Be Careful What You Wish For: When Success Changes the Thing People Loved
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There is an old saying: be careful what you wish for.
In the world of fingerboarding, few brands illustrate that better than Beastpants Fingerboards.
Beastpants built its reputation around something that was increasingly difficult to find: genuinely beautiful split-ply fingerboards. The craftsmanship, colour combinations and individuality of each board made them more than just functional fingerboards. They were little pieces of woodworking art.
And, naturally, people wanted more.
The Problem With Making More
The problem was that making those boards took time. Real split-ply construction isn't something you can simply scale up overnight. Every additional board meant more work, more careful preparation and fewer boards available to customers.
That created a frustrating situation. People wanted Beastpants boards, but there simply weren't enough of them.
And then came the obvious solution: make more boards.
Printed graphics allow a maker to produce considerably more boards while still offering the same fundamental riding experience. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense. More production means more customers can actually buy a board rather than constantly seeing products sell out.
But there is an interesting unintended consequence.
The boards are still great. They're still Beastpants. They're still capable fingerboards made by a talented maker. But for some collectors and enthusiasts, something has changed.
The Beauty Was Part of the Product
The appeal of the original split-ply boards wasn't simply that they were good fingerboards. It was that every board had a visual character that couldn't easily be replicated.
The wood itself was the graphic.
Layers of contrasting veneers created patterns, colours and shapes that changed depending on how the plies were cut and assembled. No two boards felt quite the same.
A printed graphic can look fantastic, but it doesn't have quite the same physical depth or handcrafted character. That distinction matters.
For someone who simply wants a great board to skate, a printed graphic may be absolutely fine. For someone who fell in love with Beastpants specifically because of those spectacular split plies, however, the difference can be much bigger.
The Strange Economics of Scarcity
And here's where things get particularly interesting.
The very thing that made the old boards difficult to obtain may have made them more desirable. As production shifted toward boards that could be produced in greater numbers, the older split-ply boards became increasingly scarce.
Resellers noticed.
Boards that were once simply difficult to get are now reportedly changing hands for around three times their original value.
That creates a strange situation. The maker solved the original problem: there are more boards available. But the solution created another problem: the people who were most attracted to the original product may now be less interested in the new version.
Meanwhile, the boards that couldn't be produced in sufficient numbers have become the most sought-after ones on the secondary market.
It's almost the perfect example of supply, demand and scarcity colliding with brand identity.
But Was It the Wrong Decision?
Not necessarily.
It's easy for customers to say, "They should have just kept making split plies." But that ignores the reality of being the person actually making them.
If every split-ply board takes significantly longer to produce, there is a hard limit to how many can be made. A maker has to balance craftsmanship with sustainability.
If demand continually exceeds production capacity, customers become frustrated. Drops sell out immediately. People miss releases. Some turn to resellers. Others simply give up trying.
Increasing production can solve those problems. And printed graphics may allow Beastpants to reach customers who otherwise would never have had the opportunity to own one. That's a genuine benefit.
The Problem With Getting What You Asked For
This is perhaps the most fascinating part of the story.
Fingerboarders wanted Beastpants boards to be easier to buy. Now they are.
But some of the same people who wanted greater availability may have actually wanted something slightly different: they wanted more of the thing that made Beastpants special.
Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
More Beastpants boards doesn't automatically mean more of the original Beastpants experience. And that's a lesson that applies far beyond fingerboarding.
Brands often become successful because of something unusual, difficult or inefficient. Then success creates pressure to make that thing faster, cheaper and more widely available. Eventually, the very characteristic that created the demand can become the characteristic that limits growth.
Sometimes Scarcity Is Part of the Magic
There is also something uncomfortable about scarcity. Nobody likes missing out.
But scarcity can create anticipation, collectability and desire. When something is genuinely difficult to make, owning one can feel special.
The danger is deliberately creating artificial scarcity simply to manipulate customers. But genuine scarcity caused by craftsmanship is different.
If a split-ply board takes hours of additional work to produce, that limitation is part of the product's story. The irony is that once the limitation disappears, some of the magic can disappear with it.
Beastpants Still Makes Great Boards
None of this means the newer printed-graphic Beastpants boards are bad. Quite the opposite — they can still be excellent fingerboards.
The point is that quality and desirability aren't always the same thing. A board can ride beautifully and still not generate the same excitement as an older version.
Collectors aren't necessarily buying only for performance. They're buying craftsmanship, rarity, aesthetics, history and the feeling that they're holding something difficult to reproduce. That's what made those split-ply Beastpants boards special.
And perhaps that's why their value has risen so dramatically after becoming harder to find.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Maybe the real lesson isn't that Beastpants made the wrong decision. Maybe it's that success rarely comes without compromise.
The maker was faced with a choice:
Keep making the spectacular split-ply boards and disappoint customers who couldn't get one — or increase production, make more people happy, and risk losing some of the exclusivity and visual identity that created the demand in the first place.
There may not have been a perfect answer.
Perhaps the ideal solution lies somewhere between the two: more accessible boards for people who simply want to ride Beastpants, alongside occasional limited split-ply releases for the collectors who fell in love with the brand in the first place.
Because sometimes the thing customers complain about most — "I can never get one" — is also the thing that makes them want one so badly.
And when you finally give everyone what they wished for...
you might discover that some of them were actually wishing for the thing that was impossible to get.