Talking to Jim Arasim the Creator of skatecreteordie.

In this interview we speak with Jim Arasim, a Seattle skater and sole developer of the app skatecreteordie.

A few months ago, my friend was telling me about this new app he was using called skatecreteordie, which is basically Google Maps catered specifically to finding all the skateparks and skate spots in your area. The app has a bunch of filters, including park builder, photos, and even if a park has lights or not.

Funnily enough, I ran into the creator Jim Arasim at my local, Roxhill, and we started chopping it up. We got to talking and I learned that he coded for a living while also skating every day of the week. Combining those passions he ended up with an app by skaters, for skaters. 

So what’s up, Jim? Finally good to catch you not at Roxhill [laughs]. 

Yeah, good to see you outside in the natural habitat too Noah. 

Just to let everyone know a little about you, when and what made you pick up the board?

Ah, I was about 4 years old, my brother got like… a wooden Black Night banana board with clay wheels and that was like my very first skateboard. I’d ride that down our driveway all the time, whenever I could get my hands on it. It wasn’t till later though till I was like 14, 15, that I got into the type of skateboarding that I’m into now. 

Okay, yeah that's dope, clay wheels are definitely before my time and I’m sure most of the people reading this [laughs]. Where’d you grow up skating? And who did you used to skate with back in the day?

I lived in Issaquah, and then Mukilteo, and then Downtown Seattle my senior year of highschool. Thinking about it, I skated with Marshall [Reid] and a lot of people from the Everett Crew, the Mukilteo Crew, and some people from Whidbey Island, there were a lot of rippers back then for sure.

Too many rippers to keep track of. Did you have a local back then?

Ah, I didn’t have any [laughs]. I mostly skated curbs, loading docks, launch ramps. A lot of launch ramps, and just you know, a lot of wood. Usually someone would have a mini in their backyard that I would skate and I had a mini in my driveway for a little bit. 

The nomadic skater. I like it. My homie has a mini in his backyard that we built this last summer so I get how it is. What are you doing for a living right now?

So I graduated with a degree in computer science in 1995, and I’ve been in software engineering ever since. It’s all been in quality assurance so the code I write is for test automation purposes and not necessarily the front end product. I like being in the background because you get to be a little more creative you’re not so under the gun. For example,  a developer working on a front end product, if something breaks over the holidays, it’s not my ass you know?

[laughs] Yeah, having to wake up at 3am on Christmas Eve to iron out some bugs doesn’t sound ideal.  Why’d you choose computer science?

I was a video game kid and I wanted to know how video games worked.
I didn't know what I wanted to do like my dad forced me to go to college and didn’t really want to. I was like, well, okay, if you're gonna pay for it all, I'll go ahead and do it and so for the first two years, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Then I was just like, fuck it, I'll do computer science. I knew it was gonna be a pain in the ass but I was good at math so I went through with it.

So, let's get into your app skatecreteordie. 
Was there any need or any specific motivation to develop the app? 

I think the main motivation is having a central place to find parks. My biggest frustration was when a new park would come out, you get an address for the park, but it ended up being just the nearest address to it. Google had a lot of skate parks on its map, you know? It has pretty good coverage, but to get the nearest address and then you go to the park and you have to look around and ask a local. I just got sick of doing that.

I wanted a geocoordinate inside the park so I know that I’m gonna get right to that concrete. Put me in the middle of the bowl and give me directions for that. That is what I do for every park,  I make sure it's right in there. 

Google's pretty good at it, but what I have on Google is that the app is just for skateparks. If you want to look at a grand view of the country and just see the builder pins you can do that with the app. Let’s say, I like Grindline, show me all the Grindline parks or like other park builders like Dreamland and New Line. If you look at a Google map, you're just going to see a green dot that says skatepark, and not all skateparks are created equally. You want to differentiate between the shitty wood parks and the nice Grindline park you know? 

Showing off the program and web page scrubbing implementation for skatecreteordie

One thing specifically that I do like is that you have pins that tell you what has lights and doesn’t, because right now in Seattle it gets dark at what, 4 PM? I wanna keep skating, but Google Maps is not gonna tell me which parks have lights. 

To be honest it’s still a work in progress. Dan’s [Skate Pages] added another 1200 pins, and
 I already had like 900 in there. I haven’t even gone through all mine and verified what has lights and what doesn't. 

I need more crowdsourcing for the app, which is why I open source the whole thing so people can contribute to the park source. If they say, oh, this park has lights and your map doesn't say it has lights. 
It's like, I want to know that, and I want to make it easy for people to contribute that, you know. 

Where can people get the code?

You just go to the main site skatecreteordie.com and there's a link on the home page to the readme for the iOS project and click on jaemzware LLC, it's got my android iPhone and web project on it.

I’ll be sure to link that! Since we're on the topic of Dan’s Skate Pages, how did you end up getting involved with him? 

I moved back to Seattle and met Dan in the early 2000s. At the first Ballard Bowl I met Dan and we just skated there all the time because it was pretty much all we had. We'd go on a lot of skate trips together and he'd tarp the whole bowl when it rained so we’d have a place to skate. He's just a really good friend. 

