ignorance in your post that I think I've lost iq points. 

the only thing I can agree with is how hard it is to compete with the big boys if you don't have the funds. but to say they are clueless in terms of developing and designing skates is the dumbest thing I've read in a couple days.

[Kgbeast 195]

I am sympathetic to Skate Model and appreciate the passion and baldness. I understand that you are not 13 years old, but find at least a couple of immature assumptions. One is that you can make an average team into an elite winner by simply replacing their skates...  I think this is a pretty hard sell to put it lightly. Two, calling established manufacturers incompetent and/or scheming bastards, rightfully or not, is like arguing with ref.. all you get is an extra 10 minutes of misconduct and take your team out of game (ala Crosby yesterday), or in your case appear a complete nut job to whomever you plead your case to (this board is a good example, or the eqms, etc). I think any further arguments on this topic here will be fruitless. Sorry, but you've shot yourself in a foot here... or more likely in the head.

[Skate Mod 4]

Ok, lets put a side all personal issues and only focus on the two most important things:

1) Would you like to see another company enter the high-end skate market?

2) Do you feel I could be that person regardless if you agree with me on any other issue, if you like or don’t like my tone or not, it’s a simple question of skate design and engineering.  Steve Jobs was a major prick and hated by many people, but he developed great products.

Timing is everything, right now the window is still open for someone to get in and stay in if they know what they are doing on both short term and long term. The trend of shrinking skate companies is also moving in the same direction in Asia. A lot of factories that can produce skates are being bought out by larger corporations or they are diversifying into other categories and reducing their expertise, tooling, molds that relate to skate development and manufacturing. Existing Bauer and CCM factories are also being protected where they don’t really want to deal with anyone else.

Right now there are still a few factories left with enough expertise on skate development, manufacturing, tooling, materials…where another company can get in, secure long term partnership and stay in business. If these remaining factories will not find a that type of company to stay in business, they’ll start shirking their operations, tooling, capabilities…

That means the only factories that will be left are the ones that produce recreational skates, so even if you have 20 million bucks to spend and partner up with a company that never developed high end skates with enough expertise on R&D, by the time you teach them how to it, and invest in additional machinery, while also trying to release a product and compete with existing “Well Oiled Machines”, the chances of success are very slim, so once this window closes, the choice will be limited for a very long time.

Cheers

[JR Boucicaut 3801]

You’re not going to use my website to personally solicit our members for money. 

[Skoda10 14]

5 hours ago, Cavs019 said:

This reminds me of the Brooklynite guy from back in the day. 

I thought the same thing. I loved that thread when he first showed up and still chuckle thinking about it.

[DarkStar50 679]

As if Bauer and CCM don't know how to design, R & D, manufacture skates.  

[JR Boucicaut 3801]

I have edited/unhidden your post in order to keep this thread going in the only way this thread will survive here; and that is technical discussion.

If I see anything about solicitation (or hear anything privately) this goes away.  

 

[Skate Mod 4]

JR Please edit as much as you can:

First of all I agree with some of your statements that it’s not a good strategy in bashing someone else’s product. I don’t like it when companies do it to each other either, but only under specific circumstances, in my situation I have no money and no existing company, that means the only way I can get anyone’s attention good or bad is to point out the flaws in the current industry, point out the flaws in the designs and strategy, then offer a solution on how my company will offer improvements and more importantly why am I qualified to accomplish this task. Once there is a company I strongly believe that action speak louder then words and the focus has to shift in proving that theory.

That’s why I wrote a long introduction, because I already anticipated a lot of the questions that would come up if I simply said “ Hello, I’d like to start a hockey skate company”, so it’s easier not to drag some of the answers over 25 pages.

The only reason I went after True is because there is a big fan club of VH here, so it’s cater to the masses approach, and the reason there is a fan club because Bauer and CCM are not doing their job properly which created that fan club.

In reality True’s skate division does not concern me at all both short term and long term. Bauer and CCM on the other hand concerns me very much, in Bauer’s case I’m worried on both fronts, they can take an expired patented design and quickly copy it, and they can also take an existing patented design and also copy it while walking the fine line of Patent Infringement, the engineers are as smart as anyone so if you give them direction they’ll execute better then anyone.  In CCM case they also have a structure in place to copy anything that is not patented. That’s why I’m steering clear in directing my public discussions on specific engineering problems and solutions.

What we all can agree on is without significant funds no one will ever get in to the High-end skate category to stay long enough.

So you are not investing in just a guy who desperately wants to get into the skate manufacturing business, you are investing in an idea that there is still an opening for someone to get into a very closed industry and try to impact it’s direction a little bit. So if I fall on my sword, at least it will leave a blue print for the next guy on what to do and what not to do.

The number of people on this planet that can design and develop skates can be counted on one hand, so there is less and less people that will be left after me in an already very shrunk industry.

This is based on my own 6 month research of going back 20 plus years into reading patents on skates looking at every single inventor that worked for big and small companies, trying to figure out who’s smart who just a tag a long name on the patent, what is their skill set and experience? Then looking at a broader picture of inventors and patents, whom else can I put on this list with specific skill set and apply to hockey skate development and what is their skill set.

I did this because I knew if I ever get to the finish line of raising capital the margin for error on execution will be very small, further more when you are pitching a project to a wealthy billionaire or a Venture Capitals that has seen his share of “wantrepreneur” you better have all your shit in order as far as what is the market size, what market share will you grab, how will you penetrate the market with what type of specific designs and business strategies, at what cost, at what timeline, what do you expect from your competitors and who will you hire to overcome all these issues.

Not a single person I contacted ever question or raised any concerns about my presentation, quite the opposite, they were impressed by the amount of research and preparation. But hockey business is as risky as an Airline business and all passed on it because my risk assessment was so precise and accurate they simply would prefer other far more attracting ventures.

Which brings me to the task at hand, if I could find about 10,000 – 20,000 people (World Wide) that are willing to commit to about 3 years of buying a single pair per year at $500 USD, regardless if anyone else copies my ideas or not, this is where the risks assessment will go down to a single digit number, and we’ll grab enough high end skate market share.

The goal is not to eliminate Bauer or CCM from the picture, I don’t think it would be even possible at this stage of the game, the goal is to go back to having 4 companies that own 25% of the market, because even if there was a perfect skate design out there that no one can protect with a patent, we still need to release enough varieties on different combination of width, volume, offset where one company will never be able to cover so many needs even with three different lines.

So if I mange to get that many people and raise enough capital, I don’t have to rush or cut corners and get into an immediate rat race where risk assessment becomes very high.

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

Well to the above statement about wanting to see a better skate for the masses that actually did what it said and fit and all of that I am in. Although, to say everyone else at every company is flawed is a bit of a concern. There would not be as many skates sold around the world and players playing at such a high level as they are today if they were all complete garbage as you seem to think. That being said, I still feel you have a point and for that, I am still interested and in. 

However, you made a comment earlier that A, I cant skate and B. I have zero credibility in the industry. Yet I am still flown around the world to work with players of all types. From Top NHL players to the up and coming. So for that reason Skate Mod I am OUT!

Better Luck with the rest of the Dragons!~ 

PS: I have this great idea for a mobile skate sharpening business. I cant tell anyone about it but its all legal and can be fit to suit any country and is fully portable. JR with your permission I would like to start a GoModSqaudFundMe Page to help raise the money to build a demo vehicle.

 

 

[marka 526]

Howdy,

Skate Mod, have I missed it or have you still not yet actually posted who you are, what your qualifications are, etc?

Why would _anyone_ (like, a single person that isn't your mom) trust you with $500 at this point?

Mark