EP 177 - 10 Years of Outdoor Vitals: It's Been A Wild Ride

[00:00:00] Tayson: Welcome everybody to the Live Ultralight Podcast, powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today, we're gonna be talking about the history of Outdoor Vitals. It's our ten year anniversary, actually a couple months ago was our official 10-year anniversary but this is the year. So we are getting around to talking about it and today we wanted to bring on our two longest standing employees. To also help me with some of the conversation here and talk about what it's been like, over the 10 years. so, we'll get some perspectives from from Dave, as well, as Derek and Should be I think it'll be some some humor probably in this one as we just reflect back on some of the things, they'll be some interesting aspects of, you know, just starting a business and, and getting it up and running. But yeah, I'm definitely looking

[00:00:45] Tayson: forward to this one. And I in conjunction with this, I'll just kind of throw this out early on.

[00:00:51] Tayson: There is going to be a sale going on. So we'll talk a little bit about what we're, what we're doing. There will be some cool limited time swag, that will be, will be doing a conjunction with that with with orders. So, with that, I guess as the stage I wanted to maybe just start a little bit talking about We're at today. And then we're gonna jump way back. 10 years ago, back when I was 23 years old and wanted to start a business. So today is a pretty cool milestone, for me, at least to pass that 10 year. Mark was was, it's hard to like stop and just even recognize, what that, what that meant? If it meant anything to me, like, like, how do you, I guess? Like internalized that and I think the reality was like, it wasn't

Editor’s note: The sale, anniversary swag, discount, membership, and product-color language in this episode describes an August 2024 promotion that has ended; no expired promotion link is included here.

[00:01:40] Tayson: a surprise to me that we hit 10 years but I think the the interesting part is just that it has been 10 years that that it just went by that fast. I guess it's it's I don't know. And a lot of ways, it can still feel like we're a gritty startup around here and then a lot of other ways, it feels like we're this is established brand with with a whole bunch of employees that run their departments now and do different things and let's just have been a really big shift. Really interesting thing to look at. But yeah, Crossing 10 years was really interesting. This also came in the mail last year. This is a Really heavy paperweight for Shopify, but on the back here, it shows that we've, we've shipped 100,000 orders and that was last year. So obviously

[00:02:27] Tayson: we're above and beyond that. That was a really Thing to just randomly show up in the mail for for us, too. It's just like, holy cow. We've sent out 100,000 orders. And I don't even know how many of those Dave packed and sent himself, but had to be quite a few of them especially with some of the promos we've done over the years, that's helped us to get in front of customers, like, the free Plus or free pillow, you know, plus shipping offer that, you know, many of you probably have seen and heard of and that's probably something we should Circle back to as we go through the history and timeline of this. Why we did things like that but it's just it's really cool. I mean this year we've we what we have three products land and outside magazines.

[00:03:07] Tayson: Kind of gear the year selections, we've had like looking at even our our biggest supplier, Toray who supplies some of the most premium brands in the world. You know, 100 million dollar Brands. And I mean, actually, the supply fabric to, you know, companies like Lululemon that are billion dollar companies. And I think what's was cool as I was thinking about that

[00:03:29] Tayson: this morning was like, even though we're even manufacturing with with the manufacturer that helps billion dollar companies, they actually showcase us internally. So, I don't even know how many of the VPs of Toray this massive You know, high performance fabric company. I don't even know how many of the VPS have our jackets. They'll actually come back to us and purchase our jackets to give to like their vice presidents and and and and stuff. Because they want to show on the technology that we're innovating with. They also have this newsletter that goes out to like, 40,000 employees and alumni, and they did like brand Spotlight specifically on us in the ways that we've been innovating product. In things like the Tushar Rain Jacket, and other pieces. So it's just really, there are some really cool milestones and it's a really cool

Editor’s note: Supplier relationships, product recognition, order counts, staffing, and company scale in this section are the speakers’ descriptions as of August 2024, not current-status claims.

[00:04:16] Tayson: place to be right now, to just see the team, the Innovations, the product where it's at right now and especially when I kind of Zoom back to think about. Hey, like, when I was 23 years old, So this is 2013, I guess. Is that technically 2014 when I, when the company started like just thinking like what are do I think we would have been in 10 years and I don't know. Like I remember when I started the business, like the number one goal is like if I could build this business to, you know, do a million dollars in Revenue like all of them made it like that was like like the biggest thing I could possibly think of happening, right? So, yeah, I mean that was that was

[00:05:00] Tayson: Kicking it out the door, but I guess to recap what I'd like to do is I'd like to kind of Zoom back now to the earliest days of Outdoor Vitals and maybe share some of the things that I don't think I've ever shared before because they were never like important or pertinent to the conversation and maybe it's like, sometimes I think people don't realize how gritty startups can be. We have like this new, this new age of business where people start a business. It's their second or third business. They, they go and they have funding out of the gate, either their own money, or they've got, you know, funding partners, and venture capital. And, and so you like a lot of startups. Now, I feel like just start and it's like, instantly. They're acting like their, like, they've made it,

[00:05:40] Tayson: meaning, like they've got the employees. They've got the nice office space, they've got this dialed in product. They've got all of these things. Well, that was nothing like how we started, right? I had no relationships in the industry. I had no money. I had nothing but like, I hope in a dream of what could be done and so it was, it was like, really, really gritty. In fact, I wasn't even sure when I started this company out. If I was going to be selling to Hunters or to Backpackers, so that last year of college, for me before the business was even founded. I started purchasing and selling online a broad spectrum of different things. Sold like packable wire, saws. Like, if you guys know what those are like the little I don't even know it's like a wire and it's

[00:06:30] Tayson: just got some Jagged things on it. I sold some of those. I sold, I sold a bunch of headlamps. I sold like, I'm not talking like, like 100 plus headlamps. I was selling. I was sourcing and starting down sleeping bags. Tactical flashlights. I sold some like tactical flashlights. I mean it was like I was just literally still figuring things out. But the sleeping bags is really what stuck and where I started to like, get a bigger vision of what, what could be done at that point in time. I really was just selling anything and everything and trying to figure out what direction I want to go. But I was also getting more and more solidified. I think in the backpacking space as far as like, this is the direction I want to go. So it was in 2014, is when

[00:07:12] Tayson: I like really kind of nailed that down, I feel like and was like, all right, let's buy more sleeping bags. So I bought three sleeping bags, you know, and listed those online, sold those, you know, about five. So, those bought five, so, those bought 10, and I just kept ordering these small amounts of, of samples out of factories, and what people probably don't realize is like, Like right now, for instance, when we are producing a product, Derek will say, hey I've got 40 people that I want to send this backpack tour this hoodie to, or something like that. To, you know, test it to review it to look at it, you know, these are YouTubers or writers or, you know, bring them, and then bring them will have his own group. So we may produce like 40 units of just

[00:07:55] Tayson: samples, right? And so, when I look back then, and I was ordering like, three and five and ten like the factory legitimately thought I was ordering samples. And to me, I was actually ordering inventory and selling that inventory. So, I did that for about six months and then got to a point where I was ordering enough that I could start to customize the bag. So that was like the only time frame in Outdoor Vitals history where we weren’t actually designing the gear was about five or six months in the very, very beginning. After that, we started making tweaks making the bags bigger switch into YKK zippers and logos switching out Fabrics. I mean it just all Cascade it from there. but, It was it was gritty right? I mean it was out of my apartment at first and then

[00:08:41] Tayson: I moved into a duplex and then it was at like I was sectioning off portions of the house. And just that was like, where I was packaging products. I was shipping them into Amazon. I, there's probably some photos out there somewhere too where I was legitimately packaging products. And I was I was doing it in trash bags. I was just Like repackaging. All the products into the trash bags. because we didn't have like I didn't have like branded poly bags or anything, it was just whatever I could do whatever I could find was was how we had to make this this happen and work but so, I guess from there just to skip ahead, just a little bit on on The history of where you guys come in here. So, So, that first year was I was still doing everything

[00:09:37] Tayson: part-time. 2015. I was still a basically work all day at a day job and come home and work the rest of the day, you know, on outdoor vitals and in like November of 2015, I remember specifically having a day where I sold so many sleeping bags. At that point,

[00:09:59] Tayson: Time that I made more money in a single day, with Outdoor Vitals. Then I made at the entire month of my day job and I was like, all right, I think it's time to quit the day job and just start spending time here because at that point in time too like why would you do that? Like why would you like wait that long to quit? Well, all it was was inventory. Like I could not get enough inventory. I couldn't afford enough inventory was just constant. Reinvestment. I was, I was living, you know, me and my wife were living as cheaply as we possibly could and investing all of our money back into the business, to get more inventory because we're constantly stocking out stocking stocking out. But when I have that day where I was like, I made more money

[00:10:39] Tayson: in a single day than I made the entire month at my other job. I should probably quit the other job. So, that's when I quit that and just was in Outdoor Vitals full-time. So it's like November of 2015. And then by March of 2016, things had continued to take off so much that I ended up hiring the first two employees and I hired them on the same day that was Daren and Riley. If you go way back in the archives of YouTube, You'll see like some old Vlog. So we used to do and, you know, just man, I, I sometimes like one of those will get pulled up and I'm like, what were we doing? Like I have no idea. And this is about where Dave's gonna come into the picture here because So 2016 and

[00:11:22] Tayson: I'm not going to share a lot of numbers but this is just kind of an interesting thing because when I started the business it was like man. If I could get to a million dollars, I’d feel like I made it right I’d made it.

[00:11:29] Tayson: Well 2016 we hit a million dollars. So we're talking like the first year that I was actually just working full-time in the business. We broke and passed that Milestone. So it was really interesting because then it was like, okay, that's probably really when I started to Envision what we could really build, right? That was when I was like, okay, I don't want to just sell any product. I don't just want to sell like As we started the business with, like the most affordable down sleeping bag, you could get a hold to be, totally honest and Frank. I didn't even know what a premium down sleeping bag was like, I just needed a down. Sleeping bag was 10 times better than what I used to growing up my whole life. So it was around 2016 where I started to really learn

Editor’s note: Revenue, growth, cash-flow, inventory, and funding figures are founder recollections shared in August 2024; they are historical company context, not audited financial statements or forecasts.

