BUSINESS | 2020
CARVE CORNWALL
This one is slightly different.
​
In the Autumn of 2019 me and three of my course mates got together and decided that we wanted a more hands-on understanding of the real world effects of advertising on business.
However, despite being in the process of completing our degree in advertising, all with good grades to boot, our lack of previous work experience meant that no one was willing to hire us.
So we decided to start our own business.
​
It all began with an idea.
Skate culture has taken the fashion world by storm over the last few years, seeping through from the outskirts into mainstream fashion.
Being hip young guys with an interest in skate culture and an avid skater in our midst, we found our angle.
After being inducted into the woodwork facilities on campus, with a rough idea of what we wanted to create we set about butchering an old skateboard.
A few hours and lots of terrible, vaguely ring-shaped shrapnel later and we had our first working prototype.
Now that we had our product, we had to come up with a name for it.
After a couple of brainstorming sessions and countless names chosen then binned we finally had the name for our brand; Carve.
We felt that this name got across the most important parts of our brand; the hand crafted products and the strong link to skate culture (carving is a skating move). A little coffee, chatting, writing then ripping up the pages later we had our logo.
So naturally, we got this made into a stamp and set about stamping literally anything we could get our hands on (we paid a friend £5 to go about his day at Uni with our stamp bullseye on his forehead).
As some guys who had never tried their hand at either carpentry or jewellery making of any form before, it took us a while to get the production process to a point which we were happy with. There was still room to grow, but by the time we started putting our products on the market we could get around 15 rings per skateboard (out of around 50) which we were happy with the quality of.
We tested different glazes and styles of cut, and to the bemusement of my flatmates my living room became a mini Carve factory with wood shavings permeating every inch.
We wear tested the rings for a few weeks to see how they would hold up with our varying lifestyles (skateboarder, gymnast, partier and video gamer), and to our delight we finally found ourselves ready to sell.
The response was better than we could’ve hoped for.
Our first drop sold out within two weeks, and all the months of hard work which had put into it was all worth it to see the response from our customers.
We went back to the drawing board, all feeling galvanised and ready to make exciting new products as well as expand our marketing strategies.
However…
​
Tragedy struck, under the name of COVID-19.
The facilities which we used to create the jewellery were closed indefinitely, and the limited stock we had wasn't sufficient for one final drop.
This was a real shame, as we had exciting plans for the future of Carve.
We were in the process of expanding our products into include earrings and necklaces.
A local skate shop had agreed to stock our rings.
Another local ethical food shop had also given us permission to set up a display for our products.
We had begun a partnership with Skatepal, a charity in Palestine to use skateboarding to help vulnerable young people, where we would give them 15% of our profits.
Everything was looking good.
But unfortunately sometimes life takes matters out of your hands.
However nothing could take away all the valuable lessons I learned during this, which I will be forever grateful for.
