Sponsorship Information

Thank you for your interest in wanting to represent my company and help promote our products through your active participation in the handboarding community. While I appreciate your enthusiasm toward being a part of the team, I receive numerous comments, messages, and emails asking for sponsorships daily. 

There is no submission process or tryouts to ride for Genesis Handboards because at this time I am not sponsoring. In the future, if and when I am looking for a team I will announce via Instagram and Email list subscribers for the requirements of eligibility.

Please do not email, use the Contact tab here on the site, or DM on Instagram with questions, clips, and links regarding sponsorships. They will be responded with a redirection to this page or ignored completely. 

With that said, I do my best to respond to posts, questions, comments, and direct messages of a pertinent nature on Instagram or any legitimate business inquiries via email. That takes even more time when sifting through countless pleas for sponsorships or handouts of free products. The short and blunt answer to the often asked question of "Will you sponsor me?" is generally "No" by just about every company. A spot on sponsored teams are not given to people who ask for it. It's earned through a company's acknowledgement of your overall presence in the handboard community as a rider deserving of a sponsorship opportunity.

General Tips for Improving Sponsorship Eligibility from Any Company (*that is actively looking to sponsor):

Most companies do not like to be bombarded by handboarders and fingerboarders with clips or messages asking for sponsorships and instead put in the time to seek out riders in the community that impress them or show long term commitment to the scene and their company. Your best bet to getting sponsored is by getting noticed. This is a list of things to consider when riders are actively working to get sponsored...

  • Do not ask to be sponsored. A lot of times this will put you in bad standing with the company right off the bat without them even checking your content.
  • Support the company by buying and using their products. You can't be sponsored by a company if you have never even tried them out. For example, I receive messages from people that have never used a handboard looking to be sponsored .
  • Upload content on social media outlets the company uses featuring their products (unboxings, reviews, trick clips, shout outs). This is what would be expected of a sponsored rider by the company. Already having that content is a great preview of the promotional aspect that you, as a rider, would be able to provide; which in large part is the reason sponsorships exist, not only to show the skill of a great rider, but to help promote the brand. It is a business deal. My products are expensive to make as well as time consuming to create. In return, a sponsored rider would need to have influence over the community to help promote the brand. To sum that up the rider is an advertisement.
  • Handboard! Practice, film, watch your playback, improve, learn new tricks, and develop your skills. There are more amazing riders in the scene than there are companies to sponsor them. Sponsorships do not always go to the "best" riders out there, but your skills will always be compared to them when being considered for a team spot.
  • Create quality clips and videos with a variety of clean tricks, good angles, different obstacles, multiple locations, and smooth edits. Your content needs to be as good or better than riders that are already sponsored by a company. Check out clips by the team riders to compare with your own and take notes of where you can improve. Get creative, try a line or combo that has not been seen before. Most importantly have fun! Handboarding is supposed to be fun and it should reflect in your content.
  • Get your name out there: post, contribute, network, make friends, gain followers/subscribers, and be an active member in the handboard community through Instagram, YouTube, forums, or other sites. Your account needs to be public so you can promote the company you are sponsored by and have somewhat of a subscriber pool to show that people are interested in your content. As referred to above that not only the "best" riders are sponsored, your engagement and the size of your account can have some clout since you would be advertising for the company.
  • Be yourself, be original, but also be aware that this community takes place in a public space. How you choose to act and what you choose to upload/post is subject to the opinions of everyone that can view it. All companies have different views on how they want to be represented. With that said I would not consider a rider that uses profanity in their content whether it be music or dialogue, wears inappropriate clothing with profanity or drug use of any kind, including alcohol brands on the garment.  Having a dedicated handboard account as a sort of digital resume is preferred over a personal account that includes some handboard and fingerboard content interspersed throughout.
  • Do your homework. Stay current with what is happening in the scene in general as well as what the company you are pursuing a sponsorship from is doing. Websites are usually not as up to date as social media but are a great place to start for company information such as product specs, a list of team riders, events and promotions, as well as sponsorship requirements ;)

Like many other skill sports and hobbies there are only a small percentage of people that get anything out of doing it other than personal enjoyment. Some are fortunate enough to get noticed, sponsored, or even paid from fingerboarding and skateboarding, I do not believe any paid handboarder exists since there are so few brands... but at its core, handboarding and fingerboarding should be about having fun.