[00:12:07] Tayson: more about quality product, and start testing, and using other product and started to get this vision of like, hey I could build any business now. Like it's not just about getting it off the ground and getting cash and and making it like a career or anything like that. It's like, no. Now I've got up the first rung on the ladder and I can choose which direction I go from there. Saute is about 2016 where I started to really Envision like getting in with really like, trying to build out the network of factories to be in producing in the highest level factories and in the highest level fabric mills and using all the best components. Like I started to put together like what did I really want to build? I think that came throughout 2016 when things were just growing and

[00:12:52] Tayson: booming at the level they were So, that all being said Dave when did you start in Outdoor Vitals?

[00:13:00] Dave: It was. 2017, or 2018? I'm not sure. And I was the springtime because I remember right, when I started, I went to Yosemite and took a trip there with some product and tested it out for the first time. But right on that coming up on. Eight years, I think. So over the message,

[00:13:21] Tayson: I think it would have had to have been 17 then for sure. So you would have been hired one year after like, Daren and Riley essentially. So when you came into the office, like like maybe just walk viewers or listeners through, like, How the heck even heard about us? But then like what was your perception of US versus? Like starting day one on the job and what that was like

[00:13:46] Dave: Yeah. Well for me I mean I was kind of plugged in to the outdoor industry gear things like that. I worked as an Outfitter and guide prior to Outdoor Vitals. So I was familiar with outdoor gear, things like that. And I went into a consignment shop slash Outdoor Store that was just opening up in Cedar Sports. And I saw one of our bags hanging in there and checking it out, talk to the guys, okay? Thanks. Really nice. I've never heard of this brand. Can you tell me a little bit more about them? And the owner actually happened to know your brother, your family. And so he kind of explained Outdoor Vitals, the right and Cedar told me a little bit about how you know, it's a direct-to-consumer brand but since You guys knew each other, kind of put

[00:14:40] Dave: some gear in there to check out. So I went home, did some research on outdoor vitals and saw that you were hiring applied and you know, came in for an interview. And then I really didn't. I didn't know what to think. Honestly, I didn't really have any proceed expectations. I just some YouTube videos, really.

[00:15:03] Tayson: I was just gonna say that as back then there probably wasn't as much of a perception around it because you just barely found us and then came came almost straight over it seemed like, alright. So first first I guess week or a couple days on the job like maybe just describe what that was like like what what kind of things were you doing? What was the atmosphere like?

[00:15:24] Dave: I would say the best word is “disorganized”, I would say that would be good. Way to sum it up. I think at the time everybody was probably a little bit. I would say over their head but everybody was dipping their toe into all different aspects of the company, and that's what I like about it. And that's what I still do. Like about it. But you know, kind of Organization was a big one for me, I'm very organized like everything you need to place the spot and so that was my biggest challenge. When I first started was kind of just getting inventory in the place where it needs to be easy to find, you know, kind of figuring feeling. The other two guys, I'll what what their role is. Don't want to kind of step on anybody else's toes. Figure

[00:16:13] Dave: out, you know everybody's role mashallah

[00:16:19] Tayson: Yeah, I'm sure it was it was really not clear and I'm sure that like organization was not a thing. Like, what's interesting I guess is I love organization. I also love the idea, we're organization, but I don't necessarily feel like in my life I can ever keep things just totally organized. It's like, slowing down to the point of like constantly being organized can be at least in those early days just didn't make like logical Sense on on productivity and output. And so Yeah, like I mentioned, I, I basically worked from home for from like, November 2015 to like, March of 2016. So like four months and I was like, I can't do this anymore. So then we rented a space here. Brought on those other employees. And, and I would say if there was like a, if there was something

[00:17:03] Tayson: that like worked to get this business off the ground, it was probably just like, my extreme focus on like Lean Startup mentality of like, I mean, like you get a test of this like, what were people using as as desks and tables and stuff. When you

[00:17:18] Dave: always say that, we have folding, you know, folding plastic, you know, picnic table, type desks, and then at one point we got fancy and put like, skirts around the. I remember the crowd like a like a black little skirt around, right? I go back with skirt. They look a little bit fancier. But and I do remember too, when you're like all right I think it's time to buy some bass. So look no, I'm good with This one it works. You know I was working for me.

[00:17:50] Tayson: Well, that was the thing is you we had hired the right people because like, yeah, I mean we were literally on card card table, you know, type type desks and and really cheap chairs and different things. And it was like when it did come time to okay, guys should we should we get something better? And most of the guys in the office back. No, we're good for a while. Like so it's like, I think, in some ways that was, like a positive that we had people on the team that were willing to be gritty and just in and saving anywhere that we could. So we can invest in all the areas that we feel like we needed to because, but yeah, I totally forgot about those skirts. Dude, those those were constantly falling off. They looked so bad because they

[00:18:27] Tayson: just like attract the dust and stuff to him and they're black. And oh, man, I did the matter of time she like I feel like everyone just like would hit their knees on like those cross bars under. Yeah, the tables because really on those tables, like you've got these massive like little like a shape looking things coming up from the two corners on it. And so really like the only place that's comfortable to sit in those in the very middle of them. And, oh, man, I totally forgot about those.

[00:18:55] Dave: You know, it was actually looking at, you talking about the old days of the Vlogs was, I don't know why popped up on YouTube, but the one with the like, witch and the bathroom, it's still up. If anybody wants to go back and look at it years and years ago, but we put like this random kind of like the garage, which

[00:19:17] Tayson: Random places like creepy doll thing. Yeah,

[00:19:19] Dave: yeah, turn the light on in the back and somebody's record it

[00:19:24] Tayson: We had. Yeah, we had a little Time frame where I think it's around Halloween or something. Someone brought it in and then we'd like place it randomly around the warehouse or bathroom or different things and try to try to film people. Getting scared, I think was creepy as heck. I mean, I think I think was very scary, actually took it home after that and scared, a family member. And I legitimately thought that they were gonna like, not talk to me. And for a long time, they were so mad. Yeah, we were messing around. I remember, we tried like, at one point on like the

[00:19:59] Tayson: Blogs. We try to like mix it up. As we were, we were doing so many different jobs, right? Like everyone had five jobs and was doing so many different random things, you know, you could, like, if you were working on, let's say it was like Riley's position, it's like, all right, you're doing Graphics, you're doing video, you're doing website design, you're doing. Like, emails, you're doing, you're working on Amazon account, like it was just like so spread out. So we would try occasionally to, like, have some fun around the office. I remember, we did some kind of a bowling thing in the back. Once I don't remember, I think that was a vlog. Probably messing up your, where your little warehouse space you probably won't be happy about that. But,

[00:20:40] Dave: like tires, some of the bow and arrow.

[00:20:44] Tayson: Yeah, we winner, by shooting a bow, we try my own. He tried to start fires with the magnifying glass and had a winter for that. Yeah, I think we're picking a giveaway winner with with, like each of us had like a sponsored person and then we tried to start a fire with the magnifying glass in the parking lot. Well, it was right.

[00:21:02] Dave: Two two, you know, everybody, having their own role and kind of doing different things. One thing, when I ain't going back to the interview with with starting up was you said for everybody to take, you know, 15 to 30 minutes a day and kind of try and learn something new and that really was something that stuck out to me especially in that role in the beginning it was a great way to learn all the different things that we needed to learn to you know, I think if you didn't say that but that wasn't kind of a policy. I don't know if people would have took the time out of their day to because like you said everyone's so busy. It's like I need to figure this out but you know so that was definitely something that I found to be

[00:21:46] Dave: very helpful in starting from the beginning.

[00:21:49] Tayson: Yeah, yeah I think we've always, we've tried to do that. We still run like a book Club thing. And but that was that was huge for us and for me was just constantly trying to learn because this wasn't a second business was not the third business that was the one and only and I mean I think like even to skip ahead a little bit. I think it's really an attractive in probably why we don't talk about it a lot like to really look at the first few years of business, right? Product quality levels. Like I will always stand by the fact that I think that we whatever product we had. We sold at an incredible value or what we were selling hundred dollar down sleeping bags, right? That was the product for years. hundred dollar down sleeping bag, and So

[00:22:35] Tayson: compared to what we build and make today, it's just a completely different product. And so, it's in some ways, it's like oh we don't want to like we don't want to talk about that because we did, you know like through the course of getting this business off the ground. We did create a little bit of a paradigm like like an issue, I guess where we got labeled as like this budget brand but we but I had like since then determined saying she doesn't sixteen that we wanted to build to be this Innovative, you know, high-end brand that was still selling direct to Consumer and still really focused on helping people get outside and So, we have this, this Gap, that kind of originated, which makes it hard sometimes to talk about. these like early early times and how gritty

[00:23:17] Tayson: it really was, but So with that, though, what's interesting? I think is for me, there was a time probably around 2016 or 17 where I had a mentor, say hey it's time to sell your business and this is like not really someone was like meeting with a lot, but it was someone that I had been connected with it. It had done a lot of the things that I had done businesses and sold them over and over and over again. And so he's like, hey it's it's time to sell your business, you know, like we we had started on Amazon as like a stepping stone. So meaning I never wanted to be an Amazon business. I just wanted to use Amazon to get to cash flow and then build a bigger business which is great because like today Amazon's like five

[00:23:53] Tayson: to 10% of our Revenue. If that so, And he turns, and he's like, hey, it's time to sell your business and you can start the next one, like, you can, you can do whatever you want, you can retire, you could, you could be done. And my whole thing with him was like, it took me like, 30 minutes or longer of me trying to explain to him that if I sold the business, I'd wake up the next day and want to rebuild the same business. And I think most businesses act like that. Most businesses will go and do that. And so, then, on day one, they do have like this sexier more clean, start, right? They've got like, the brand style, the product style, all these things are dialed because you're starting with years of history, with relationships with knowledge as

[00:24:34] Tayson: well as with more funding. Whereas for us really, we did this big shift and I used to, like, we're just gonna make the shift, We're not gonna like end of business, start a business type of thing and so there is like this element of us. When you really dig back in The Archives, this just crazy to read live compared to we are where we are today and it does not align they're very different businesses but we went through this shift so I just kind of want to I guess call that out a little bit of like we could have done the traditional thing of sell this business off. Start a new business. That was more how Outdoor Vitals is today. We're was exactly how to say, but For me, I always wanted to be in this long term. I didn't

[00:25:14] Tayson: have a desire to sell it and switch and do all that. So, we've just chipped away for years at Shifting some of these things to the higher end product and higher-end manufacturing and designers and you know, Brigham I think would be our our next oldest employee. He's out of the office today but you know, Brigham's been here since 2019 now. So He's he's five years in at this point and yeah a lot of a lot of I guess shifts just to note there as far as like what's different about our startups. So so I guess before I because I think when Derek when you got here we were already in this other unit B right? Yeah so going back to just one we were down in the end of this building. Dave, any other thoughts or stories or things come

[00:26:01] Tayson: to mind as far as just like what? What the atmosphere? What life was like get out of it at that point in time.