It's dope that you have all his pins, Dan’s been to every park under the sun.

He’s supported me from the start of this. Like I didn't have any photos, and I was like, ‘Dan, can I use your photos?’ 
And he was absolutely cool with it.

That's awesome. When did development first start? 
How many users are you getting?

It started around about 2016 so it's been in the store for eight years. Last time I checked I had like 4,000 users, not simultaneously but in its entire life.


What has been your biggest issue with the development of the app? The biggest thing you’ve worked out?

The biggest pain is getting it through the app store. When you initially submit an app to the App Store or the Google store, they're really critical of what you're doing and will make you jump through all these hoops to get your app in their store.

It's challenging because they come back with stuff to where you have to rework things. I did an Android release this year and I did it a long time ago when I first did the iPhone one. I did a re-release this year and I thought I was all good to go, and then Android was like you want location permission so we need a YouTube video of you to show us why you need them. So I had to go make a YouTube video and upload it to my channel. They make you jump through all these unforeseen hoops that you weren't ready for.

That’s crazy messed up, they made you do a little presentation [laughs]. Are you currently monetized at all, running ads or anything? Or is this out of your pocket?

No ads. I don't even take your email address. I take pride in that. I think there should be more free software. 

I really respect that. In the modern day it feels like I can’t even use any app without 50 ads in my face. What’s the feature that you're the most proud of so far?

I like the path tracking a lot, but I'm really a stickler in that it's not as accurate as I want it to be. That's kind of part of the open source initiative is that my dream is to have some developer be like, ‘Oh yeah, I like skate parks, let me help you with that precision for the path tracking.’

How many hours a week would you say that you're actively working on the development of skatecreteordie? Does it ever get in the way of skating or your personal life?

It comes in spurts. I'll get a spurt of passion for it but it's not really that constant. Okay, let’s say when I'm working on something, like a new feature, I'll put a lot of things aside just to work on it. If it's shitty weather out and I can't skate, then I'll work on it. That kind of thing, but it's not like I’m on a strict schedule or anything.

I still have to put that Marginal 20th Anniversary video out [laughs], it's just sitting on the hard drive. I know it's still pretty small but are there any cool stories from the app so far?

I used to have a hard time with the app and I was asking myself why aren’t more people installing my app? But I read one review that made it worth it forever. There was this one guy who downloaded the app and realized that there was a park down the street from him the whole time and it was like the best day of his life. So I was like, if I get just one person like that a year who finds a park that they didn’t know was there then that makes it all worth it to me.

That’s really cool, hopefully the app catches some traction so we can get more reviews like that. I saw that on the app you have some Seattle street spots listed, is there any where people can submit them?

Just shoot the skatecreteordie Instagram a DM with a photo, address, and details about the spot. 

What’s the future of the app look like? Any new features you're working on?

I mean, you mentioned the lights thing. In a perfect world, every park would have light information and the pin would be right for it. For every park pin I have it's like a white logo and a yellow logo and the yellow logo is one with the lights. I haven’t gone through all 2,000 pins though. Another thing I’m working on is the ability to click a drop down to say show me only the parks with lights. I mean there's kind of an endless list.

I think the biggest one on the plate right now that I'd like to tackle is path tracking with an Apple watch. No one skates with their phone in their pocket, a lot of people don't wanna fuck up their phone, and it hurts. It hurts when you slip on your phone [laughs]. It'd be nice if the watch could track you and have your phone safely on the bench or whatever, but yeah, the feature I really want to do is watch path tracking.

The path tracking would not be the first feature I think of for an app like this, what’s the  biggest upside of having it for skatecreteordie?

I guess it's kind of personal for me. It's kind of a feature that works in any sport really, but the thing that's kind of different is I make the line really thin to where it does fit inside the image of a skatepark on a map. But what I really like is that one time I made a New Year's resolution to skate every day. So now I can keep track of that and say that I skated everyday down to the exact foot.

That’s pretty handy, I definitely see myself using that feature. What's your ultimate end goal with the app when you're like, 80 something and you're on your death bed? 
What do you want out of the app?

Every park on the planet with information. I want it to grow and I want someone to take over when I'm gone. I want someone to keep it up to date because the parks eventually go away. I just want it to be a living, comprehensive map.

Any shoutouts or anything to watch out for in 2025? 

I have no plans for it [laughs]. Besides getting park data current and growing, the next level I really want to bring it to is getting more people involved with the data aspect of it. I offer training to anyone who wants it or if they want to put on their resume that they worked on an open source project. 

My son right now is going to help me design. He's a graphic designer, so he's gonna help me with the buttons and stuff and then be able to put that on his resume and LinkedIn.

Maybe I’ll take you up on that training. I think that’s all the questions I have time for though. Thanks for the chat about you and the app Jim!

Stoked on this! Thank you, Noah!

Oh, I almost forgot. Favorite skater?

Tom Peha.

You can follow Jim @jim.arasim and the app @skatecreteordie on IG and you can peep the open source code at https://github.com/jaemzware