Tayson: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitalss. Today, you have a very special episode.
Tayson: It is a solo episode with just me as I sit and talk to you about 12 years of Outdoor Vitalss now. We're about to have our Founder′s Day sale, and it's the podcast episode that I like to just come on here solo, talk about company history, talk about how things have gone this last year and where we are going in the next year. It's wild. It's wild to me to think about the fact that this idea that I had in college played out the way that it has. It's been so much work. It's been so much energy, so much focus, so much sacrifice. But, geez, am I am thankful to have been able to live this American dream and build a company from the ground up.
Tayson: I just wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude for those of you listening to this podcast as well as those of you that are customers at Outdoor Vitalss. It's always a fun episode to film just because I get to sit and reflect on a few things. Before I jump into how did the last year go and where are we going, some of that sneak peek stuff that you guys love to hear, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the origins of OV. To me, and many of you have probably heard my back story, but if you haven't, I grew up in the Boy Scouts, grew up in a rural town in southern Utah, and I just always loved getting outside.
Tayson: As I got into college, I started to get into some higher performing gear, and I thought, holy cow, this would change the world for so many people out there. I wanted to start a company that was direct-to-consumer. I wanted to start a company that educated people. The motto that it started under was opening the outdoors, because I thought that if we built the product, sold it direct-to-consumers, and helped with some of the education side, that it would just get more people outside. That's always been the goal. Our purpose as a company is to connect people to the vital outdoors, get them outside.
Tayson: I don't know why that motto popped into my head this morning of opening the outdoors. I think for some people, it feels like maybe things have changed over 12 years, because when I did start the company, we started with lower-priced gear. In that phase of my life, I was coming out of college, I was an extreme saver. I grew up in a family that was middle class. I'm very thankful for my dad and my mom working as hard as they did to provide what they did, but they were extreme savers, and they really taught me how to be financially careful with money. The idea of spending money was just always hard.
Tayson: It was always hard to spend money, and this was something that I was absolutely obsessed about. As I started to get into backpacking and acquiring some of this gear, I was like, man, how do I just make this so that everyone can have this gear? That's always been the goal. It still is the goal today. I don't want to get away from that. This saying came into my mind. Growing up in a rural town in southern Utah, my grandpa had horses, and I'd go train horses with them every summer.
Tayson: I remember my grandpa saying this saying of, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. Somewhere along the lines, a few years into the business, I realized that that origin of providing this really affordable gear was really important, but I could make the best gear ever at the cheapest possible prices, and you can't force people into the backcountry. Then I started to just get more passionate about making performance-oriented gear, the gear I actually wanted to be using, and just make it better and better and better.
Tayson: That's been the 12-year journey, is making the gear that we have today that does change your experience in the backcountry. You can go farther, you can go lighter, and you can have that confidence in the pieces of gear that you have in terms of them just performing.
Tayson: I don't know why that saying popped into my mind today, because we went through these motto changes over the years, from opening the outdoors to live ultralight to performance-first ultralight gear. The goal has always been the same for 12 years now to get people into the outdoors, but the way in which we do that has slightly shifted. What I realized not very far into this journey was just that people that really want to do it will find a way. Those kinds of people use the gear, and they'll save, and they'll focus, and they'll spend money on the gear. I'm not saying that we're raising prices or anything like that. Far from it, guys.
Tayson: We will always stay direct-to-consumer. We are still 100% owned by me, myself, and I, our stakeholders, our customers, and our employees. That's it. That's all that matters to us is that, and we're just going to continue to double down on that. Man, what a journey. I just look back at some of our old products, and I smile. It's kind of fitting today that I've got my dog, Tilly, here. Let's see if she'll jump up on camera for those of you watching on YouTube. She's turning 11, so she wasn't quite here for the very beginning.
Tayson: I don't know why, but again, day of reflection here. She has been sitting under my desk as I've worked for 11 years now of this 12-year journey. It's fun. We have employees now that are coming up on 10 years of working for us. Some of our employees that were hired the first year I started hiring employees here that have stuck with us, so we have a lot to be thankful for. I meet customers that literally were buying gear from us so early on. I'm just thankful for you guys. If nothing else, before I get into the rest of this, just a big heartfelt gratitude. Thank you.