[00:26:07] Dave: I mean, yeah. Just Not saying. this was one thing that stuck out to me and You know, I think it was a good thing because we're all, you know, everybody have their own space or kind of all in the same room, conversating talking about things. And then the next thing, I wish took off to me is when I guess the breaking point of when we needed a bigger space when we get pallets and pallets out or whatever and you were like I couldn't move. So that was a guy like walking like you know, sideways trying to scoot through find things and That and you know, actually moving to the newer bigger unit like that those those days like stick out of my head. I really remember, you know, moving all the stuff over to the bigger unit that and with

[00:26:59] Dave: Katelyn, I remember Kate and came over, you know, I was there kind of later in the day and she came in and she's like wow this is like so much more space. This is so much better and how?

[00:27:09] Tayson: Yeah, I remember, I mean, you are like the organized guy, right? And I remember, You just constantly working so hard to like keep the back organized and I I can't remember when I got to the point where there was just an aisle like many down down the back of that unit and it was almost like you had to walk sideways to get from one end of it to the other.

[00:27:32] Dave: Yeah, let's move a pallet to like get to the box and to have enough room.

[00:27:36] Tayson: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Because we had, we had like two shelves or two stacks on each side and then roll a pallets. And yeah, if you ever need anything you'd literally have to like this and start shifting pallets out of the way to get to the inventory, not to mention. And I mean for years and years and years, it was just the most economical to ship product with these big yellow. Bags that came like they would ship them through FedEx, but to like give you an idea, it's like a three foot by three foot by three foot bag and they weighed about 70 to 90 pounds. Each of them the FedEx guys. Hated us. Because they're like the most like you take so we fit what maybe I mean I guess you could do the math on that but it's

[00:28:20] Tayson: like 30 sleeping bags in one one box per one like compressed bag here. So, three pounds times 36 Megs together 90 pounds, right? And and so they hate it because like they have to like lift this massive awkward 90 pound bag somehow like shift them in and we'd be getting like a handful of them at a time. Usually, three to five or more and then I remember specifically having to go through like a safety thing and being like, This is how you have to open this bag so that you don't get injured because they would compress them so tight. And then they'd wrap ropes this cord around them. So they do like three Loops, one way, then they spin and do like three Loops the other way, and that's what held all of the the compression in because like, I

[00:29:05] Tayson: mean, just so that. So then what you do is you'd have to take like scissors or something and it was so tight. You couldn't possibly get the scissors underneath the court. So you'd have to like take a knife and cut from above, but the thing is when you come from above when it finally would pop and break. I mean, it sounded like a gunshot went off and it would like fling the Rope back. And so it's like, okay, you have to like, You know, like make sure like, if you've got safety glasses around where safety glasses, if like wear gloves, if you can so that rope doesn't pop and smack. You like stay out of the way and it just be like this, like you like reaching over and just like gently touching this rope with a sharp knife until

[00:29:44] Tayson: it just boom. And yeah, do that nine times with also out cut with also by trying to avoid cutting a sleeping bag in the process. I mean that that to me not always

[00:29:58] Derek: Well by the time I got in the bigger worry with those big yellow packages was the China dust

[00:30:02] Tayson: The China dust, that's true. So we manufactured in China basically, through 2018 19th was a common term around our office. So explain what the heck China dust was.

[00:30:15] Derek: Well, you don't open these. You were, they were still using these yellow packages. By the way, by the time I started it was I think it was 2017 but towards the end of it and yeah, when we were opening up, these yellow packages, sleeping bags, or inventory, for different things, Not only do they explode open but the exploded open with all this dust. That I don't know where it comes from, but it's kind of like Dusty in there and it would like shoot into the air, shoot up your nose and shoot all over the warehouse like just this dust in. And it smelled weird, you know, like it had a specifically had an odor. I think it's some of it from being packaged up with down product for, you know, however, long as they're shipping it from our manufacturing Partners

[00:30:58] Derek: to, you know, our warehouse. But yeah, that was that, that China does got everywhere. It doesn't cause cancer except in the state of California. So yeah. So yellow bags. Oh so with that though was right, what was heard that thought was like at that point in time because we shipped that way because it's so I can get the product as fast as possible at chipping FedEx's you know seven-day shipment time versus now shipping on the ocean could be six weeks, eight weeks. And so we do that to get the product as quick as we could, because we were moving through it so fast. But then it would be This Disaster because you'd open those up and I've got 30 bags, just laying on the floor, with no boxes, no containment. So there might be stacking bags. You know, like trying

[00:31:47] Derek: to like stack bags on shelves and not a time. I feel like those Just Came Crashing Down.

[00:31:52] Dave: Yeah. I mean, so some of the picture it's just, you know, those big steel Home Depot shelves and I was really at like boxes in them, they're just Stack them on top of each other. You're pulling out. Ten of them would fall down. Just very.

[00:32:09] Tayson: Yeah,

[00:32:09] Dave: very different.

[00:32:11] Tayson: I remember too, we brought in, we did we occasionally bring in people to help? And I don't know if you were there for this or if this was before, but we brought in my cousin, Jesse for a while and he was doing like some return type work and shipping type work. But I also remember really, really on, I brought in a buddy of mine his Travis and I had him checking returns. To make sure that they were, you know, in good working conditions. They could be sold again and anyways, someone had bought a bag, you know, how to like a day return it to us. So it was like it was a new bag. To us, this is what we thought but that's why we check, but I have like just my high school, buddy. Checking these bags. He checks

[00:32:47] Tayson: it says oh yeah, it's brand new so we sell it as new, right? And then we get a return on the says, I just bought a brand new bag from Outdoor Vitals. And there's a dirty sock in the bottom. And it needs to say I fired, Travis, he wasn't the right guy for the job. Clearly, but I was the kind of stuff that occasionally would happen around here. It was, it was and we had anyways, we had a few people that kind of cycled in and cycled out helping with shipping helping with warehouse, but definitely when we got Dave in there is when everything up levels and got Actually had a place in the warehouse instead of was a was a was a mess, I guess.

[00:33:25] Dave: Yep. And I think going back to, you know, people that start multiple businesses and just kind of knowing what what works and something that I feel like really had to work. The Kinks out in the beginning was software stuff that work we used to do all this and just A spreadsheet with your turns and, you know, people's addresses names, things like that. It was very I mean that was our definition of organized just Gmail for support and things like that. You know, that's all stuff. That kind of took time to figure out, you know, what worked best for us.

[00:34:00] Tayson: Yeah, I mean, and what it's always been the dynamic has always been as like, we're an early stage startup. And so, it's like, we have to be as lean as we possibly can. And so what a lot of times happens is like issues have to get big enough to get enough. Like, I don't know, input from employees to find me back. Okay, we can justify spending this money because the need is high enough and usually Like instead of being like hey I can foresee this being a problem. So we're gonna buy software right now. It was always the opposite. We're like where we have to like justify the cost and you usually through, you know, just extra man hours or costs or problems and So they're definitely was was some of that that that's going to happen, right? Like there's

[00:34:43] Tayson: gonna be like, I'm just trying to think of like an example of that. But like going on to like what you're saying, right? Like moving from just a Gmail, you know, support situation to an actual like help desk Software System and you know the benefits that come with that but like there's there's things that break and break down in those processes that that Force us that okay, we're gonna spend dollars a month on a random software because we're to that point we have to do it to up level the customer service and stuff. But Okay, so just trying to think there's anything else. I guess down in that unit before we shift over here, but I guess the funny story in that process. So we so I had been renting first, we rented one unit here in this building that

[00:35:26] Tayson: we're still in today. Very first place we ever went to and then we rented another unit that was side by side with it. And we kind of punched a hole through the wall. So we could kind of move product around a little bit, but we were outgoing that space. And there's these two older gentlemen, owned this building. We were in and they're like, oh we're selling the building and I never saw sign go up. I never saw it listed anywhere. So after about a year, you know I reached out and was like you guys selling the building like what's going on? Like oh yeah, that's for sale. And so I kind of got more serious about inquiring about it.

