Faith, restored!
I will be very honest. Heck, I always am, with you. When Project Ibelli, launched just over a week ago, hit nearly half of its funding goal after only three days, I thought, “We’ve got this. We’ve actually got this.”
The audacious plan, if you recall, was to crowdfund a sticker, then a message, on the nose Comrade Caio Ibelli’s surfboard for the Newcastle Cup event in order to send a message to surfing’s vested interests. Its billionaire co-Waterpeople of the Year and private equity firms.
This is The People™’s game.
It belongs to us.
Except then, we got close to the beginning of that Newcastle Cup and still nearly half funded and then the hooter sounded and still only half funded.
An overwhelming depressing washed over me.
We had failed.
I had failed.
And carrying this profound sense of failure, I shuffled into Album Surfboard’s podcast studio.
David Lee Scales looked at me like I was dumb.
“What is your problem?” he asked.
“We lost.” I answered.
And then he went on a tear, preaching and prancing about how this is not just a one-off, how we will get Caio his money whether it be by Day 2 of the Newcastle Cup or Day 4 of the Margaret River Cup. That his is a movement and only the beginning of that movement.
Etc.
How could I have had such little faith.
So buoyed was I that I was able to denounce Gerry Lopez at the end of the episode.
Listen here.