a memoir
The chapters of how an entrepreneurial life actually unfolds — from a teenage skatepark petition to a global scooter brand.
From a teenage skatepark petition to a global scooter brand — the whole arc in nine sentences.
At 18, I started a petition to upgrade my local skatepark — and ended up in the Lord Mayor's office, hired to run a youth program and a scooter competition.
In 2010, picking up a scooter was street-cred suicide. I did it anyway.
How I stalked a scooter brand owner onto his morning train, begged for a job, and eventually convinced him to open a shop with me.
I quit a comfortable office career to work in a skate shop startup. My parents thought I was crazy. They were probably right.
We left the brand we built and joined a much bigger competitor for the first real wages of our lives. The honeymoon didn't last.
I started Lifeboat Scooters on the side. My employer noticed. They had no choice but to let me go.
How I scraped together $50,000 from a friend's dad — over McDonald's — to open Syndicate Store.
Three years running Australia's rider-owned scooter shop. Incredible growth, brutal industry downturn, and the slow realisation that retail was its own kind of prison.
Closed the physical store. Pivoted to online-only. Family and friends thought we were giving up — we were actually getting started.
From selling one scooter at a time in a physical store to shipping 40-foot containers to distributors around the world. Turns out the way to get rich was to just do the thing I love.