[00:35:57] Tayson: We ended up purchasing the building, those guys are awesome to this day. I still really liked them. Gave us an incredible deal which really boosts that us forward, and set us up on a really good trajectory as business. But a funny story in the acquisition process of that is this this building used to be a bit a bit ghetto I guess you could say. We had. We had a drug dealer that lived upstairs in an apartment, and his best client living across the hall from him and the other apartment. And it was, you know, the they were awesome, dudes. They like they were nice to us. We never really had a problem, but there was a lot of traffic. I guess you could say just constantly coming through and So on I was buying the building I had said, hey,

[00:36:45] Tayson: I want you to like evict those the special the dealer right? and, Somehow, you know, he ended up, he ended up getting out of the building, but then I signed on the documents for the building and then I left for a week. So I like signed and immediately jumped in my truck and left for the week. And so, these guys were moving the units from we're down in G and f, f and g, and then they were moving us down to the southern Unit, B. And I remember when I came back from from this trip, I was on Saw these this chip in the tile and I was like, how did you guys chip the tile when you're moving stuff? Like oh no we didn't ship the towel, I'm like, bull crap. You chipped to the tile. Like I walked

[00:37:24] Tayson: this unit multiple times, you know? So I like I kind of pushed him on and they were dead set that they didn't ship the tile and I'm like, All right, I guess, I maybe I didn't see it. Maybe, you know. And about a month goes on and it just kind of like lingard him back to my mind. I'm like this is really annoying. Someone chip the ding tile, they're not Fest it up to it because I would have seen that when I walked the unit to when I was purchasing the unit and It's time goes on. And actually, this is another funny thing. I go to move a propane tank, write something very common to have in your front office because that's how we were heating. He Specifically, in the warehouse we had. Yeah, Buddy. Heater like a propane. Powered

[00:38:05] Tayson: tank that they've was you using and we'll have to come back to how cold the warehouse is used to be. But I move a propane tank, and there's another big old ship in the tile and I'm like, what the heck? Okay, I maybe I would have missed one chip, but I did not miss two massive chips in the tile and I'm looking down at it. And I'm kind of chatting to Daren. There's no way like when you guys chip the title like we didn't chip the tile. So look down. I could see something kind of glistening in the tile and I pop up the what was in like stuck where a chip and I'm looking at it and I'm going, holy crap. That's a piece of lead and that's a rifling going on the side. This is a bullet. But

[00:38:46] Tayson: there's a legit bullet right here in my hand. And I'm like, Darren this is a bullet and he's like, looking up at me from Chair. And he looks right over my head. And he says, well, is that a, is that a couple of bullet holes in the ceiling? And so I look up and I see two bolt holes right above my head. And I look back down, and I can see two bullets wedged in the tile. Essentially, two big cracks where that had hit and I'm like, Holy smokes. so anyways we we reported it and there was, you know, some things had to happen, but Yeah, we cleaned up the facility, and I always remember the next, the next time I came into the office, Riley sat like right there and he's like, hey, do you think we could get

[00:39:29] Tayson: some, some metal helmets to work here for protection? I remember that that was like a foot away from where the propane tank was. Right. Oh my gosh. I that would have been insane too. Holy I, can you imagine that? I never thought about that. If that bullet had hit, the propane tank could have ignited it or at least, spun it around that room. And just Destro. Everything in there. Wow, I'd never thought about that. Yeah. Oh man I mean this to say we we cleaned up the facility a bit since we've got here. We went from I think the the two older gentlemen that had it before their philosophy was first person here with cash, gets the unit and I don't think that's always the best landlord policy. So, I've got some we've got we only, we only don't use.

[00:40:26] Tayson: Few units in the building at this point. We've since taken over, there's like a, there's a 11 units in the building, well, nine office warehouse ones and then two apartments and we're pretty much occupying everything. Now we just as we've continued to grow but anyhow, so that's about when Derek steps into this whole equation.

Editor’s note: Building occupancy, staffing, warehouse conditions, and operational practices are historical descriptions of the company’s earlier facilities and its August 2024 position.

[00:40:43] Derek: Yeah, that probably would have been like the winter of 2017 started 2018, because we would have just bought the building in like October or November of 2017. So, Yeah, I came in right around like, in the fall. and so right before it was getting too cold, and yeah, the bullet story was still fresh. Everybody was still kind of Riley was bringing up helmets all the time and he wanted a metal like were army helmet. It was awesome. Know, but I I found out about outdoor vitals. I was actually going to school and they, they started up this new entrepreneurship lecture Series. So I was, I was studying business and I was in this in this little lecture series class, you get some credit for it and every single week, they just had a different speaker come in and talk about their

[00:41:35] Derek: experience in starting a business or running a company things like that. And Tayson happened to be one of the one of the ones they invited to come talk and so you know, He kind of shared his little bit about outdoor vitals and I was kind of interested. And I was studying marketing and that's something I really love. I learned about it a nerd out about it all the time, but I always kind of knew, I don't really want to, you know, go into marketing for something that I'm not passionate about and throughout my life. I've spent tons of time Outdoors. I've spent most my time growing up outside in college, I was spending pretty much every day with my friends up in the mountains, or out mountain biking, somewhere, or hiking, or doing something camping, almost every weekend. That's kind

[00:42:20] Derek: of how I was living in college as well. And so when Tayson showed up and he's talking about this company here, locally in town the same same city. I was going to school in like, hey well, Maybe if I can learn a few things here and and figure this out, then I can kind of get my foot in the door in the industry because that's really what I want to do. Long term, I wanted to I wanted to work in the outdoor industry as a marketer. So after after a while, I kind of set up an appointment to chat with Tayson just to see if I could get some more information and to ask if I could, you know, maybe volunteer. Just learn some stuff like so basically I said, yeah, tell me anything to do and I'll do it

[00:43:04] Derek: a couple hours a day for free. You don't pay me. So we did that. We did that for a couple of weeks. I would just show up after classes. I had like two or three other jobs at the time as well.

[00:43:15] Tayson: He was going to Mexican restaurants and singing on the weekends for money.

[00:43:21] Derek: I was in a mariachi—I was legitimately in a mariachi band, which was kind of cool. I like guitar and he was a guy.

[00:43:29] Tayson: And so I've still never heard you play guitar in six-whatever years. I've known you longer, so I'm not sure he plays guitar now, but the rumor has it he'd go play and make money at Mexican restaurants.

[00:43:40] Derek: I did on the weekends, I did. So I was, I was getting by, you know, a couple other jobs plus mariachi bands, it was good, but I showed up for a couple dollars, a couple hours a day, just weekdays and did whatever whatever I was told to do. And one of the things that kind of stuck with me, it felt super random, but I guess they had just gone to a an expo or Something like a show and they had a giveaway that they'd done where everyone had to write their email on like a little card, like physically, write it down. And so they have these business big, big plastic bags, like, two or three of them just full full of business cards. And I had to go through every single one of these things and like type in the

[00:44:22] Derek: emails as it, you know, read on the cards and just like, go through these bags and there's like, super random and just time-consuming. I mean, I was in there doing it and got through eventually, but yeah, we've we've since then, we've come up with way more efficient ways to get your email addresses, if you want to enter a giveaway, by the way that you don't have the right that on A car. I remember all those, I was like, can't iPad and just have them type their email, and

[00:44:50] Tayson: So what are those things? Where because I'm not doing it. I'm like, is it really that big of a deal? Come on, guys, just do it. Yeah, it was, it was an enormous amount of business cards but the things like that and helped ship and package things in

[00:45:06] Derek: the warehouse, and whatnot. But that only lasted actually for two weeks, one or two hours a day for two weeks until Tayson's like, hey, actually. Okay, we'll start paying, you know, like perfect that definitely helped me out where I was at their And yeah, from there, kind of just I leaned into the policy of spending time each day to to learn and grow. In addition to what I was kind of learning at school and applying at some of my classes kind of from there, just started acquiring more and more skills or applying some of the skills already had and just integrating more and more with the business we still had the plastic lifetime folding tables. Problem was when he actually decided to start paying me and officially take me on as one of his employees Tayson. They ordered, they ordered

[00:45:56] Derek: another computer and, like, a monitor for me to work off of but they didn't have any more space. On the tables except for one of them was a little bit longer and so they put two of us on the one table and we've brought up those little cross bars before that are underneath those things and now we both had crossbars directly in front of our knees and so was like a daily thing. I'm like super hard banging my knee on this cross bar and yeah, that was great. But I mean, it worked for a while the the plastic or the velcro. Skirt skirt thing, really didn't work at that point. I was always getting tripped on it and Yank It Off by accident and just with my feet but yeah it was awesome. It was so fun to kind of banter

[00:46:36] Derek: and mess around with everybody and make fun of each other. I thought that was a lot of fun. Um, but yeah, it was, it was just kind of cool. Like it definitely definitely a different Dynamic from what it is. Now, when I first started there, everybody like David mentioned, we were kind of just doing everything I got into customer support, after not very long. So, I was shipping doing customer. Support started to plug in a lot of things with video, Riley, he was, he was there for a little while still but I would help him out with some things. And eventually, he took off for another opportunity up and in Northern Utah, and moved his family. First big project first really big project I remember you and me working on was the LoftTek jacket.

[00:47:15] Tayson: Yeah so that's like one that we We both were editing on it. We were both videoing it, you know, it was like that was the first big one that that like I remember rightly was gone by that point. Yeah, we were the guys in charge of doing it well and that's kind of been crazy for me too because I never—I’d never done anything with it. Derek learned how to edit for me, and I learned how to edit from... I have no idea where Yeah.

[00:47:43] Derek: Well I used a lot of YouTube videos a lot, so I would say that I even passed Tayson after, not very long. Hey video sister, I didn't have very long. I added.

[00:47:53] Tayson: I added our YouTube channel Before we hired Riley. So from start to 2016 that I said yes 2016. Yeah. And I mean, I was using, you know, don't tell anyone but probably a pirated version of Adobe like, an old old version of like, like, non-functioning parts of. It didn't work in the software. And then, Yeah, so I mean that and then hardly. So then I didn't have to edit it for a long time and then I leave that I had to re-edit and train Derek. So it wasn't a high bar to be better.

[00:48:28] Derek: No, I mean, even still like neither of us are nowhere near what does doing for us now. It's definitely much much better. But yeah, I could get it better than me, I'm sure. Oh yeah, I'm saying. But yeah, we made it work. We were doing it. I was learning. I was speeding things up and away. We went Yeah,

[00:48:48] Tayson: I don't know. I don't know if I have too much else right there from Unit B like when we when I first started but that was kind of what I mean because you probably did come in with a bit of perspective, right? Because I show up at the college. I'm a successful business owner guy, talking to everyone about how to and keep in mind, like, most of the people on that speaker series were Way, farther, in their careers part of what, like why I got invited there was I started the entrepreneurship Club at the college when I was in school and then that club was the one that was kind of responsible for putting on these presentations. And so I was kind of like the most recent successful, you know, quote-unquote successful alumni but I'm sure that like there's a

[00:49:29] Tayson: bit of a perception with me coming in and talking like in a professional atmosphere to then you come in here and being like, what the heck is going on? Well I don't know, man, I'm probably the wrong one to ask because like I

[00:49:40] Derek: said, I had no experience working in the outdoor industry before like I've done plenty of stuff Outdoors, right. But I'd never had employment in the outdoor industry. So when I came in I was like, I guess this is how it is, you know, they're spending their time outside on the office. So, okay. I guess the office is kind of crappy, that's fine, you know, but all I was coming from a perspective of poor college student and I literally, like slept in the truck a few times when when we had some issues with one of the rooms, I was currently living in. School and stuff it's just like that kind of a thing closet you lived in. I lived in a water pipe closet and one of the houses you know they ended up students and it. Yeah so for me

[00:50:19] Derek: it was like yeah it always closed and everything on floaties for whenever it would flood. Yeah. No actually in the winter I would have the window wide open because the house is old. It was heated by hot water and through the radiators and stuff. All of the water pipes, for every room, which there were 12, dudes, living in the one house. Everyone's water pipes ran through my room in the ceiling and see all these exposed pipes. So my room was like 120 degrees all the time a scene. And so, the Boiler Room, yeah, it would be like negative 7 Outing outside or zero degrees, or whatever was dead of winter at night time when everything's really cold and my windows wide open just to try to survive.

