Skatefolio – A skate video database

Hello. How did you come up with the idea of doing this and how did it to go from there on?

The initial idea was the ability to watch just one person’s clips throughout a video. I came up with this while on a skate trip, bullshitting with my crew about what skating is missing. Your footage is your body of work, so having it scattered and impossible to find seemed insane. In short, I just wanted to watch more Max Palmer footage. When I got back from the trip, I pitched a rough idea to my two roommates at the time, who are both incredible software engineers. I knew YouTube lets you embed videos and jump to a specific timestamp, so I asked if a tool could jump to multiple timestamps. Then, I went skating, and by the time I came back, they solved it with a rough prototype. Immediately, I knew we had to start a company. This tool became the Clip Mapper and the idea grew from there. We decided to make beautiful skater profiles to highlight people’s body of work. Then, we incorporated filmers, who felt notoriously under-credited. We wanted to make something interconnected, so you could go down rabbit holes discovering new skaters, filmers, scenes, and companies. We wanted to create something that brings people together without being another annoying social media, so we skipped adding views, likes, and followers. Ultimately, to build a monument to skate videos for everyone involved.

How did you get from the idea to the final website?

We spent a year building the site from scratch, launching in November 2023. It evolved during development, and since launch, we’ve been flooded with ideas to incorporate. One of my favorites: someone mentioned that the final form of our Clip Mapper should be adding titles to videos without them. So we built that tool, and now you can watch GX1000 videos and learn who’s who. I think everyone’s been frustrated by untitled videos. Rather than being the bitter guy that’s like, “this needs to change!”, I wanted to support that art direction while supporting the skaters. Chris Athans deserves to be binge-watched. Building the site was just the start. Since then, we’ve focused on supporting our user community. A recent development is seeing skaters and filmers putting their Skatefolio links in their Instagram bios. I’d always hoped this would happen, since it’s better advertising than linking to a single project. It’s a dream come true to see. Most skaters’ Instagrams exist solely to remind you when they’ve dropped footage. I want Skatefolio to let skaters be less active on Instagram, if they want, while receiving more credit for all their footage. I think it’s working.

Did you reach out to websites like skatevideosite to check if you can merge the databases or something like that?

I’d love to collaborate with SVS, working with our hundreds of filmers to add their videos’ music libraries and solve the ABD song issue once and for all. I’d also love to incorporate spots and partner with a great spot website. No need to rework what’s already been done – better to partner up. We’ve chatted with the SVS guys, but these ideas are a bit further out for now. So at the moment the main focus is to help people find skaters. Filmmakers, too. They’re so important. We want the entire skate filmmaking industry on here because a lot of them don’t have websites. Their footage is everywhere, spread across various media sites and brands’ YouTube channels, or contributed to others’ projects. The lucky ones have released their own full-length. But many have just contributed to others’ projects, an “additional film” credit that gets quickly forgotten. A few months back, we released a tool to solve this problem, where filmers can specify their exact credit on every project. I want them to get the credit they deserve. We also recently launched a global filmmaker directory, so you can discover filmers around the world, hire a local tour guide/filmer on trips, etc.

How many of all those skate videos out there you think you can map? I guess you need the help of the people to map all the videos.

All of them. We’re fortunate to have hundreds of users contributing to this mission. We’ve partnered with amazing brands, giving our users decks in exchange for mapping their video libraries. WKND, Crailtap, There, Welcome, Habitat, Creature, the list goes on. Beyond these partnerships, our users are passionate enough to map their favorite videos for the love of the scene. Clip Mapping is addictive. Even with bigger responsibilities, I still get sucked into mapping videos because it’s so fun.

If there's hundreds or thousands of people mapping, you can have people just mapping bullshit or the wrong people. Is there a monitoring process?

We’ve built safeguards. The average viewer visits our site and all they can do is watch. You can apply for creator permission, and we have moderators overseeing everything. Occasional mistakes happen, but users can submit corrections. We have a bunch of systems for oversight.

Do you already have some well known names that are into mapping?

It’s an honor to have my favorite skaters and filmers using the site. Every skater with an Am Spotlight has mapped every clip they’ve ever filmed, and we’ve featured exciting up-and-comers from every continent. Every filmer in our global filmmaker directory has built out their profile, too.

How did it go so far? Which goals where you able to achieve and what was more complicated than you thought?

14-hour workdays and our incredible team. When we published the site, I was the sole contributor maintaining a house of cards. Now, we have an amazing community building the site, keeping it current and filling backlogs. Getting people to try the site once felt like asking a favor, and now, people I deeply admire are approaching us. Industry buy-in is tough. Many said, “I love this, but let’s wait and see what others think” before working with us. I’m grateful for the early adopters who took a chance on us. We still have a long way to go, and I feel like we’re just getting started.

What are your plans for the future?

Keep growing the site, telling better stories, and persuading people we’re the best place on the internet to watch skate videos. Get Gen Z more into full lengths and less into Instagram. Plenty of uphill battles!