Scars & Exuberance
What skateboarding teaches us about building companies that last
Every clean landing costs a few slams. Companies don't win by never falling; they win by getting back up faster, with the right idea, the right leader and the right timing.
How many people in the room have ever stood on a skateboard? Keep your hand up if you stuck with it for five years. Then you have scars to show. Skateboarding is a sport of many slams for every clean landing. Per Welinder learned that as a pro in the Bones Brigade, then carried it into co-founding Birdhouse with Tony Hawk and backing founders as a venture investor. He has seen both sides: Tony Hawk taking slam after slam for months until he landed the loop, and award-winning companies going bankrupt when the market turned. In this talk, Per uses the stories behind skateboarding's most iconic moments, and two very different venture outcomes, to show what separates the leaders who get back up from the ones who don't. He closes with the question every leader is asking: as AI takes on more of the work, what still belongs to humans?
The NBD mindset: Why "never been done" thinking, backed by creativity, courage and resilience, drives great skaters and great founders alike.
Timing and leverage: What one company that went bankrupt and one that turned around and reached Nasdaq teach about reading the market.
A scorecard for Monday morning: A simple way to test any big decision on the idea, the person leading it and the speed of execution.
Most leaders plan for the landing and ignore the slam. Skateboarding teaches the opposite: fall, learn, adjust, try again. This session gives teams a shared way to talk about setbacks and a simple tool for pressure-testing big decisions. It also brings a reminder that matters more every year: as AI handles more of the execution, the human parts of leadership, judgment, culture and courage, are worth more than ever.
Pro skater, co-founder of Birdhouse with Tony Hawk, investor. What skateboarding teaches us about building companies.
"Birdhouse would have gone out of business in the second or third year if it weren't for his business savvy." — Tony Hawk
Per Welinder is a former professional skateboarder, co-founder of Birdhouse Skateboards with Tony Hawk, and a venture investor.
As a member of the Powell Peralta Bones Brigade in the 1980s, he helped invent modern freestyle skateboarding. He then co-founded Birdhouse, where Tony was the magnet for talent and culture and Per ran the business. Over 26 years, Birdhouse and its distribution company Blitz grew to $35M+ in annual revenue in more than 90 countries, helping turn skateboarding from a fringe subculture into a global industry.
As an investor at Welinder Shi Capital, Per backed founders early, including Sezzle before it listed in Australia and later on Nasdaq. Today he works inside founder-led consumer brands as a fractional COO and interim CEO.
On stage, Per is direct, personal and funny. He has spoken at Epicenter Helsinki and Chinaccelerator, and lectured at California State University, Fullerton.
"One of the few people I have known in our industry who has successfully built multiple brands. He is a serial brand builder." — Rick Brooks, CEO, Zumiez
FORMATS
Keynote (20–45 min): Scars & Exuberance, for conferences, company events and founder communities.
Leadership workshop (half day): Teams use a simple scorecard (idea, leader, speed, timing and leverage) on their own real decisions.
University lecture: Entrepreneurship in practice, from building a brand to selling one.