[00:50:56] Tayson: So that's a good transition to the temperature of the warehouse Dave, when we moved to the bigger unit in the building and we, we lost a lot of heat and so maybe walk us through like, what was the warehouse like, when you were doing a lot of shipping and packaging because I know, From the outside. It was pretty comical to, like, see you walking around the office. You'd have like three jackets on multiple, pairs of fingerless gloves.

[00:51:25] Dave: Yeah, and also too to like hiring Derek and Derek definitely fits into the culture. As, you know, like kind of minimalist gets gets it, you know, like we don't need all this fancy stuff it in to be successful. So I think, you know, go back to hiring the right people, right? People in the right place, like Derek, you know, he's the, he's the vibe we're going for, so I think that helped helps, you know, that the time, but the warehouse, I mean, There's no heat. So just think of a big Warehouse cinder block walls. But three. Three bay doors. Not insulated gaps in them. Yeah, he can see outside for sure. Know there was there was raft exposed rafters right? Yeah. No insulation on the ceiling. Yeah. No. He at all besides for a propane heater that Basically the weather?

[00:52:24] Dave: Yeah. Catch the where the warehouse basically just kept things from being rained on that. Yeah that's a good way to explain. Like basically it was like maybe maybe Be 10 5, 10 degrees warmer than whatever it was outside like even in the winter, dude, but I want it would heat up sometimes it would hold the coal in. Yeah, it was nice in the way in the summertime was nice. I will say that I definitely no complaints when it's, you know, whatever it is there now, a hundred and some degrees. It's it always stayed. Pretty cool back there. So the summer wasn't too bad but yeah, I would have on Thermal pants insulated, insulated pants, probably two pairs of socks, you know, prototype. Down jacket. DragonWool, maybe a like a crew sweater. Half and then fingerless gloves and that wasn't

[00:53:27] Dave: the worst part, really? The worst part was bouncing from the back to the front. So you know, I would do stuff in the back but then I was also doing like customers support, you know, people walking in, things like that. So the front of the The building the office's were heated and then the back wasn't. So I would bounce from the office to the back and forth back and forth, took my jacket off. And on, while that's why I had fingerless gloves to be able to type on the keyboard, and then be able to pick the labels and things off like that. But now now, I mean, I don't know if you want to skip ahead but now in the winter it's actually too hot back there. Actually like Compared to where we were. You know, when I was just there,

[00:54:12] Tayson: you don't have that. We don't have as hardy of employees as you now. We've got a, you know, we've got to make it real comfortable for him, you know? So

[00:54:19] Dave: I was just back there, you know, that's like this this this this winter and I was like, this is crap. I'm like ha t-shirt on and it's like, you gotta turn the heater off. Okay. Yeah. And

[00:54:32] Tayson: yeah, we like what was it like a year ago? We insulated everything and then installed these giant overhead heaters and it's just like it's cozy back there. Yeah.

[00:54:42] Dave: Not sure he just Get away with the hoodie.

[00:54:45] Tayson: If that. Yeah, big upgrades definitely all around there. Another thing that I think would be interesting to hear about, Dave, is You know, again coming back from that like startup mentality to other things, you just mentioned like you were shipping and you were doing customer service. And we I definitely asked a lot out of you and and with the startup right it's like you have to like stretch and stretch and stretch until you get to a point where you can say afford and justify another employee or right, right. So like what that typically means is that there's these moments where you're really too much is asked for you for a period of time until it becomes a Breaking Point and then it's like, okay. All right, we'll hire another employee or we'll or maybe it's a piece of software or something.

[00:55:31] Tayson: Like you almost have to get these breaking points. So You know you kind of were the customer service guy for most of I mean pretty much anyone that's listening. They've probably only ever dealt with you or or since you've been on right? So I'd love to hear your perspective on us going from from Like the different levels of customer service because I feel like today or customer service is highly well regarded we get a lot of really positive comments all the time about our customer service and and how that is how that goes, but I don't think that's always been the case even though you're still the same guy like doing a ton of other right? So maybe just kind of walk through the process of any shifts that have like happened over time with customer service and how we

[00:56:17] Tayson: Evolved.

[00:56:18] Dave: Yeah, I mean the biggest thing was getting like software to kind of track, you know, orders and you know, linking particular customers to their orders and Things like that. So that was the biggest thing for me was to be able to see, you know, what, this person ordered in the past or just having everything very easily accessible instead of having to go back and dig and find out when this person ordered what they ordered, you know, maybe different we've had so many different generations of products. You know, maybe it was a warranty issue, trying to figure out. Is a gen 1 Gen 2. Zippers might be different Fabrics, might be different, just things like that. So that was for me when we went from you know here to here like with support software and things like that. But then also

[00:57:16] Dave: growing the team even if it's someone part-time to help with, You know, a return or a warranty or, you know. we grow with pillows and yeah, I remember unfortunately, and go on vacation and you'd come back and they'd be 50 boxes behind you, with just whatever it might be. Amazon's boxes things that need to be checked into inventory returns. So I mean as we grew, definitely help take some of the pressure off me and being able to do, you know, different things around the office and kind of You know, dip my toe into different things just watching you guys set up. This podcast, you know, I don't think people probably forget I don't even know that me and you started this podcast with Noah was just like, I don't know, I'm on our phone. Basically you know some headphones and

[00:58:16] Dave: just to get it off. That's right.

[00:58:18] Tayson: It's your fault that I have to do this podcast. You're gonna be the host of it. I was like oh yeah I can side. Dave up to be there. Next thing you know I've committed my whole life to

[00:58:26] Dave: yeah, customer support Inventory management. Oh, that's still a podcast though. Yeah, figure it out Works. Get it on there. Find some guests, figure out how to edit.

[00:58:46] Tayson: Oh, I'm glad we can laugh about it because we truly, I mean, you know, the more you learn, right? I always liken it to like, like, you're hiking up a mountain. And the higher, you hike up the farther, you can look back and see in the farther like the more, you know, right? Like if the higher up, you go is if that was like the Synonym there is like how is how much you know or the higher up? You go on the mountain is like how much you know, right. The farther, you can see it's funny now to look back because you can just see all of the holes and the problems and the things that we did wrong or the expectations that we had that were like what were we thinking Here There? And Yeah. Oh man. I totally

[00:59:28] Tayson: forgot about the origins of the podcast and trying to make all that work and Trying to even just trying to like hook up to microphones?

[00:59:37] Dave: Well, yeah. One at a time and I talked much quieter than you did. And then trying to edit just one microphone and, and things like that and just but That goes also back to, you know, the start out. Mentality of, you know, figuring it, just figure it out, get it out there, figure it out and make it better as you go. Like, And making. your website for the podcast, you know, kind of like learning how to do that things just Learning. And Stuff. We just I don't look back and regret any of that for sure.

[01:00:13] Tayson: Yeah. It's it was all learning experiences. And I mean, and all of it, I would say, like, all of it worked, it's just like, it was just always that. maybe us trying to do a hair too much potentially, for like the resources we had, but at the same time, that's kind of In some ways that's that's what is required, right? Like I look at a lot of people who have tried to start businesses and and things and like you. Talk like pinpoint. What's different between them? and me and some of them will succeed for a year or two and then they phase out and I think you know, a lot of what has made us be successful is just The level of hard workers that we hired, and the people, like the fact that like, we could be disciplined long term,

[01:00:59] Tayson: and just keep grinding, and, and working it out. Because I think a lot of people Like they're excited about it when it's working, or they can be excited about it for six months or a year. But then when, when stuff starts to go wrong after that or things start to get harder, the resources started to get tapped, they phase out of it and slowly just kind of diminishes and nothing. Whereas between Myself in the people. We've hired the team here. We've just continued to grind and dig and yeah, we get stretched in and and then it gets to a point where we have to have a conversation and figure things out to make it better. And then you know, we keep going until we hit that point again and we kind of just hit that rev limiter per se, you

[01:01:39] Tayson: know? And and that's when we we grow, I mean so to talk about hitting a rev limiter here, Let's talk about 2018 so well 2019 I guess really 2018 we released the LoftTek jacket on Kickstarter, right? So for us we started using Kickstarter because we don't have outside funding. We were constantly tapped out on all of our cash because we'd be growing at this rate, but we didn't have enough cash to constantly be, you know, launching new products and expanding inventory and stuff like that. So that's where Kickstarter really came into the picture. So

[01:02:12] Tayson: we launched the LoftTek jacket. It raised a million dollars on Kickstarter. And that's all fine and dandy but then it's kind of like, all right, Dave, here you go ship 5,000 packages. So, what was that? Really like in December,

[01:02:31] Dave: it was the pants but that all the pants. I don't remember. I don't remember when we actually ship the jackets. It might have

[01:02:41] Tayson: done that. Yeah, the jackets should have been. They started shipping in like October. I want to say, or something like that or earlier, maybe know those earlier than that, but the pants were for sure. Yeah. Like Christmas and like, basically December to like February because we had delays on like the DragonWool portion of the shipment. I remember that we're sitting on the port and I remember how pumped everybody was about. That jacket launch though. I mean you we found this insulation that for us we just were pumped about because it didn't collapse when it got wet, which was a big part of how we sold that jacket: it's basically a puffy down jacket without real down, it's just as light, and it would not collapse when wet. And

[01:03:23] Tayson: everyone is super excited about the technology.