Tayson: We have always strived to do our best. We've always strived to improve our product, to make the best gear that we are capable of making. Thankfully, today, we're much more capable than we were when we first started this company. The gear that we have today is just phenomenal. I do. I look back in our conference room. We have some old vintage backpacks and stuff up on the wall. I look at those.
Tayson: I look at some of our old sleeping bags. It's just amazing how far we've continued to push the needle in terms of performance and how much I enjoy still helping people get out on trail. With that, the first thing that I wanted to jump into talking about in this last year, as we look backwards a little bit, is the OV100 mile challenge. Last year, we went out and hiked 140 miles on the Colorado Trail. It was really meaningful to us because we got really close to having 1,000 people join that DIY challenge with us.
Tayson: We have tens of thousands of customers, but to have 1,000 people raise their hand and say, yeah, we're going to go do this with you, we're that interested in doing these bigger efforts, doing bucket list hikes. Some people, it's the first time they've backpacked in years or first time ever that they've backpacked. This is really meaningful to us. Last year was a lot of fun because we got to bring Caden from our team out on the trail as well.
Tayson: It was his first long distance backpacking trip. In fact, we sent him through the OV100 mile challenge course, through that framework. He went and did the shakedown hike. He tried to jump out. He wasn't sure. I know he'd been building confidence, building confidence, building confidence, but at the same time, the idea of doing 140 miles was still very daunting to him. Nonetheless, he came out on the hike and it was incredible to hear his story. You can go back in the podcast and listen to that from last year. I was just recently talking to him again and it was a really empowering moment for him.
Tayson: I just remember walking off the trail at the end of that, day six of that trip, and just hearing him be like, man, I'm so glad you guys put a little pressure on me to come out here and do this. It was just something I think that was locked in his memory forever and excited to take him back out on the OV100 this year. That was just a ton of fun. It's a ton of fun to continue to do that. That's something I really wanted to highlight from this last year.
Tayson: As a whole, 2025 up until this point of 2026 has been phenomenal. We've been on a great growth trajectory. We've been bringing in new customers faster than we've ever brought them in before. Everything really is just in good motion. Our team is phenomenal. Our product is getting better and better. Any areas that I feel like have been weak in the past for us, we've continued to strengthen. We have just a phenomenal team all around from customer connection team to warehouse team to our marketing team to design team. There's more to come on some of that design side as well. Last year, we released quite a few products.
Tayson: I say last year, but really what I mean is from the last Founders Day sale. We released a lot of products. We released the Mountain Pursuit line, which is our best product launches we've ever had. We broke every internal record we had for sales. We sold through more units than we anticipated, as you saw, even though we bet big on those orders and inventory levels. We released the Pants, the Vantage Alpine Jacket, and the Pursuit Hoodie, all which did phenomenal. In the last year, we also released the Shadowlight Backpack and the Carbon Evo Backpack, both of which are our most comfortable packs yet and are doing phenomenal sales-wise.
Tayson: You guys really like them. Reviews high, obviously, word of mouth, which is why we just continue to sell them. Those have been phenomenal products. We released the Zulu Down Jacket, which right now, I'd say that is my favorite jacket. I wear it probably more than any other jacket, for backpacking especially, just because it is so light, so compressible, and so usable, and so warm. We released the CIRCue one-person tent, which I've been using it for a while. You guys have just got your hands on it in the last few months. Again, one of my favorite products.
Tayson: For a guy that's 6'2", taller, needs space inside of a tent, it has a ton of space and just is so usable for every condition that I love to take that tent into. It was really fun to release that piece. I think that's everything that we released in the last year. Really proud of the team for the releases, the launches, and everything that's come along with those pieces. Those are the products that we released in the last year. We also released some color options, some new colors on different pieces. We added more colors to the Altitude. We just released a blue color.
Tayson: I think it's blue stone, if I'm not mistaken, on the Fastpack, which has also been a product that has exceeded expectations. It's been really cool to see how many people are interested in fastpacking. It's just another great way to get outside and to spend time outside, whether you're using it for a day trip or whether you're using it for a true fastpack for a couple nights or something out on trail, just covering big miles and doing cool bucket list hikes. I know where I've been using that the most.
Tayson: It seems like lately it's been doing the R3, the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hikes, as well as just a bunch of other uses. Excited to have that in a new color. Again, just a phenomenal year for us. Record number of OV100 participants, record number in growth and sales. Everything is just clicking and moving really well. It's just one of those moments where I can sit back and be proud of what 12 years has brought us. Over those 12 years, I've seen companies start. I've seen companies fail. I've seen companies stagnate. I've seen companies grow. It's hard to not be constantly comparing. What I am thankful for is our own successes. In life, I have found this to be more and more and more true.
