Meet Gal and Laura | surf wax manufacturers & lifestyle content creators

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gal and Laura and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gal and Laura, how do you think about risk?
My philosophy on taking risks is that in life it’s actually much riskier to NOT take risks than it is to take them. Because the only thing worse than failure is regret. I have always been of the mindset that if I want to try something I have to do it and if I don’t then it will eat me inside. I will feel as though I took the easy way out, as though I am a coward.

So in business, and in my life, I like to try anything I think is a good idea. I don’t have to burn the ships and go all in on every single one, but I do have to give a great effort at each of these things and also learn to not get too bummed if something doesn’t work out. That’s with life and business. If I try 20 new foods that sound gross i’m probably gonna like one of them. same thing in business. If I try out 20 ideas that sound bad, id bet at least one will turn out pretty good and you can run with that. I mean just take a look at how many failed programs companies like apple and amazon have. There are tons. But you only know about the ones that worked. It is not like they’re batting 1000% they just have a high tolerance for risk.

I Hear a lot of what if’s from people you know what if this happens and it doesn’t work out or what if that happens and you lose all the money or what if you do this and then you’ve wasted all this time on something? And this has never really made sense to me because my mindset is that yeah but what if I didn’t go for it and it would have worked out, or look how much I’ve learned from this or how many people I’ve met that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t take the risks that I have.

I think this stems from how I grew up. My father is an immigrant and was forced to take risks not because of that mindset, but because he didn’t have as much opportunity so it was on him to create that opportunity. And a lot of the time probably 90% of the risks he took didn’t play out in the way that he wanted them to. and I remember him failing a ton and all he would say is that people who keep going never lose. So because of that, I think the riskiest thing you could do is to stop taking risks because that’s when you lose

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our business is surf wax. But it’s not JUST surf wax. We are a lifestyle brand and our surf wax happens to be our signature product. Why? because our surf wax is really good, and we do not want a company that just feeds off of the surfing culture we want a company that feeds it.

We aren’t in the business of selling things to people who already surf. We are in the business of expanding surfing and the culture. We want to reach someone who always wanted to try and now they might, or a little kid who sees a video we post and thinks wow I want a surfboard for Christmas now.

We achieve this by taking pretty much all the money that we make and turning that into content that is made by local artists who are in the surf community. We do projects with photographers, designers, videographers, surfers, artists, musicians, and so on. It highlights the best aspects of that community and spreads it to people who may not have seen it before. And to us, that is where the gratification comes from. I am most proud when I see one of our artists doing something different and it works, people like it.

It hasn’t been easy, and every day there is a new hoop that presents itself and you get to jump through that hoop. We got to where we are now by doing just that. Jumping through the hoop when it’s there and just keep going. Not getting discouraged, and never taking no for an answer. That is something that my co-founder Laura is great at. She knows that there is always a way and that saying it’s impossible isn’t going to help anything.

There are so many lessons we have learned, a lot of them wouldn’t apply to any business, and some of them would. But the three most important lessons that I learned would be to try and see every development as a new opportunity, develop relationships everywhere you can, and keep an eye out for talented people because they are everywhere

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If we only had one day on the west side of Los Angeles here is what we would do.

-Breakfast at Lodge bread where we would get the best shakshuka in town, and buy a loaf of artisanal bread (more on that later)

-Coffee at Sachi, and then walk across the street to Pepe’s antique store to look around at some funky stuff while we have our coffee.

– Walk around the Venice canals and feed some of that artisanal bread to the ducks and fish.

-Go for a surf at El Porto for a few hours and play some volleyball/spike ball on the beach.

-Dinner at Hatchet hall. get a bunch of stuff to share and some good drinks.

– Venice west for live music and dancing.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I know this is Cliche, but my shoutout goes to my mom. My mom has done a great job of encouraging new experiences and encouraging uncomfortableness. She was always great at telling me to stop talking about it and just do it, and when I’ve failed she was there to support but not baby me. It’s because of her that I have this personality trait that tells me that I have to try. And that I am not broken apart when things don’t work out

Website: Sabasurf.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saba_surf/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl0gJxjT3ogAQWOY0mS0ScQ

Image Credits
Josh Miller Brinkley Maine Bri Chew Jeremy Lopez