Today we’d like to introduce you to David Toole.
Hi David, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Well I was in my mid 20s as a life long skateboarder and I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I was living out in Salt Lake City and decided to move home to open a skate shop. I wanted to be in SC because thats where I grew up skateboarding and thats were all my ties were to the skate community. It took me several years to finally figure it out and financially wasnt prepared at all for opening a business. I was working at Palmetto Promotions making t-shirts and the owner, Chip Prezioso, was super supportive of me just going for it. He and my manager at the time created a night shift so that I could have an income while I tried to start my own business. That was probably more important than I realized at the time. I had no idea how I was going to have an income and I didnt have much money to start with. I only had $3000 and two credit cards so I maxed out the two cards equalling 3k and I held onto the 3k cash to cover expenses as well as it could. Everything else came from my new nighttime job. So for the first two years I worked the full shift at my new skate shop 7 days a week and five days a week I worked a night time shift from 8pm to 3am (if I could make it that long). Eventually that began to take its toll on me and I had to make the decision to either give up the shop or quit my night job. I chose to keep chasing Bluetile. It has honestly been one of the most rewarding things in my whole life. I work with some of the best, most creative, and genuine people. We are always working on fun projects in the skate community including art and music and anything under that umbrella. I even kept making t-shirts inside the skate shop which has now grown to the building next door where we make T-shirts, stickers, signs, window vinyl, car wraps… you name it, all under the Bluetile name. It really is crazy to me that some how from Columbia SC we have created a globally recognized skate shop and brand.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I dont think owning a business is a smooth road for anyone. There are always challenges. Overcoming the shift from brick and mortar to online business was probably the first major challenge. I always wanted to be the neighborhood store and didnt really want to chase the digital shift in commerce. I watched that shift every Back to School season and every Christmas grow by 20% each year until it felt like nearly every local individual had abandoned the idea of shopping in their own town. I was slow to embrace e-commerce and that mistake almost killed us. Fast forward to covid and our website was the secret of our success. We were fortunate enough to have a functioning and pretty solid website when a lot of small retailers didnt so we flourished with online sales including things like same day delivery and curbside pick up. Im really thankful for our manager Irving Juarez for being web savvy and well prepared for that unexpected challenge. Another bonus to embracing the online culture is that I have grown a pretty successful youtube channel under the moniker “David Bluetile” and that has helped increase our reach and our opportunities with the brands we work with. Currently we are facing the ongoing tariff debacle that I dont think a lot of consumers understand. Its has already began to effect business and that is going to be a growing challenge over the next two years as it takes time for tariffs to fully actualize.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Bluetile Skateboards is a 24 year old skate shop in Columbia, South Carolina that specializes in being a hub for the skateboarders in our area. We have lead gross roots advocacy programs to build skateparks, we have donated hundreds of skateboards, shoes, and clothes to kids who need them. We organize art and music events from time to time on top of skateboard contests and jams with the occasional pro tour thrown in. I think we are known for our authenticity across all avenues of our business. We specialize in skateboarding, thats why I am here, but we also do very well in the limited edition sneaker community and we are known for keeping those releases fair and transparent. I think I am most proud of our reach. Its one thing to keep a niche brand alive in a relatively small town in SC, skateboarding is famously a hard business to keep alive, but its “a whole ‘nuther” level to have a built a skate shop that is known nationwide and in a small way worldwide. I would like the readers to know that skate shops arent just for skateboarders. No matter where you are your local skate shop can be a hub for cool clothing brands you never heard of or even better versions of the brands you do know. We carry a lot of the same shoes people are used to seeing but theyre engineered for skateboarding. For instance our Adidas Samba looks and costs the same as a Samba you would find at the mall but ours are made from premium materials and with better construction. Same goes for our Converse Chucks or Nike Dunks. You name it, the brands make better versions of their shoes for skate shops. oh… and we can help build your brand from printing your tshirts, hoodies or hats to making the hangtags, stickers or posters you need to market them.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
perseverance. also keeping the stoke. Try to always go with the flow and to grow, change and evolve with the thing you love. Getting stuck in your own idea of what your business should be and not listening to the culture of that business is a sure way to burn out and go out of business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bluetilesc.com/
- Instagram: @bluetilesc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluetileskateshop
- Twitter: @bluetilesc
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidBluetile
