Today we’d like to introduce you to Jorge Gonzalez.
Hi Jorge, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been inline skating since I was nine years old, back when it was first trendy in the 90s. Over 30 years at this point. When I was 14 years old, I saw some people doing tricks on TV and from that point on was only focused on doing what we call ‘aggressive inline,’ which is the style of inline skating where you do tricks. There weren’t very many skate parks around back then, so I’ve always been most comfortable skating in the streets. Fast forward to me being in my early 30s. I was living in Woodland Hills and realized that jumping down flights of stairs to get my jollies wasn’t something that I could do in perpetuity. I decided to start a group on MeetUp that would just skate around the streets without the goal of doing any stunts. Most of my friends in the aggressive community weren’t interested (most still aren’t), but I could still manage to convince a handful of people to come out. One day while on Facebook, I came across an invite to a group that had been doing EXACTLY what I was trying to do in Downtown Los Angeles.
The organizer was a person named Jenni Armstrong (JenniX) and she had been doing a weekly fast-paced night skate in DTLA for about five years at that point. She calls it ‘The Night Skate Los Angeles.’ Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I decided to bring the skills I’d learned from being in corporate sales to the group and make sure as many people were aware of it as possible. The skate grew as more people learned about it, but COVID lockdowns brought it to an abrupt stop. COVID lockdowns, however, also brought an increased interest to all outdoor sports, and inline skating was no exception. I started a similar group in the Inland Empire called ‘Inland Empire Night Skate’ in May of 2020 in San Bernardino to accommodate beginners and people who couldn’t make it out to Los Angeles on a weekday. Through the San Bernardino group, I met a young man who owned several buildings near where our group met every week. He asked me if I was interested in opening a skate shop. I thought about it for a week and decided to make the leap. I decided to name the shop Knight Skate as an homage to the brand of skating that was the genesis of the business.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The path has had its ups and downs. In just over two years of being in business, we’ve had a total of seven break-ins. While each one wasn’t enough to put us out of business, we have racked up over $10k in losses so far. No one will insure against this type of stuff because of how bad the area I’m in is, so we have to eat the bill each time. I also had to build out my unit from scratch. It didn’t even have any electrical outlets. I’d never done anything like that, so it was all a learning experience. Inventory because of COVID-related delays has also been hard to predict. All of my suppliers went from having nothing to sell to having warehouses full of goods at the same time, so adjusting is hard when you’re as small of a business as we are.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Knight Skate is our shop currently based in San Bernardino, CA. We specialize in all styles of inline skating and some roller skating. The main thing that sets us apart is that we are skaters. People get their products delivered to them personally at skate meetups because we are skaters too. We organize group skates all over Southern California, which gives people more opportunities to skate and meet other skaters. The thing that we are most proud of is the fact that there is an inline skating culture in Southern California now. We’ve watched the community go from a handful of groups with a handful of people in each to groups all over the place with dozens of people in each. While we can’t take credit for the individual effort of each person who shows up to skate, we are proud to have played our role in creating the community that continues to grow every day. We are also proud of our role as the supplier for a significant number of the people who show up to night skates in Los Angeles/Inland Empire. We want everyone to know that we appreciate all of the support so far and we look forward to continuing to provide knowledge and service to all of you. Thank you.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Passion is definitely the secret sauce in everything I do. You can’t fake 30 years of skating with no profit motive. You can’t fake the excitement you see on my face during these group skates. I am passionate about inline skating just because I love it. The business could go away tomorrow, and I would still be at every group skate having just as much fun.
Contact Info:
- Website: KnightSkate.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knightskatesb/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knightskatesb
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@knightskate916
