Our latest cover story on Tyshawn Jones goes deep on his skating career, his Louis Vuitton ambassadorship, and Hardies Land, the warehouse skatepark he opened in New Jersey before he even put in the plumbing. If you haven’t read it, start there. What follows is a different lens on the same subject: the business philosophy quietly running underneath all of it.

There’s a moment in Tyshawn Jones’s career that says everything about how he thinks. When he found out Supreme wasn’t paying its riders, he asked for money. When the deal eventually grew to $83,000 a month, he built three brands on the side. And then when the terms stopped making sense, he walked. By 27, the two-time Thrasher Skater of the Year had eight houses, a 12,000-square-foot skate HQ, and a portfolio of companies built to outlast his skating career. The kid from the Bronx didn’t just make it in skateboarding. He turned skateboarding into a business school.

Here are just a few things he’s learned.

Know Your Worth — Then Make Them Pay It

Tyshawn’s first lesson came from his mother: “You’ve got to do what’s right for you, don’t let these companies stunt your growth,” she told him. He took it literally. When Volcom came calling early in his career, he used the offer as leverage with Supreme to get paid. That instinct — treating his own value as a negotiable asset rather than someone else’s decision — became the foundation of everything that followed. The Supreme split, messy and public as it was, was the same logic applied at higher stakes. “A million dollars is not that much money when you live in New York and you’re paying 50% in taxes,” he says. “We see a basketball player getting $5 million to sit on the bench, and no one’s talking about that.” He knew what the market could bear and held out for it.

Build the Infrastructure Before You Need It

Hardies Land, the 12,000-square-foot warehouse he’s currently building out in New Jersey, isn’t a vanity project. It’s a vertical integration play. Photo studio, production company, gym, music studio, skatepark: every piece of the operation under one roof, owned outright. “If someone wants to book me for a shoot,” he says, “they can give the budget to Hardies Production.” The same logic applies to his real estate portfolio, his brands, his financial habits. He’s been building the off-ramp to other projects while his skateboarding career is still lucrative. “I’ve acquired a skill set and [I’m doing] other stuff while I am still active. I’m not waiting until I can’t do tricks anymore to start.” In a culture where most skaters cash out late or not at all, that’s playing a different game.

Run a Portfolio, Not Just a Brand

Tyshawn has three companies and each has a distinct assignment. King is the board company — tight margins, doesn’t matter, it’s about community and credibility. Launched in late 2022 with his “Kingdom Come” video part, the roster reads like a who’s who of New York street skating: Na-Kel Smith, Zach Saraceno, and Caleb Barnett. “Even if King makes zero dollars and we just have the boards to skate, that’s more important to me than sponsoring a bunch of people I don’t want to be around.”

Brick Underneath is the volume play, mass-market basics he wants everywhere. In a market where men’s basics have never had a definitive cultural figure behind them, it’s hard not to see the opportunity — possibly a male Skims, built on the back of one of the most recognizable names in street culture.

And then there’s Hardies NYC, the one he’s most patient about. Started in 2015 as a nuts-and-bolts hardware company, it’s quietly evolved into something with real fashion range — recent drops have included collabs with Denim Tears’ Tremaine Emory and uptown staples Avirex and G-Shock, brands TJ dreamed of affording as a kid.
The brand even has its own home now: a 12,000-square-foot warehouse on the Jersey side of the Hudson, currently being built out into a full compound — skatepark, gym, photo studio, music studio, production company, the works. He calls Hardies his “slow burner,” but the ambition behind it is anything but slow: he wants it to eventually “live in other spaces, like a Palace or Stüssy.”

Three brands, three different markets, three different timelines. That’s not an accident — it’s a portfolio strategy most skate entrepreneurs never think to build.

Only Collab On Your Own Terms

Tyshawn works with Tremaine Emory because Emory’s “a great storyteller who stands for Black empowerment.” He’ll collaborate with Avirex and G-Shock because they’re authentic to where he came from. He’ll even entertain CitiBank, but only if it’s a financial literacy course for skaters with the Hardies logo on the card. The through-line is that he’s always setting the terms.

“Sometimes people see money and say, ‘Okay, I’ll do whatever,’ but then the outcome isn’t that great,” he said in our cover story. “But if you stick to your guns, you’ll get something you’re proud of.” In a culture where collabs often exist just to keep the lights on, his filter is unusually principled — and that quality is a brand asset in itself.

Read our full cover story on the skate icon here, and purchase a copy of Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue on HBX.