We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Heier recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Ritual Skateboards was founded in 2008 by Adam Bauer and Adam Ferguson in Colorado Springs, CO. They had originally come up with a concept called “Ritual Killers,” but settled on just Ritual instead. I became the first rider for the brand when I was 15 after having met Adam Bauer at my local skatepark, Goose Gossage. From there, we built up a small team and pushed the brand locally, while his business partner, Adam Ferguson, helped facilitate a number of stoner metal band collabs with Ritual, such as Ironweed, Torche, Weedeater, and Zoroaster.

Long story short, Ritual was abandoned in 2010, I took ownership of the company in 2016 and it’s been gaining solid momentum ever since. Currently, Ritual sells to 60 shops between 20 states and 1 Canadian Province. We’re working on our fifth full length skate video which primarily consists of team riders in Colorado, but we also have one rider in Arizona and one rider in New Mexico now.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ryan Heier and I was born and raised in Colorado Springs, CO. I’ve been skateboarding for 24 years and I’ve been running Ritual Skateboards for almost 8 years now, on top of having a family and working a regular job still. I love being disciplined, pushing myself and seeing what’s possible, and am extremely passionate about my brand and skateboarding.

With regard to how I got into business and filmmaking, let’s revisit Ritual’s first era, which started in 2008…

At the time, everything about the brand was fun, but Ritual certainly wasn’t profitable back then. Adam B. was generous with boards and merchandise, so a lot of that went to the team. The board collabs brought about by Adam F. were making us money, but we only had three wholesale accounts for the rest of our boards/merch, all of which were local skate shops in Colorado Springs (17 Skateboards, Proper Boards & Blindside).

Adam Bauer’s primary business of stone countertop fabrication and installation was also becoming too demanding, which meant increasingly less and less time for Ritual. In 2010, he had to turn all of his attention towards Planet Granite and stopped pursuing Ritual. I remember walking into his office, him handing me a stack of decks, but walking away from PG and tearing up in my car after hearing the news because I really loved Ritual.

Once I graduated high school, I started working construction and tried going to community college for one semester, but didn’t feel like it was a good fit, so I just kept working. During the winter of 2011, I ran into Adam at the skate shop I was riding for at the time, Blindside, and had been asked to do some painting at Planet Granite. Adam jokingly said that this became a deal where he was “trading painted walls for a camera.”

I was with Adam when he bought a Canon XH-A1 from Wolf Camera in Colorado Springs for $4,000 in 2008, and then subsequently bought a Century Optics 0.3x Ultra Fisheye Auxiliary Lens for around $1,200 if my memory serves me correctly. After Ritual had ended in 2010 and as time went on, he kept pushing me to buy his setup and start filming skateboarding. His original offer was $1,800 for both, but he believed in me so much that he dropped the price to $1,000 for the camera and fisheye lens, which I just couldn’t pass up at that point, so I handed him the cash from the painted walls.

In January of 2012, I started filming with Ritual’s old camera and on May 4th, 2012, I also started working as a janitor for Planet Granite. Adam gave me a flexible schedule, so I would go in to work in the mornings (usually for OT or side work), leave during the day to go film/skate all day, then come back in the evenings to clean the offices and showroom. This went on for many years, and we started to accumulate a lot of good footage as a result of forming friendships with some of the best skateboarders in our area.

Adam and I had talked about partnering to bring Ritual back, but it seemed like a challenging thing to actually facilitate between us. Eventually, he just emailed me all of Ritual’s original artwork and gave me his “blessing” to take ownership, so I formed an LLC for Ritual Skateboards on my own during the summer of 2016. I spent three months talking to the accountants, lawyer and VP at my work trying to learn about bookkeeping, taxes, etc., before I even opened a business account, ordered any product and started selling.

November 1, 2016 was our first official sale and I was Ritual’s first customer, purchasing a t-shirt. I sold hoodies and t-shirts direct for the next six months or so, before finally pulling the trigger on skateboard decks. Our first skateboard deck was the Shrunken Head Deck by local tattoo artist, Troy Sedlacek. This would’ve been Ritual’s next board graphic in 2010 had Adam continued with the brand, so it felt like an honor to carry the torch and revitalize the brand with this deck.

