Turning Passion into Profit with the Co-Founders of Kandy Kruisers

Entrepreneurship is about turning your passion into your profession. That’s certainly what the brilliant minds behind Kandy Kruisers did. And these start-up entrepreneurs are making big waves in the skateboarding market -- while they’re still in college!

Timur Daudpota, Hamza Amir and Jesus Hernandez are three college guys from the University of Houston who got together to collaborate and create, Kandy Kruisers, their own vintage inspired, colorful skateboard.

Kandy Kruisers began when they were freshman in college and noticed longboards everywhere on campus. They loved longboards, but hated how bulky and hard to carry they were. They complained about a solution and one day while watching Lords of Dogtown, a documentary about skateboarding in the seventies, they realized the vintage boards these guys were riding were the key to a portable, longboard inspired skateboard solution!

Timur, Hamza and Jesus created Kandy Kruisers with no background or experience in manufacturing or business -- just the collective knowledge of their college courses and some serious applied work ethic.

I wanted to learn from these hustling entrepreneurs so I met up with Timur and Hamza to find out more about their journey via video chat.

I started by asking them, “Once you realized you wanted to manufacture skateboards, what was the first step you took to go from idea to action?”

“What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to get Kandy Kruisers going?”

Finally I wanted to know after their experience with launching Kandy Kruisers, “What advice would you give other young entrepreneurs who want to manufacture their own product?”

If three college students can disrupt a well-established sporting goods market niche, what could you accomplish in the manufactured product sectors? Or what industry could your start-up disrupt?