Tayson: That is that the only comparison worth doing is to compare yourself today compared to yourself yesterday. It's very common for us to look at what other backpackers are doing, other businesses are doing, other people in our career fields, brothers, sisters, friends, everyone, and do these comparisons. The older I get, the more I realize that you never have the full story to someone's life, to someone's business, someone's finances, everything. There's always costs that come and they're not always visible.
Tayson: When I look at this company and this company from one year ago today, we are better. I'm very thankful for that. Especially when I look at us today compared to 12 years ago, we're on just a whole different level, a level that I honestly didn't know would be possible when I started the company. The goals that I started this company around were what felt like as big as I could dream up at the time. We exceeded those.
Tayson: We hit those so early on in the business that it was just astounding. To see us to continue to grow even 12 years in is really rewarding and it's worth it. I'd say maybe the last little life lesson I'll add in here is just that anything worth doing is worth doing well and anything worth doing is worth sticking with for a long time, going through the good, the bad, the ugly, the hard, the easy, the fun, the not so fun. But I have found that in my life, sticking to one thing, focusing on one thing for a longer period of time results in so much more than you ever thought possible.
Tayson: We often overestimate what we can do in a day or a week, maybe even a month sometimes, but we underestimate what we can do in a year or a decade or 12 years for this situation. So take that for what it's worth. If you're just getting into backpacking, don't be hard on yourself for what you think you can do on some of your first trips, but stick with it and you'll be amazed at all the places you'll go over a decade and the difference in your confidence, the difference in the miles you can log, the difference in your experiences from day one to 10 years later.
Tayson: I can promise you that getting outdoors is well worth your time more and more and more each and every day. I'm just thankful for the time I get to spend outside and the opportunities that come with it. In this last year, I got to travel to help distribute water filters as part of our charity program, and I'm going to do a whole podcast on this.
Tayson: This is actually something I recently got back from, so I haven't had time to release the video or release the podcast on it, but I got to go spend time and in really humbling conditions and help distribute water filters that we donated and just be face to face with those people. I'm really so thankful for what Outdoor Vitalss gets to do as a company, what opportunities it affords myself and the team, and the ways that we can give back. Don't underestimate what you can do in a decade or 12 years or whatever window you're looking at, and make sure that you value the comparison of yourself from yesterday more than any comparison of the outside world. Other things that we did in this last year, we did release a new website.
Tayson: I think we really improved that there. Websites are big. Websites are challenging when you have a catalog the size of our catalog. I'm really happy with the team and what we were able to accomplish there, as well as just the user experience and the feedback that we've seen there. I'm really happy we could do that and make our website better, especially for people like members who are just constantly using the website and buying more gear from us. I'm very happy to see that. Another thing is, this will transition into looking forward, but as we look backwards, we're always trying to just be true to ourself.
Tayson: We have always been an ultralight backpacking company, but we've also always been a mountain-focused ultralight backpacking company. We're here in southern Utah. We are close to big mountains in a lot of different directions. Yes, we can get down into the desert and get into really remote wildernesses as well, but we spend a lot of time up in the mountains.
Tayson: You can see from the trips we go on, we spend a lot of time getting up into the Uintas or getting into the San Juans in Colorado or going up to the Wind Rivers and these other big mountain ranges. Me and Brigham took a trip up to Montana and spent basically a week in the high mountains there. The mountains definitely call to us.
Tayson: As we look back at how we design things, how we create things, they're often mostly tied, mostly or probably always tied specifically to those backcountry wildernesses, those high mountain wildernesses. Something that was interesting as we look back on this last year is that when we released the Mountain Pursuit line, which I mentioned included the Altura pants, the Pursuit hoodie, the Vantage jacket, those landed so well. Obviously, you guys connect with that as well. We're going to continue to keep that focus there.
Tayson: There's times when sometimes we get maybe a little bit misunderstood, and so we're going to do a better job at bridging those gaps. We've never set out in the past to be the very lightest. I think sometimes people think that we're trying to be the lightest weight option out there. That's never been the goal. We never really wanted to be the lightest.