Our first wholesale accounts were acquired about a year later in the fall of 2017, and we’ve been slowly building that up ever since then. The nature of the business we’re in is extremely difficult and very competitive, as every major city has small brands like ourselves we have to compete with, along with the existing larger companies/distributors that’ve been a part of the skate industry for decades.

As of last year, I also started a distribution called Rocky Mountain Distribution or “RMD” for short, which is a DBA under Ritual. RMD consists of DB Skate Designs (Colorado Springs, CO), Name In Blood Skateboards (Denver, CO), Null Skateboards (Boulder, CO), Ritual Skateboards (Colorado Springs, CO), and Underground Wheel Co. (Malibu, CA). I distribute all of these brands under one roof to skate shops all over the United States, along with Ritual. We offer baker’s dozens (12 decks billed/13th free) and free shipping on all orders over $500 in the lower 48, which helps us to stay competitive.

Skateboard companies are truly a business model which needs to be fueled by a love for skateboarding, which all of us involved with RMD have. Obviously, we want to keep growing and selling more product, but if money/profit is the center of focus, you’re going to have a hard time in this industry. I’ve really had to put my expectations in check, and not rely on my business to pay all of my bills. I work on Ritual and film/skate during the day from 9AM-5PM, and work my regular job at Planet Granite from 5PM-1AM during the week still. To keep this sort of schedule going requires a deep love and passion for skateboarding, but I remain optimistic that I could transition into just working for Ritual someday.

One of our primary missions as a brand is pushing and supporting core skateboarding in Colorado and abroad. We produce full length skate videos, as you’d see back in the day before the short form content of the internet took over. These are multiple years long projects that require a lot of effort, but it’s the true essence of what Ritual is to me, which is, simply put, going out in the urban landscapes and expressing yourself using your surroundings. Street skaters are modern day pioneers in my opinion, as a lot of what you think about doing on a skateboard is possible, but you have to overcome your own fears and inhibitions to actually push yourself into a position of accomplishing the thought you had in your mind.

What sets Ritual apart from most of the other smaller brands out there is our commitment to core skateboarding, our experience working with artists and our networking/service to skate shops. We care deeply about our community/communities abroad and want to continue growing skateboarding, and having the artistic aspect of filmmaking as the centerpiece of our brand adds to the history of skateboarding’s culture in a meaningful way, so future generations have something to look back on. Taking care of and paying artists fairly is a priority, as we want to have graphics that stand out in shops, and we want our customers to be excited on the quality of our products. Pushing independently owned skate shops is also a primary focus of our business, as we always ask that you check our dealers page (www.ritualskateboards.com/dealers) to see if there’s a shop in your area that carries Ritual, before ordering directly from us online.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Remaining focused and true to our mission has helped Ritual build its reputation. Shipping products accurately and on time has furthered our clientele’s trust in us, as well as being open to collaborations, sponsorships, etc. with artists, musicians, and shops we do business with. Our skate team has played a huge role in promoting Ritual, as they are the ones pushing their own limits to see what’s possible and inspiring those around them. Having a solid art direction for the brand because of artwork done by Cory Bowman, Defame, Dom Frankmore, Raul DeSoto, Seth Lockard, and Troy Sedlacek has also helped tremendously.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Continuing to reach out to skate shops across the United States through cold calls and emails has been the most effective strategy for growing our clientele, as well as promoting our riders and skate videos. We want wholesale distribution to remain a centerpiece for our business, and direct our supporters to their local skate shop for our products, as we feel that keeping your dollars in your community is the best course of action for skateboarding’s survival. Blood and sweat equity is the cost for being in this business, whether you’re a brand or a skate shop, and you’d better have considerable patience mixed in with a high pain tolerance if you want your skateboard business to last.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ritualskateboards.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ritualskateboards/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RitualSkateboardsLLC/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ritualskateboards
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ritualskateboards

Image Credits

Photo 1 (Portrait) – Photo by Mike Searle
Photo 2 – Nosebonk by Bobby Hebner; Photo by Dustin McWethy
Photo 3 – FS 180 Nosegrind by Cameron Targosz; Photo by Dustin McWethy

Photo 4 – Ollie by Kris Cormier; Photo by Dustin McWethy

Photo 5 – Artwork by Dom Frankmore