[01:03:25] Derek: Everyone was super excited about the campaign, getting things going on on Kickstarter. But we were all, I don't know. We were going crazy. I feel like everybody was just so stretched, and that was where I kicked off my acting career, I Not only was in a mariachi band, but I'm an actor and filmmaker apparently editing it and and all these ads and that's fired. Yeah. So yeah, we did that. We did all this work to try to create some video and take a lot of pictures. I think we actually paid someone for the first time to get some more professionally, done photos of the product. We hadn't done that for products before. Then had this Kickstarter, we did get a million dollars on Kickstarter for it. Plus after the kickstarter ended, we sold. I think well, over a million as

[01:04:12] Derek: well in additional sales. So we were pumped about that like because because when Tayson it you know just a couple years ago, hit a million, he thought that was a mile. So now we're heading a million in one product launch, you know, and everyone was pretty excited about that growth and that Milestone and and But like Dave said, then things are really started getting hectic. I think we saw a big increase in our daily sales for a while. Everything was shipping at a at a faster Pace. Everyone was getting more customers. Support tickets that we were having an answer which I was still. I was still on customer support then as well. Answering a lot of a lot of questions about things, and it was just, it was busy. Yeah. So it's pretty fitting right now that you can probably

[01:04:54] Derek: hear some background construction going on. Just because We, you know, show must go on around here. We're continuing to do some. I'll just renovation, I would say around the office the last year but we're adding some doorways between units and Three, nuanced and things. So if he can over here in the background a little bit of, I'm not sure what the heck is going on, drilling or cutting or something? But yeah, it's it's gritty as always around these parts. Yeah,

[01:05:22] Dave: it's not Too, too bad. I don't really hear. But would you say Tayson that the LoftTek campaign was kind of like the turning point for you know the brand to kind of put us on the map or that's when you like open your eyes rebranding and you know

[01:05:38] Tayson: yeah 100% because you know, 2016 and 17. I started to like realize where I wanted to build the brand but there was still a gap, right? Because they're still this Gap in like I don't have industry contacts still I don't know the fabric mills you know and why would they work with us? Were some at that at that point, right? That's in 16 like 90% of our sales are through Amazon, right? So it's like, We're like just some Amazon brand and then we're gonna go to to a factory that manufactures for Arc’teryx and be like, hey, you should take us on as a client and a customer and they're going to be like, yeah, we don't work with people like you like, you know what I mean? Like we we have a reputation to hold ourselves. And and so

[01:06:19] Tayson: we have this Gap still but when we launched the LoftTek jacket and we had all that success, it was like this third party badge over here. That said, like look at what we can do, this is verified, you know, this is this is where the Brand's going look, you know? And so, I was able to take that and basically bridge that Gap, I went and pitched Nuyarn, Toray, the backpack manufacturer, and fabric mills and I would use this as the reference. Hey, look at this jacket where a new brand. We're doing this, we're doing this and every single company that I talked to you. At that point said, yeah, we'll take you on as a client, like, let's start working together. So, that really was this turning point where it went from, like this is the gap, like, this

[01:06:58] Tayson: is where I want to be. This is where we're at. There's, this Gap to taking and leaping over that Gap and and starting what we consider outdoor vitals 2.0. And then the flip side of that too was at this point, I had been designing all of the gear and let's face it. I'm like I'm the president of the company, right? And so I'm managing, I'm trying to build this, I'm the chief marketing guy at this point, right? Like I'm the guy on camera. I'm the guy you know like doing these things and and I probably was running all the ads at that point. So like because Derek hadn't transitioned to covering you know, like at this point like Derek runs the ads and at this point Derek sends every email and stuff but like So like I was very thin

[01:07:40] Tayson: and I was doing product design. So then with the LoftTek jacket, that's where I was like, okay it's time to bring on a full-time designer. That all they do day in day out is design and improve product quality and Innovative and, you know, so, so yeah, really was that was the massive Tipping Point for us for sure. Where we Yeah, like started to actually bridge that Gap, right? And and whatnot. And so Started really like in 2019, let's say because there's like the very end of 2018 and 19 started 19. But then the thing about that was like, so we bring Brigham on in May of 2019. And I say, all right, Brigham, here's our product line. Currently, I want you to go back through all of it and polish every piece of it. Like I want you to

[01:08:23] Tayson: like change and improve every little piece of of what's not. And a plus level of quality and design. And, in the meantime, I also want you to be designing completely new products. And so that process took years right? It takes years to go through, you know, sampling and and finding the right stuff to to swap out on this and that, and so it takes years to work through entire product line and improve all of it. So, it wasn't until I would realistically say about 2021. when like everything had been redesigned and repolished and I mean it was like starting before then and like, there were certain products that were coming out that were really polished, you know, I mean, I'm starting with the Satu Adventure Pant, anything after the Satu Adventure Pant was like, Polished. And at a different level using premium

[01:09:12] Tayson: Fabrics using premium manufacturing and stuff. So everything and that that I guess was like, 2019. So all the new products after 2019 had already been, you know, had Brigham's entire focus on design but then we still were working through older products and polishing those for a while. So around 2021, I would say is when it was like the outside world was getting our product and being like dang, like this is really nice.

[01:09:35] Derek: Yeah, I will also say that with the with Brigham joining the team that was all the first of Like ever having an in-house. Basically built prototype as you started working on the Shadowlight, that's something that he started sewing right here in our offices. By himself. And then from there, we'll work with the Fabrics, suppliers and those manufacturers, all these premium level Partners to then get, you know, everything we needed. But the design work was all done, right here and before Brigham that had never happened before, it all been kind of like, hey, you make a prototype, we give feedback. And that happens, you know how many times? I mean before that, like

[01:10:15] Tayson: realistically my primary software to design product was Photoshop. I was just, I was just drawing things in Photoshop and editing things and Photoshop and marking down measurements. And relying heavily on the sample rooms that these factories to take that interpret that and build something. And I'd get it back and we just go through rounds of iteration. But I was, I was designing at a Photoshop. Yeah. Yes, I mean it was cool. We started to do in-house prototypes and just brought in a whole different level of expertise, and time and attention. And You know, a second, you know, opinion I guess on all of that, in a way of looking at it.

[01:10:57] Derek: So, I mean, bring them, bring them to join the team and he wasn't interested in. Designing, what we had designed in 2016, right? He was interested in and in this really high, end, High polished products that we were wanting to move towards anyways. Yeah, well, and I think, I think it helped us know what direction, we needed to move in with some of that gear. Like you mentioned already even today Tayson the lake. Four years before, this point, even a down bag of any sort was considered premium to you, right? Whereas that's not the case. And we know that that's not necessarily the case, there are plenty of cheap and budget down bags.

[01:11:31] Tayson: There are plenty of budget down bags out there that are not up to par. yeah. Apparently I'm too bougie because I don't think I would sleep in our original bag anymore

[01:11:38] Derek: but I I think even internally Brigham with the training and experience that he has. He helped with that Paradigm Shift. It's not like none of us had ever used actual like great year before or had you know, like you said we wanted to design better year but because of his training and his experience, he helped this kind of know where we needed to get to to actually have the right products coming out and had the right perspective. I think for that too. So

Editor’s note: Kickstarter totals, product generations, staffing roles, manufacturing partners, and availability discussed here describe the company’s recollection and status in August 2024; they may have changed.

[01:12:02] Tayson: yeah. All right, so we skipped over one part of the puzzle that I think is Just an interesting one and that's pillows. Why the heck did we have this program running for years? That was you know pay for the shipping will send you a pillow. You know why? Like why would we do this? What's going on with that? I think different people had different perspectives of like, like, maybe they thought it was gimmicky other people loved it. I think we I think we got to talk about it and I'll talk about just how crazy that got right. Because from a shipping perspective, Dave like in the high point of that let's call The Funnel, right? You're trying to bring in leads and new customers. Um we were shipping 100 to 200 pillows a day. Pillows were a major part of

[01:12:52] Tayson: your job. Yeah.

[01:12:55] Dave: Yeah, I mean two with that like I still get people asking me about that if it's legit. I see that on social media you know like not like is this too good to be true but God

[01:13:10] Tayson: Yeah, and I mean I we are we are putting an end to that. Now it's it's run its course and it's over. But to the to the question of like, why did we do this? Like what the heck are we doing? Isn't that like, super weird? Well, think of it from from this perspective because we're a direct-to-consumer business. We have to go and find each and every single customer. They don't walk into REI and see a product. And you know that, wow, let's this brand ask the sales rep or buy this product and gets introduced to us that way and and that's a big deal, right? Because retail is a monster compared to direct sales. I mean, they're just so big and like

[01:13:50] Tayson: if we did retail I'm sure we would probably triple in size in a year. If we opened up the retail side of the business, like there's just so much more volume in retail. But for us, we have to literally go and find each and every new customer. And so this was a way that that we were able to bring in new customers and yes we would we would actually lose money. On these pillows, that we would ship out. But what we would then do is we would do that because on the back end, if we say sold product to 10 customers, so, excuse me, if we sent out 10 pillows, to 10, 10 people that paid for the shipping and we lost, I don't know, x amount of money. What we found is that, let's say, two or three of

[01:14:34] Tayson: them would then turn around and buy something else from us, within 30 days and become real customers of ours. And, you know, then at that point, we'd turn a profit, we'd make some money. But then they, but then we could hang on to them as lifetime customers and it Outdoor Vitals, we have one of the highest returning, customer rates of any business I've ever seen in like e-commerce, right? Like the amount of customers that buy from us and then buy again from us is exceptionally, exceptionally high. So we can kind of bet on if we can turn them into a customer one time they're going to order from us and order from us an order from us. So the pillow funnel route was really just a very clever way that we came up with to, to bring in new customers.

[01:15:19] Tayson: And, and it was like, it was kind of a, like, a backdoor way of doing. It's not just straight advertising to straight, combined product on our website. It's hey, let us give you something. We'll lose a little bit of money, but we're betting that some of you will come back and become lifetime customers of ours. And I guess not to mention too. It actually worked out pretty well for us, because as we had made some of these shifts and as we were selling on Amazon, there's a few of our products that like sold exceptionally well on Amazon, and tell another brand came in and like copied our product and copied the listings and you know copy the images and then undercut the pricing and on Amazon you know you it's like a fire hose and if it's directed at you

[01:15:57] Tayson: you're selling a million dollars of the product. And then tomorrow you could be selling 0.00 this product. and so, we had like, Years of inventory that that had happened with some old bags, called the OV-Light as an old, like a tiny little synthetic sleeping bag. And so, we also used this pillow, these pillow sales to then try to upsell them some of our clearance products. So we were liquidating all this excess inventory to the people that were buying the pillows. And so it was just like this whole thing that like networked together ended up being a net positive for us to bring in new customers to liquidate Old products. And yeah, just like to collect emails, all of that. And, and it was a, I don't think people understood what the heck we were doing they, which is why

[01:16:42] Tayson: you'd get emails all the time being like, is this fake like this seems too good to be real. You know. It was it was a is a backwards way of doing it compared to how most businesses done. There was also some

Editor’s note: The retail-growth comparison and customer-return claims are the founder’s August 2024 business estimates and observations, not a current forecast or independently verified benchmark.