Tayson: We just want to be in that ultralight category and that every ounce has a purpose. Every ounce contributes to a better backpacking experience, a better backpacking trip, and that it serves its true purpose. Now, I can go through products and examples of whatever, the Tusharain jacket, and now why it's not a 7 denier fabric. I can go through examples of backpacks.
Tayson: Our backpacks are really light, but there are lighter frameless packs out there, but they just don't serve the purpose that's near and dear to our hearts. So, we're going to continue to push on those elements and just make sure that that's clear to customers and to you guys to understand that we really build our gear for high mountain performance, for wilderness backpacking performance, for those remote areas in the middle of the Grand Canyon wilderness where there's a lot of people.
Tayson: That may honestly be some of the farthest country I've ever been in from an oiled road. Those are the areas that call to us, and if those are areas that call to you, we're going to continue to develop products specifically for those remote wilderness settings, for those high mountains, for all of that. So, excited to continue to push out arrivals forward and continue to double down on those efforts. So, what does the next year look like for us? Well, it looks exciting. I'm always excited, obviously, because I see the behind the scenes stuff of what we're building and what we're working on, what we're aiming to improve, how we're working to benefit our users more and educate more and teach more. So, this year, kind of circling back to the OV100, we did break over 1,000 people, well over 1,000 people that are now doing that DIY challenge with us. I'm super excited to see where that takes everyone already. The conversations inside that challenge have been awesome.
Tayson: I think getting people that are already starting hikes now, sort of a little bit earlier than, say, the trip window is, but it's always so rewarding to see people in there doing trips and progressing that forward. So, really cool to see that growing, and if that is something you want to do, make sure to go join that challenge. You still can join that challenge. We're leaving that sign-up open quite a bit later than we have historically.
Tayson: Because if it's something you want to do, you can still make it happen. So, definitely go look at that. Something else that we're bringing on the team that I'm really excited about is we're bringing on a second designer. So, we just recently hired our newest designer named Lucy. She's just about to start, and that's really exciting for us because we will be able to open up even more possibilities, opportunities within the design department, continue to refine our products more and more and more, and just spin off the absolute best products that we can. Brigham has been crushing it for a lot of years and will continue to crush it, but he's one guy.
Tayson: Our product category, I mean, our product line is very big. So, between me and Brigham, it's a lot to manage and excited to add someone new to this. Also, very excited with the growth that we've seen in the women's line. We've seen the growth of women's line go from less than 5% of total sales to almost 5x that. And so, while that's still very much a minority, it has grown, and the good part is the company has grown and that percentage has grown. It's giving us more and more abilities to build women-specific products, and as we bring Lucy on, she's very passionate about bringing women into the outdoors.
Tayson: And so, excited to continue to have another hand at helping us develop and continue to build out more and more women's products. Now, I'm not saying we're going to be just immediately releasing a bunch of women's stuff. We'll continue on the same trajectory we've been doing, but I think you'll see more of it, and you'll also see just more attention to detail with women's designs, and eventually, some women-specific lines that are built specifically for women. The fact of the matter is women have different needs than men when it comes to clothing, or the way that things fit, or the way that things work.
Tayson: And so, us being able to cater more to that over the next few years is going to be a lot of fun to see and continue to watch more women come into our customer base and share more and more journeys. And to be quite frank, I've been very excited and happy to see the amount of women out on trail. I don't know if it's growing or if it's just my perspective or if I'm seeing it more, but I'm seeing more and more women out backpacking, I feel like, and I love it.
Tayson: I see solo women out backpacking, something I feel like I haven't seen quite as much in the past, but we're just going to continue to cater to that audience and try to help that side of our audience more and more as well. So, really excited about bringing on another designer and the possibilities that that's going to bring us over time, for sure.
Tayson: Another thing that we're going to try to be doing, I did take a bit of a break on some of the content filming. We've continued to do a podcast pretty regularly. We're going to try to be even more regular, maybe push out more episodes on the podcast and try to really focus it on you as the listener and just bringing as much value as we can to you, but also bringing more cameras on trails. Sometimes I can get burnt out of filming, but we've recently expanded a little bit of our capabilities there in terms of personnel for videos and editing videos and things like that, and I think I had the needed break that was kind of necessary, I would say, to take after filming videos for 10 years straight, and it's been really refreshing to take a little bit of a break.
Tayson: We try to share as much of our trips as we can, but you guys probably know of less than a fraction of the trips that I go on or Brigham goes on or our team goes on, and we're going to continue to share more of that.
