EP 24 - State of the (OV) Union 2020

Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we live a life? Full of Adventures travel and memories on our terms without being millionaires without previous experience? And without unlimited amounts of time, that's the big question and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm your co-host Tayson Whittaker and I'm Dave Keim and you're listening to the live ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals. All right, welcome to another episode of the live ultralight podcast. This episode is going to be a little bit different. It's our state of the union episode. So we kind of just want to talk about where we are as a brand. Taste here with me today along with bring them and we want to talk as about is where we are here today. Kind of how covid has affected us. How are Kickstarter went at the beginning of the year and a few other things, just kind of the direction that The company is going. So let's get it kicked off with kind of the Hot Topic right now in the world which is covid and how this is affecting us as a brand. Regularly inventory wise. Stocking out of. Items and things like that. So I guess. Is in. As the owner of the company, what do you see? As the biggest issue with covid and how it's affected our I guess overall day-to-day operations, Day-to-day, I would say. Hasn't changed too much for us. I mean, our office is really spread out and and we haven't had a lot of internal changes that have had to happen here in southern Utah as well. Except for the fact that. Yeah, our sales you know have been have been doing really really well but our our stock has been struggling and you know we've got nothing that we can complain about. I feel like, I feel like we've been so lucky to be in the industry we're in and we've been pretty fortunate even with stock to be able to airships and things and and keep as much stuff in stock as we can. But Yeah, that's kind of been the battle is. I'm sure that there's been times in customers have been a little frustrated, with stepping out of stock or different things, but it's definitely a battle that we're we're facing and we just there's no way for us to predict some of this stuff. But overall I would say sales are up and, and we're just doing everything you can to keep the stock in place. Yeah. I'd say, out of all the industries in the world, I think the outdoor industry. The RV industry is one of the few that I think are I would even say surviving I would say even thriving when you go and you look at you know bikes you can't buy a bike at the bike store and things like that. So on that expect I guess we are kind of fortunate that the demand is still there but unfortunately, the, you know, inventory hasn't really been that I guess. can dig a little bit deeper on that, like, What do you think like is the what was the delay? Like how how did we go from you know, Limited the amount of inventory. I feel like that a man is there. I bought. Why is it being backed up? Like, is it the travel time? Is it the manufacturing? What do you see is the biggest issue with that? Well let's just talk about kind of Asia Manufacturing in general because we have factories throughout Asia and For some reason, doesn't matter where you're at. You could be in Vietnam, Bangladesh, whatever. When Chinese New Year rolls around Factory shut down any any country, every country. Because I guess there's just so much of a presence through all of Asia. And so what happens is around, you know, the end of January 1st, part of February, there's Chinese New Year, but but they like to close up books that the close up businesses, you know, fabric, suppliers, stop taking orders and it just kind of trickles down to where, you know, a two to three week like out of office experiment experience turns into like at least a month, if not two months of what it feels like, production stopping. Because once they get back from Chinese New Year, they essentially start they Place fabric orders and they start the next round of production and Manufacturing. And so it really slows things down. It's not like it's very it's more rare for them to like have the fabric just ready to go, right? When they get back. Like if you're one of those guys here, that probably means like us that you actually missed getting man. Before Chinese New Year rather than that was the original plan. And so typically around Chinese New Year, we feel as a company on a yearly basis. You know one to two months, slow down in production or stop in production, but this time You know, China and these different countries locking down around that same time Fabrics, you know, camping can't be shipped so on and so forth. What it ended up feeling like to us is our factories? Even though they're, they were shut down for an addition about month, month and a half. It ended up feeling like like almost four months worth of non-production and so that really set us behind the eight ball and then on top of that, that's when sales and demand sort of to increase. So like I said, we were pretty fortunate that. Things didn't get a lot worse than they did and that were definitely on the rise now, like, things are really getting back in stock. There's only like one or two skus that are that are a little bit low and we're getting more of those and so but but yeah, I mean, you talked about like four months of like, non-production is kind of what it felt like to us on top of that, the demand or anything. So it created a perfect storm in a sense and then I guess that's my next question. Do you feel pretty comfortable where we are now and where we are moving forward with maybe potentially the holiday season coming up with our inventory levels and Manufacturing and things like that? Yeah. As of right now, everything looks good to go. We still might have a little bit of on, like, a few skus, maybe over the next like in a month or two. We might get a little bit low or stock out of a couple skews. Pads is one that looks like it's gonna get a little bit low, we just put a big influx on sales on those. We were, I, I went really aggressive