"I believe that only through failure can Success be achieved"
My name is Oscar Vales and I come from a family of high-performance athletes. My father played for Deportivo de La Coruña for almost 9 years and my brother Marcos played for 13 years in the first division, going through teams like Super Depor, Seville, Zaragoza, etc ... until he debuted in the top team.
I, from a very young age, played soccer and as the "gurus" said, I was the best of the three in the family. As always in life, it is enough that they tell you that you are very good at something for you to relax, lose the capacity for humility and sacrifice and lose interest. From a very young age surfing was my passion and when they bought me my first board when I was 9 years old, I could barely get this sport out of my head ... I only thought about the sea and its waves, since I always used to fish and loved to be around the day on the beach. Years later and after dreaming about everything related to surfing and its industry, and after finishing my studies in Business Administration and living in California for a few months, at the age of 22 I decided to start a different brand with the lifestyle I was passionate about. : surfing, skateboarding and punk rock.
Everything started very well from minute one; the business model with the mix of the surf school and the philosophy and lifestyle that was establishing itself at the beginning of the new millennium, the brand was beginning to become known nationally and above all that the beginning of the crisis for us was the beginning of the expansion of the stores and we had barely touched our sales. We had a strong alliance with Estrella Galicia to mount big events and we managed to do things we had never dreamed of. But suddenly, when you think things are better, you relax, you forget the values that had been instilled in you and your humility begins to disappear ... "It's OK to celebrate success, but much better pay attention to the lessons of failure" The end of 2013 my life is a mess and the business becomes uncontrolled. It's amazing how much it costs to get things and how fast everything gets out of your hands. The harshest reality of my life began and an experience I will never forget. Close stores, fire friends, negotiate with banks, suppliers and owners. Everything is very complicated, because in the "good" everyone gets together but in the "bad" only the people who really love you and the unconditional ones, the family appear.
"Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is mystery,
Today is a gift"