[01:16:51] Derek: entertainment value internally I think for me just to see you know, if we can keep the the pillows in stock then that's going to mean Dave and some of the warehouse guys are gonna have to build towers in the Warehouse. I personally was invested in seeing how many times or how high we could stack the towers and seeing how long we could go with that a fallen on. Someone all the time, you'd be getting these stacks of pillow boxes and there was no where else to put them in the whole Warehouse the warehouse is completely full. And then you'd be walking by and sure enough you'd like barely touch one of those boxes and come tumbling down on top of you and I thought it was like I kind of hilarious but

[01:17:32] Dave: I'm sure the post office people will be happy that the pillow funnels come to an end. Yeah bags and bags and bags of Pillows. They used to take, we used to feel like All of the post office was just like that. The mail truck would be multiple male tracks to come back all of our stuff. Yeah, that's a good job with us on that.

[01:17:57] Tayson: Yeah, we kept basically a truck busy at all times with with some of that. I mean, it's tapered off over the years now. But yeah, I think it's it's finally getting the plug completely pulled on it and move on to newer methods of trying to grow and get our name out there. Okay man. What did we miss any? What other funny stories, I guess, should we should we share before we kind of, I mean, because we're kind of getting to the point now where like, that's the more recent stuff and price stuff we talked about.

[01:18:25] Tayson: So I didn't I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about that as much as just history and some of the funny stories and what I do think there's one thing that's important and that's something that's still really important to us. Now in our culture, which is just making sure that we go out on company trips. That's been a part of outdoor vitals. Since the very start, not only do we Value hard workers that are dedicated dedicated and okay with getting down and gritty a little bit when when there's lots to do. But we want to make sure that there's also a cultural fit with spending time Outdoors, which is really why we even exist. It's helping people connect with nature, right? And so,

[01:19:04] Derek: ever since the start, I always thought that was the coolest thing. I get paid to go, backpacking. I told my friends and everyone was jealous and I still love that about outdoor vitals. And we still do that, but we've had a lot. And I mean, a lot of cool experience is just on on trips throughout the years at least a trip a month for years and years and years, if not more than one trip sometimes and given month. That's been really, really valuable to all the employees that Outdoor Vitals and to just kind of our overall company culture and how far we've come everybody is aware of the products. Everybody's aware of, you know what? It takes to be a Backpacker and and most of us have been doing it for a long time.

[01:19:43] Tayson: all right, so give me a funny story from one of our trips like both, you just think back to like, a trip that stands out and let's, let's, uh, let's go. I mean, I

[01:19:54] Dave: feel like those early trips. I've had some interesting ones, but I saw I'm like when I'm gonna trip with this and I'm going to be bushwhacking going up the the biggest incline the hardest way to get to wherever we're going we're taking it.

[01:20:10] Tayson: I remember weirdness leader leading you through the worst.

[01:20:15] Dave: Yeah where we meet you and Darren went somewhere once and well I think by your house we are found and dumped snow on us like completely camp out in the middle of like I don't know what was all or something, but it was just snowed in but I mean that like that that's those are fun trips but one that sticks out and you probably gonna say fix up to is When I don't really Delano Peak, maybe we went to and it's I got blasted and hail and I decided I didn't want to bring his hand. I was gonna bring like a bivy. Like yeah, and the storm rolled in so fast.

[01:20:57] Tayson: Yeah we saw the storm coming because we're up on you know nearly 12,000 foot Peak and we're like we better get down quick and get camp set up. So we dropped down to like maybe 11,000 feet and we're in, like a saddle and we set up our camp as fast as we can, as the storm is rolling in well, Dave had volunteered to try out a bivy bag for us and see what he thought about the bivy bag. And Any threw up, his tarp was in his bivy bag and my, my my tent door was facing you. And so I have some video footage of me like, poking my phone and recording out of like the little vestibule, you just getting destroyed by hail at 11,000 feet, you know, this Monsoon level storm coming through and I mean, it was

[01:21:47] Tayson: like, I'm sure it was like almost painful to be in there, right? I mean, that's the one and only time he's the biggest. Yeah, it didn't pass the threshold of what we need out of our products. Bivies are great. But yeah, the places we would have taken them or have taken them. They were not quite adequate for us at all times.

[01:22:16] Dave: Yeah, those terms are great. I mean, just As far as. talking about things not necessarily work, really get to know people you know on the more personal level I feel there's companies incorporation and stuff that pay a lot of money to take their employees on Retreats like that. I'm kind of like team building activities and and I'll be able to do that, you know, for only his stuff away apart.

[01:22:47] Tayson: yeah, I do appreciate now that I'm not always the one on the hook for like where we're going and I don't have to guide it and stuff because we also went on a trip or recently that turned out to be horrible and it was nice to be like Tyler planned. It wasn't. Yeah. About you Derek any trips? Come to mind?

[01:23:07] Derek: One that comes to mind is when the first time we tried to hike up to King's Peak, we took a couple days to do that. Oh my gosh. And you were on that one too Dave. Yeah.

[01:23:16] Dave: We got to the top. We want that when I went down. Yeah. The first time I experienced elevation sickness.

[01:23:24] Derek: Oh yeah. We both. And I literally was just looking at my fishing pole there. and I was looking at these big gouges out of it and I turned to my kids and I was like All right, well if you guys like give me 10 bucks if you can guess what bit holes in my fishing pole and they're like, oh, I don't know. You'll start guessing it's like no freaking rock chuck gnawing like that. There was one point where it pretty much destroyed. Darren's backpack. Yeah, almost ready. Yeah. Almost ripped his whole shoulder strap off. He almost didn't have a shoulder strap to use. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, I'll remember hiking in hiking in the first day, we're walking across this bridge. There's this hiker that's going the other direction and she had like an ice axe And she's wearing

[01:24:10] Derek: hiking skirt. Yeah. It has a ice axe on her pack and Dave Like just apparently pointed out. Oh, she has an ice axe because like we were going in to hike King's Peak, do we need an ice axe kind of a thing? But nobody heard that he said he was the other people heard, everyone thought he was saying that she had a “nice butt” and we're like, Dave like Just cuz your wife's not here. Like, what are you doing? We don't typically talk like that out here. This is just one of those very like, kind of like, this is, like, I remember is almost like, kind of like nudge him like, Hey, like points at her. I know nice. And I'm like, did you say nice? You know, try to delete this as a Johto later and, and he's just

[01:24:58] Derek: like, yeah, did you see that? And I was like, yeah, I saw it took us a minute to figure out that you're talking about something different. Oh man, that was hilarious. But remember, like getting to Camp. We're crossing all those snow fields, we had to cross, we had to cross their like we had to, like, take off our shoes and cross that. I Oh yeah, we were wet, whatever. I say my feet were wet. I think we were all trying. Yeah, we were also trying to make a YouTube video on that trip about like cheap Walmart gear or something like that. And you guys had that I had the cheap stuff which was heavier bigger bulkier and we were banking on it being worse. So it could be an interesting video and and I was the wrong person for the

[01:25:46] Derek: job. Yeah we didn't realize the Derek likes cheap crap and so we gave him the cheap crap and he's like this stuff works great. We're like that. Wasn't that didn't work for the video man, you're supposed to have a miserable time for me. Like you can ask my wife, I'm probably one of the least picky people. I do now, have a much more refined taste on Ultra, like gear for sure, but when it comes to a lot of things like food, like a lot of stuff, I'm just not picky and my wife knows that probably better than anybody, but family like I slapped I wasn't cold really. I don't know what else I could ask for and so especially back then at that on that trip. That was kind of a fail but these guys are all like looking at

[01:26:28] Derek: me like what do you mean? It was fine. Like you had this. Like that was like, however many pounds heavy here and all this, you know, the sleeping bag was kind of really, really bad comic trip and there's

[01:26:39] Tayson: a few things that come to my mind about that trip one. One of the benefits of us doing these trips is it really forces a culture fit? And this isn't a negative against Riley. I still talk to Riley to this day. I think he's awesome. We try to meet up or talk, you know when we can and good dude, but that trip was Riley didn't want to go on it, right? Like that, wasn't fun for Riley. That wasn't a culture fit. And so even though I hired him on because of his skill set, he didn't fit the culture. And so that actually was like a dividing thing where he basically got back from that trip because at the last minute he's like, hey I'm not gonna go, he didn't have like a really great reason, you know what I mean?

[01:27:18] Tayson: And I was a little bit like hey, like this is this is like this is like a big trip of the Year where we really wanted everyone in the office to be there. And but I think it in some ways it like helped weed out people that weren't the culture fit because he ended up shortly after that turning in his two weeks and going to a job. That was his perfect culture fit. It was in 3D design and modeling stuff that we didn't need. But that was what his passion was, and he wasn't, he loves the outdoors, but it was a different type of Love of the outdoors. Wasn't really, you know, as much like just backpacking and covering big miles and stuff like that. And so, in some ways like that's one thing I do, remember about that trip.

[01:27:55] Tayson: The other thing I remember about that trip was I and I don't know you can probably speak to this Derek because your Fitness level is probably been a lot more even through the years than my fitness level, like you can go back and you can see me, 40 pounds heavier on camera. Looking like I got like I'm a squirrel with nuts in my cheeks, you know. Like and I remember I had been working out really hard that year in the gym and trying to like drop some weight and get in shape because I had some other things that year that I that I wanted to get in shape for And I just will always remember like you and Darren and you guys were like running, like, you guys were like, you guys didn't even really work out of the gym.