on an order and it still wasn't aggressive enough, but, but overall our stock levels are good. We've already got more coming in, you know, booked, you know, to be shipped and so on and so forth. And so, yeah, I feel, I feel good a lot better than we have been and if there are issues, it's going to be with just a few select products. And then I guess rolling into the next question. Our biggest project that we had you to date was our our Kickstarter project and being on the customer service side. A lot of questions we get is how are we doing with the role of that? And it's still expected to launch and be shipped and in the fall. So I guess maybe talk a little bit about how the kickstarter went and where we are and in line for delivery on that order. Yeah. So I'll kind of start off by talking about how I feel like the kickstarter went and then all let him talk a little bit about how the production side is going right now. Um, for us, the campaign started off really good. We were pretty excited about our first couple days of the campaign things don't really well. It started to trickle off towards the end of the campaign as far as demand. And I think that like we had some covid affect essentially on that. but in general, the campaign did really well and we were excited about, obviously, you can get really high hopes, we tried something different this time, which May have turned out to be a little bit of a negative for us, where we put the dragon wall in the same campaign as the Sawtooth hands and I think it split focus and for some people they loved it. Other people. It was just too much to grasp perhaps. So I think our Dragon will just didn't get the love and attention it deserved because it is an amazing and amazing fabric. And we've put it into some amazing products and so that would be my only like downside. What I was filled a little bit let down on as I feel like we should have sold and done a little bit better with the dragon wall. I know like the people that watched it are Really excited about it and I kind of can judge that by friends family community. How many people just asking me like when am I gonna get this? And so many people are so interested in Dragon Ball as well as the cells. But I think there's a lot of people that didn't end up getting the Dragon Ball because we, we compiled the campaign like that. But overall, definitely very, very happy. I don't know if I would have changed anything from what the way that we did it. But yeah it was a lot of fun and super excited about just just the apparel that's coming out and getting it out there from the production side though. All up Brigham talk about that. But I don't know. Are we to my knowledge? We're, we're on Pace and my own, I'd say we're on Pace. you know, and like with being on Pace, there's like, There's a plus and minus that, you know, kind of unpredictable Factor. But I think we're I think we're on Pace there. They've been pretty good about Getting everything rolling that, that they can. So there's never like any real stagnation. I'm just really just out of complete set stand still. So if like they're waiting on receiving a certain material safer, trim piece. They're still manufacturing the fabric and dying the fabric and so that's still going on. Yeah, Productions underway. Now. Unforeseen things, you know, in the upcoming months, I don't know. It'll be, I hope not. And I don't have any reason to believe there would be, but definitely wouldn't rule. You know, say that's not possible that there will be any delays but Um, production wise I think we have been pretty good. You know how you were talking about like Chinese New Year and like for us this year like it it really was just like the worst timing for covid. Well it also so like our one supplier There's a similar situation where? Right after covid. Kicked off, they We got on a call with them, they're like, well, we're kind of like reorganizing and shifting our offices around and we're not talking about like moving building's. We're talking about like, moving offices, to a different country and all these things and it's just kind of funny because it was just like, of course, that would happen, you know? And if there were like, I know this like delays and communication, and things like that is just again like that perfect. One of our primary contacts there ended up shifting out of the company because they didn't want to move with the company. Yeah, five, definitely created some additional headaches for us little bit. Their communication was in the clear but it's seems like overall there's no major covid snacks or anything like that, which I think. No. I mean I would say in general maybe we had a couple of delays because we just been working so hard to dial the sizing in his perfect as it possibly can on our jackets. We just did not which we'll talk about here in a second week. We struggled to get The sizing perfect for the mass majority of people. And so we really have been working hard to to avoid any situation like that with these. So we've actually maybe had some delays on that side, but the pro of some of this covid stuff, is it actually shortened up their lead times in other areas and so I think we're going to net out to be even still ship on time and yeah it's just gonna be right there. Yeah that's true. That is kind of like where some of that communication delay came in is because we're trying to narrow down some of the sizing a little bit. But communication breaks in communication over like long way longer than normal. So I think there was that little bit of delay But overall production delay that I don't see. They're really being any. