What the hell happened to Tech Decks? And where are they now?

Remember Tech Decks? I remember they were all the rage when I was younger. Kids would show off their different tips and tricks.

New designs would come out every few months. Your flip skills and your unique designs dictated your social status.

But almost two decades later, they have vanished from the scene. If you look on Ebay, there is little resale value. Most items are still selling within the range of price sold a decade earlier.

Most kids these days aren't playing with skateboarding toys, let alone with the tech decks.

So what happened. Was this a fad that went away? Or something different? Could it be a case of consumer trends moving away from physical toys to online entertainment.

The answer is a little bit of both. The fandom of tech decks has gone away. Its reputation is now a cheap entry into the world of finger-boarding.

Yet, the larger story is quite interesting and worth telling. It is an allegory for how the changes in larger consumer culture changed changed toy culture as a whole.

Real Skate Companies. Real Skate Graphics

Back in the 1990s, a former sales rep and a toy merchant joined forces to start a small toy skater company. The goal was simple. Create small skateboard replicas that kids would love, and sell them worldwide.

The goal was to have them work in any environment. They wanted to appeal to the same demographic that the X-Games helped build

While the idea was simple, the execution was brilliant. Many great and interesting business moves led to the success of this product. Most skateboard replicas were bland, and very few could buy licensed skateboard replicas.

Tech Deck set extensive licensing deals with many of the largest skateboarding brands. This gave the small fledgling company a key leg up ahead of its competitors.

By the late 1990s, sales were hitting up to $80 million. This made it a huge fad. Elementary schools had children huddled around lunch tables showing off the latest tricks.

To keep up, the company retired key designs to maintain excitement about the brand.

What was the appeal?

Back in the 1990s, a former sales rep and a toy merchant joined forces to start a small toy skater company. The goal was simple. Create small skateboard replicas that kids would love, and sell them worldwide.

The goal was to have them work in any environment. They wanted to appeal to the same demographic that the X-Games helped build

While the idea was simple, the execution was brilliant. Many great and interesting business moves led to the success of this product. Most skateboard replicas were bland, and very few could buy licensed skateboard replicas.

Tech Deck set extensive licensing deals with many of the largest skateboarding brands. This gave the small fledgling company a key leg up ahead of its competitors.

By the late 1990s, sales were hitting up to $80 million. This made it a huge fad. Elementary schools had children huddled around lunch tables showing off the latest tricks.

To keep up, the company retired key designs to maintain excitement about the brand.

Finger-boarding was an accessible and fun product to use at schools. It was easy to smuggle the tech decks into schools, unlike a full skateboard.

Over time, growth started slowing down. The same generation that adopted the tech deck began to eschew the product as they grew older. As tech decks fell in the hands of younger generations, the product lost some of that "cool" appeal.

Also, the broader field of finger-boarding became more sophisticated. The biggest fans of finger-boarding began looking for higher quality products.

How do we learn from this?

Fads. Viral Products. Viral Videos and Tweets.

There are a number of different ways to describe it, but the pattern is the same.

There's no real difference between the Beanie Baby Fad and the last viral video you have seen. Technology and other channels have sped up the ascent and descent, but the mechanics governing the two are the same.

Therefore, the question becomes: How do you ensure that you capture the audience to keep it long term.

First, you have to understand why people came to your product. In the case of Tech Decks, they knew that the appeal was in the licensing of the skateboard brands. This was something that was unique to the products, and will keep them popular. In addition, designs were not saturated, which left a certain level of unfulfilled demand to keep consumer demand elevated.

Second, using the power of the community to continue fulfilling the virality of the product. In other words, if you have a viral product, video or song, you will want to then ask others to contribute to the viral theme. For example, if a hit song comes out with a dance, a singer should ask the audience to make videos copying the dance, and elevating the best examples with fame.

Finally, understand that some part of the wave is always going to be lost. The reason why someone would check out the viral product is not the same as why someone would organically search for a product. In a case like this, therefore, recognize this as free ad spend. Try to understand how to maximize the conversion for whatever outcome you are looking for in order to drive the result you'd like.