[01:28:32] Tayson: Darren did work out of the gym, but like, we'd go running or you guys would go running and I would like, never run. I get on a stair. Climber, you know, for a little bit at the end of a workout or something, but I just will never forget, like, watching you guys just like fly up Kings Peak and fly up to Anderson pass. And me being like, Cannot in any possible way. Keep up with you guys. I feel like crap. You guys are like bouncing around hopping rock to rock and I'm like, hey, I'm back here hiking with Dave. Dave's head is just pounding from altitude and my head's like kind of hurting, but I like, I just will always remember that particular image of me hiking back here kind of with Dave. And watching you guys just fly away

[01:29:16] Tayson: from us as you just kept climbing and climbing and I'm like holy cow. Like how? I don't know how they could possibly do that and that was like that was probably one of those other moments in my life where I was like this is like I need to find another gear of Fitness. I need to figure out like I need to bridge this Gap, you know. And so thankfully you know it really was probably when it really was when we got into trail running and fast packing that I feel like I've bridged that last Gap where a lot less often at least you, you know, blow away from me on a climb or something like that Derek. But I remember literally thinking that it was impossible to For you guys to go that fast. I'm like, that is not humanly

[01:29:55] Tayson: possible. I don't understand. And that stuck with me. And then the other thing that stuck with me from that trip, was a plantar fasciitis. So yeah, that was like, what kicked off? I, I had to tighten my shoes. So tight because they were soaking wet, and then my feet were slipping around. I had these Altras on and I think I tightened them so tight that it like flattened the, the curve out of my foot, right? The arch out of my foot. And it was really after that trip that like, I dealt with plantar fasciitis for quite a while and I think, but I have my shoes is tight as I could,

[01:30:24] Dave: if I remember, right? I actually like, Derek had on like an ankle socks, like brand new running sneakers, and like sneakers that you just got or something like that. A member you having like like yeah, like Road Runner.

[01:30:43] Derek: Yeah, I didn't even have Trail Runners. I had these Road running I had like run some half marathons or something. Recently I was using the same shoes. So like yeah, like I mean, Dave were probably in hiking boots, are big nice hiking boots. These guys are in, like, flip-flops running up the mountain.

[01:30:57] Dave: He had like like, ankle socks actually like, well, cotton socks on, I think everyone.

[01:31:08] Tayson: Yeah man, crazy, crazy times. But definitely some really good times on trail that we spent and like I always say it's hard to like pinpoint the value of US investing the time there but it's always been there in. You know, it's just a cross five or six different touch points where we get so much value from those trips. But Okay. Well, let's talk, I mean bringing this all back to where we started 10 years of business. Outdoor Vitals 10 years of selling product, what a journey it's been Journey in terms of just products, team employees, you know? Office outside, relationships, manufacturing relationships, there's so much that has just happened.

[01:31:51] Derek: Oh, it's snowballing now, too. I mean, Tayson mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast that, you know, this last summer this summer actually where we've got three of our products in outside summer gear guide. Well, that's been the case, actually, for a number of years. Now, we've had multiple products in that gear guide every year for the last few years, plus, a lot of other cool recognitions that we've received, and that's just compounding and snowballing all these different things, kind of now.

[01:32:18] Tayson: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's really It's really cool to see from my perspective. it's really cool to sit back and look at everything and just kind of take it in and be like, man. Like we've because then, in a lot of ways, I feel like we've We've made it like like I think there's people that are like oh when did you know you've made it in business, right? Or like when did you know your business had made it? And I look at it different like I knew that we had like made it in terms of like the business is going to be viable for a long time and a real business like pretty early on but like, but it never was doing what I wanted it to do in terms of like building the product that I wanted it

[01:32:54] Tayson: to build and having the customer base that I wanted to have and the team I wanted it to have. And I would say. So as I reflect back on like, where we're at right now in a 10-year period, I feel like we have made it like we're doing exactly what I think we should be doing. We're building the product that I really always wanted to build. You know, we're building a team that I always wanted to build and so that's I think that's the coolest. Takeaway from my perspective is like, you know what? A success. Not like, there's like this whole concept of like overnight success, right? And to me, like, looking at it in 10 years, it's like, yeah, like where this overnight success, really like that. 10 years of grinding is what finally really got us here and

[01:33:34] Tayson: got us to where we're at and So it's really cool. Really, really cool to see that. So

[01:33:39] Tayson: in honor of us, hitting our 10 year, mark, we are doing a big 10-year anniversary, sale, and this is going to be a very big sale. This is going to match if not be better than our Black Friday sale, which is, you know, always our biggest sale of the year. Well, we're gonna basically have a Black Friday here in the summertime to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. So, we're gonna match those kinds of discounts where it's, you know, 10% site wide off for everyone. 20% off for live ultralight members. And for those of you that don't know, we recently revamped the peak tier membership, it's just like a different tier in our membership program and we did have a bunch of you guys join it already but you should really look at it because you get 13% off year

[01:34:21] Tayson: round and on a sale like this you're going to get 23% off everything on the website during the sale. Plus we're doing a really cool t-shirt that's going to you know, have Particularly call out the 10 years of business that we have and we're gonna give that away as a free bonus with purchases. So, jump over to the website or check your emails for that, and you'll get the details of, you know, what, what spend level will give away those t-shirts and I don't know. Maybe we just kind of coming to me right now, but maybe we'll even just put those for sale. At some point if there's any left over but you know, best way to get that is to just shop the sale. If your member go spend some of your credit that you've got built up,

[01:35:03] Tayson: And yeah, celebrate 10 years of business with us. So, yeah. We, we're gonna have this huge sale and there might even be some new colors of certain products. I'm not gonna tell you which ones yet, but by the time this sale is live, there's gonna be some new colors

[01:35:21] Derek: of some things. Everything like Tayson said, site wide, it's a big deal. Like if you've been looking at anything, It's 10-year anniversary, the celebration we're having. It's the time to jump on it. Yeah.

Editor’s note: This complete closing promotion was tied to the August 2024 anniversary sale. Its discounts, membership benefits, free shirt, colors, and availability should not be treated as current offers.

[01:35:34] Tayson: So I think that's probably gonna wrap up most of what we needed or wanted to cover today. Any any final thoughts on 10 years or however long you guys have been here? I mean Dave. You're probably coming up on eight years or so of working here and Derek your pilot 67. I like seven or eight seven, almost eight, I think as well. Yeah. Last any last comments on just 10 years of business.

[01:35:57] Derek: Yeah, I've got one. I think we talked a lot about where we've come from internally and some of the The Insider details about the last 10 years, but obviously there's a huge Factor. That's external. That's you guys. Everyone listening, there's a number of you guys that have been around. Almost since the start and supported us and I think we just want to make sure we're thinking you as well for your support and the way that's kind of played into the growth and progress that Outdoor Vitals as well. Obviously, without without good customers and the support of you guys, we wouldn't be able to get where we're at now, either. So, that's a huge factor and want to give a lot of, a lot of you listeners that have been around for a long time. A huge shout out, as well.

[01:36:38] Dave: I would definitely say onto that note too, you know, the people that are members, you know, inside of that Facebook group or that email with feedback or C Josh's. Like that stuff doesn't go unnoticed like we definitely as a team, you know, recognize you know who you are. You know, take that feedback into consideration across the team design, team things like that. Like I think that's a big, a big, you know, sticking point of the 10 years of, you know, using that feedback to to design and innovate and move forward.

[01:37:15] Tayson: Believe it or not, we actually know many of you by name as well. Even if we haven't met all of you, there are many of you that we do love and appreciate and We Know You by name. We talk about you, even here our offices and then the team and and again, we are grateful for the role that you have an Outdoor Vitals as well. Yeah, yeah, we really appreciate all of you that share the message of what we're doing here that, you know, recommend us to friends. All those kinds of things. That's our best way to grow. So the best customers we have and without you, it really wouldn't be possible. I mean we've done some massive shifts that went from us, not knowing our customers at all, when we were selling just on Amazon and, you know, 2014-15

[01:37:52] Tayson: 16 to us, you know, filling like we're able to build more real relationships with with customers and And you guys, you know that you guys truly matter to us and and yeah I mean but within that membership to like there's so many people that get in Facebook group and share and help other people. And I just want to say this like, You guys that special are in the membership. You guys like we've vote for what we want in life with our money every day? Like you vote with dollars, right? Whatever you support with your, your money per se is what you're voting for as far as future and things like that. And so with that membership, you can, you know, you guys that are giving us 10 bucks, every month, like you're voting on our success and you're voting on

[01:38:38] Tayson: us. Continuing to innovate in your converting, on a new way of doing business where it's direct to Consumer and and we can you know, hopefully help more people get outside and connect with the vital outdoors and all of that. I just want to say thank you for voting in us and investing, you know, that store credit every month into into our brand. It really helps us to stay true to our values and of staying Venture Capital free. And, and continuing to grow. And continuing really to just build Highest level of products and still deliver them at direct to Consumer prices. And and that's really been a huge part of some of the success and growth lately, is just all of you guys that are voting in us and investing in US. Each and every day and we'll continue to build

[01:39:25] Tayson: out is, you know, new products. We're always innovating. We'll always have new things coming out and will also, you know, just always trying to add more value into that membership as well. So, if you're not a member, we urge you to go do that and vote vote for us to continue to perform and produce for you guys. We promise that we will. And for those of you have been, just again, thank you for continually investing in US. I mean, a lot of you guys who are like original Kickstarter backers, you know, like, like we just mentioned today, like those of you that invested in that LoftTek jacket, you are a part of a massive change that got us to where we are today. So, thank you as well for that. So, What a ride has been. I think everyone

[01:40:02] Tayson: in the office is thankful for for everything that has transpired, the good, the bad, the growth, the laughs, the struggles. But yeah, it's been, it's been an awesome ride. It's really cool to see where we're at today and just want to say thank you again. And you know, come celebrate with us as we run this this 10-year anniversary sale, and giveaways, and things that will also be going on in conjunction with that. So, I hope you guys win some product and also get a hold of one of these, these t-shirts that will be coming out. So, okay, with that, we'll go ahead and wrap this up. If you guys want to share this podcast, that would be great. We'd really appreciate it. If you're not subscribed, Please Subscribe. And with that. We'll see you on a future episode.