ZG was on it's way to establishing itself as a legit company once upon a time, street shredder Jon Knudtson was even sponsored by them for a while. Then almost suddenly they dropped out of the scene. I recently caught up with Todd, the former owner of ZG, and got the break down of what exactly happened, and what we can expect from the new Zero Gravity.
- Todd, how are you doing man, what have you been up to?
Man I am doing super good. I have also been super busy being a dad of four kiddos, running a tile installation company, launching and leading a youth ministry for Mars Hill Church in Everett WA, and now ZG again.
- It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything or seen anything from Zero Gravity, what’s been up with the company?
Even though you haven't seen much much from us, there has been heaps going on. ZG is now under new ownership. Joe Constance from Joes Racing is now the new owner. Joes Racing were the ones who were doing all of our manufacturing, so you can still expect the same high quality parts from ZG. Joe has been working tons on better structuring the business side of things, and also making ZG his own. He has re-branded ZG with a new logo and a new web site, which is still a work in progress. Aren't all website a work in progress? Haha!
- At one point ZG seemed like it was really starting to establish itself as a legit company, but things started to slow down, and eventually you guys faded out for a while…what happened back then?
Honestly the company grew faster than I did. ZG went from a skate park outreach and me making parts for the local kids, to a full fledged scooter manufacturer that was known and shipping parts world wide in just over a year. I was doing everything by myself while working a full time job outside of the scooter industry. When I say by myself, I mean by myself. I was the only employee of ZG. I had just flat out burned out and really just stopped focusing on ZG stuff. With that happening, riders were not getting what they needed and dealers were not being served well. That led to many riders quitting and dealers stopped doing business with me. Thats when Joe approached me about purchasing and taking over the company back in September of 2012. We finally settled on a price and finalized it in November.
- So now that we’re seeing a new ZG website, new logo, and hopefully some more new products? What can we expect from ZG in the near future?
Yes you will be seeing new parts from us for sure! We are working on a extruded deck, which we just got the official drawings done this week. We are also working on wheels, cromo pegs, and also a possible new bar design. With the experience that Joe has in business and manufacturing, you can expect to see ZG in the top rankings.
Haha! All in time man! We still get tons of sponsorship request, which is super cool, but we will first really just be focussing on a local team that will hopefully travel. I have learned it is super hard to manage riders from all over the world and have them all feel like they are part of the team. It is super important to me to have a team that are almost like family members. Healthy families do life together! They fight together, they cry together, they work together, they dream together, and they build together. If I can create a scooter team that does the same, nothing would ever stop them!
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