Tayson: So make sure if you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel or my YouTube channel, whether that's Outdoor Vitalss or Tasting Whitaker's channel, make sure to subscribe to those, and we'll continue to just pump out content that will hopefully be inspiring, educational, and valuable to you. Alright, so you guys are always wanting to hear in this, you know, what's to come. What's in the pipeline to be released? Well this year we've already released three products and some colorways. This year we will have at least two more product releases. I can't tell you when, though, because they're not close enough in production yet to be ironclad.
Tayson: I can tell you they'll be a little bit more in the later fall, but very excited about those pieces, and they're going to be a lot of fun. We're also going to kind of kick off a new program with one of those pieces. Not a new category, but a new program where it's a little bit more of a limited edition drop, where we're really pushing the envelope on performance and just like innovation. And so really excited to do that and just see what you guys think of these products and just show you the level of innovation that we continue to push on. So be looking forward to those. We do have a ton of things in the pipeline.
Tayson: I wish I could say when all those would release, but the truth is sometimes we get a product to 90 or 95% completed, and the last 5% can take a year still. We just never know until it's completely finalized. And so we have a ton of products that are under development, and we're definitely excited to see those get to that finish line where we can actually place that production order and get things rolling in terms of production, but just know that we'll continue to innovate as much and as often and as fast as we can.
Tayson: So be watching for those, but two new products that will come out before the end of 2026, unless something catastrophic happens in production. Something else that's been really great from this past year is we heavily and deeply increased the inventory that we were carrying, so that we have a lot less stock outs.
Tayson: That's definitely been felt by customers, and it's been really good in terms of just making sure that we're keeping things even better in stock, and that's been an improvement we've made internally, and we'll continue to do our very best to make that happen. It's still a challenge on brand new releases, so anytime we release a new product, if you like it, I just would tell you to buy it as early as you can, because you see things like at the Mountain Pursuit line, we release it, we blow through that inventory quicker than anticipated, even with us ordering extras and above and beyond, and we're still growing, right?
Tayson: So we don't really know where the ceiling is all the time, and sometimes we hit that ceiling and have the stock out, but we have made a big and conscious and expensive effort to make sure that we're carrying as much inventory and a deeper inventory than we have at times in the past as we've gone through things. There's been a few questions, I would say, around some of the products that people are hoping for that they can't expect. Some of those, like for instance, when we released the CIRCueOnePerson tent, everyone was asking, okay, what about the CIRCueTwoPerson tent? That is in development, but sometimes development timelines are tough.
Tayson: That development started at the same time, essentially, or near the same time as the CIRCueOnePerson tent. It's just taken us longer. We've had different challenges arise with the development of that, and so be patient with us sometimes. We are trying to accommodate all the needs, whether you need a one-person tent or a two-person tent, but the threshold has been set higher and higher for us. We will not release a product that is not ready, that is not improving on prior generations, and so we want to make sure that we're hitting those internal thresholds that we've set and we continue to raise, and that takes time.
Tayson: That takes energy, that takes effort, and so we'll continue to push on those as much as we can. If you are a member or a Peak Tier member, you can get up to 18% off site-wide. If you spend $100, you'll get a free t-shirt with your order, which the design on this is pretty cool. It's a little bit of a retro look, which I think is really cool, so make sure to check out those t-shirts.
Tayson: You'll get one if you spend $100 on the sale. We're doing a giveaway for a CIRCue tent, so everyone that's on our email list will get entered into that giveaway, but for every additional dollar that you spend on the sale, you get an additional entry, so spend $100, get 100 additional entries, and so on and so forth.
Tayson: If you're going to shop, now's a great time to shop because you can just get more entries into winning a CIRCue tent, but I think that covers most of the sale. Again, it is our biggest sale of the year, or it matches our biggest sale of the year. It's Black Friday in June, so take advantage of those savings and celebrate 12 years in business without revitals. Again, I just wanted to say a big, deep, heartfelt thank you to all of our customers, for all of you that have followed along in this 12-year journey now. It's been phenomenal. It's so gratifying to look back and see where we've come from and where we are today, and that is because of you guys supporting us and believing in us and continuing to find value in the things that we love to create.
Tayson: Thank you so much. Make sure to shop the sale. Make sure to share it with your friends. We appreciate that. Make sure to subscribe and do all those other things, and we'll catch you guys in a future episode.
