It’s been a few months since our last official post on the site, actually about a year and half since our last one, which was the interview we did of Pollo. I want to first take this moment to reflect on what’s happened in this time and just be honest with you all and most importantly with myself. When I first started this project back in 2020 my goal was clear, put shine on all skateboarders, mainly focus on the ones that do it for passion, they don’t have the sponsors, they don’t have the deals, but for some reason after years they’re still at as if their life depended on it. This was my goal, why? Because I’m one of those skateboarders, skateboarding is my life and I’ve never received anything monetary from it but I’ll do it until the wheels fall off.
The project was planned out months before we even posted our first article and I went back and forth in my head as to how to get this going in the way I envisioned it. I know myself, I’m a person that’s good with coming up with ideas, being creative, getting things going and overall I’m good at starting things, the problem that I have is that I loose steam, I’m not as consistent as I wish I was, so with knowing that I had this idea to bring in people into the project to help me out, not just creating content but really hold me accountable in some sort of way. I started with 3 friends, dear friends that I of course met through skateboarding. Apart from sharing this will to skate they’re amazing photographers and I really wanted to create a space for them to share their incredible work. Full stop, Sk82Live is a passion project, meaning there’s no money being made or being paid. As you can see the site has no ads, and if you follow us on IG you’ll noticed we don’t just post things to post, we take our time, we cater it the best as possible to be genuine.
Because of this I can’t necessarily demand anything from these three friends that started this with me, I know work comes first, I know this takes time and I know writing is not easy (still working on it). Ultimately I know I can’t ask them to feel the same way I feel about it, is just not fair, not fair to them, not fair to me to have that expectation. So by the time we went live on October 6, 2020., one of the three dropped from the project and it hurt, on a personal level but also on the morale of the the rest of us because we had worked and talked about this for months before launching, so it felt like we weren’t standing on the 4 Pilars that I had envisioned. But regardless I did my best to pull through and I’m happy I did because the things we have done, we have done with passion, with care and with the only hope to reach our audience, skateboarders and even just a little I feel like we’ve succeeded doing this.
As time when on it got harder and harder to keep going, to be consistent and I personally felt I had overwhelmed my friends and was putting too much pressure on them, to the point where I just said do whatever, whenever, but give me something. But again, I can’t expect anyone to have the same passion for this as me, at the end of the day it is my project and is really up to me to keep things going. Then another friend dropped from the project and it’s just two of us left. And my other friend hasn’t officially dropped from the project but we haven’t posted in a year and half, so there’s that. I don’t hold any grudges with any of them, as matter fact they’re still all really good friends so there’s no behind the scenes drama going on, just running out of fuel, maybe expecting to much, maybe not pushing enough, who knows. All I really have is, now, and what’s now? Well I still have a lot in me to share, a lot in me to be vulnerable with, a lot of stories I want to tell and a lot of skateboarders I want to put shine on.
Not sure what this means for the future, but I want to hold myself accountable for all the missteps, for not keeping at it like I should, for not being able to motivate the team and to maintain it and for not following through with my vision. I want to thank every single one of you that has read an article, that has related to the content, that has liked our posts on IG and overall supported us from the start.
Much love,
– Andres
P.S. Still skating, haven’t stopped
We don’t do it for the money, we do it for the love, it takes one to see one and in pretty sure you have planted many seeds, I’m a full supporter and fan of this project and like u told me one day when I didn’t know very well English, my resolution for the next year is “getting shit done” -Andres. 2107 Dec
Now I know what that means and you’ve done it so much so don’t stop it we’ll back you up !
Thank you for the kinds words and motivation!