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Well, that's good. Yeah, I'm sure everybody will be happy to hear that. Everything is hasn't now on track to deliver in the fall. So that's good. I'm rolling into the next topic which is actually something that I was super excited about was our rebranding about their vitals or what we like to call Outdoor Vitals 2.0. And some of the things that came along with that along with you know minor things is logo and things like that. But actual new products themselves and the direction that we would like to move in as a brand. So maybe we can talk a little bit about that and some new products or new innovations that we might be rolling out for 2020 and Beyond. Guys just took a visit up to Easton and maybe if you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing up there and how that trip went for you guys. Yeah, so I'd say Brigham has got to be one of the busiest guys, in the office all the time. I feel like we've got so much on the design board at all times, and that's just because we're just constantly working on whether it's improving products, or, or building completely new products. I would say right now, majority of your time is on new products like a vast majority. We've really gone back through a lot of our older products and Proved those there's some other maybe smaller improvements that will will be making over the next six months or so maybe with some fabric options and they're switches and some little things like that. We're just continuing to work down, Supply chains and lines and get more control over all aspects of it. Yeah, most I'd say most of our time right now on on the outer vitals 2.0 stuff, is building more of what our customers want and not so much redesigning things. So for instance, we've talked about this and we actually have a dedicated episode on this. Thing, right on the challenge of this, which is backpack. You know, you may have seen our rhyolite backpacks of completely stocked out and our new backpack is right around the corner and that's been, you know, big project for Brigham. Super soaked about that. And in fact in a week from now we're gonna release membership, which we can kind of tease out. And with that you'll be able to preorder the backpack. If you are a member So make sure to stay tuned for that episode because there's some big big announcements we'll talk about in there. But yeah, let's let's talk about Eastern for a minute. So part of what we're always trying to do here is always I always I always likened to just knowing as much as you can about all the raw materials you can work with. And then, from there, it allows you to You know, put everything together that you want and make the right product. And so, we, we went up to Easton their headquartered up here in Salt Lake City, actually. So it's about three and a half hour drive from from our headquarters. And we went up there to basically just learn what we could about, what they do, what raw materials we might have to work with with them. We had some ideas of things would be interested in and that that visit was really interesting because it was just a factory tour. We actually had to sign some ndas to walk through, you know, where they're making their carbon fire reports. And so if you don't know this Easton is a Is basically. The only like, like the other high high-end tent, pool manufacturer to DAC, seems to be the leader, in aluminum products, and Easton has made a little bit more of a name for themselves with carbon fibers stuff. And so, if you see like high-end, carbon fiber pulls, there's a good chance that they are from Easton and So we went up there to tour that. So what are your thoughts on touring? The factory Brigham. It was really cool. To see the scale of things and to see their processes. We've talked about this on other podcasts before, but I love going to factories and suppliers and seeing their capabilities, kind of, like, how you were talking about. It's like, I don't know what was, like, what came first? The chicken or the egg like on the from like the product development standpoint like knowing what you can work with is like, oh, it's almost like Oftentimes it's like well if you know what you can work with, then you think of things that you can apply with those materials totally. And so, you know, like, Tasting. You said we have some ideas of things that we would kind of keep an eye out for or like Have an application for their capabilities. But at the same time, Being open to their capabilities at all. It opens up doors and kind of Sparks ideas, too. So, I think we accomplish both of those things, you know, whether it's things that we can maybe that we already have or make that we can Implement their capabilities into versus new things that we could use our capabilities for. So it was really cool, really fascinating, some of their, their processes. Some of it was just mind mind blowing. Like just, I just would not have thought certain processes. Well, it's interesting. The carbon fiber side. Let's start there for a second the way that they design it. It first, it was like to a guy who didn't know much about the way. The carbon fiber was made perhaps it was Whatever. But then as we got further in the day, we started to figure out what made it different. How it's like perfectly balanced. And and just, yeah, it's just all around better made because of the Priority way that they make the carbon fiber and, you know, it's not in these sheets and just rolled and with loose ends and different things, which was, which was really, really cool. But, and I think what was more mind-boggling was watching them make aluminum And the processes there. I mean it went through of this massive warehouse space or you know, manufacturing facility, like 15 20% was carbon fiber production area? The rest, you know, the other 80 plus percent of it was just how they all the processes they have to take aluminum through to make polls. And that was super interesting. Particularly the part, I think that was super interesting to me, was how they take in order to make like a perfectly balanced small. Aluminum pole. They were, they were essentially pulling and necking down the, the aluminum, like, how do you say this? They start with a big a big thick pipe essentially and they would just pull this through a die, that would neck it down. And every time you neck it down at a long Gates, the pole and so they just run it through this process a bunch of times. So you'd go from like say a two inch thick diameter tubing to a half a centimeter thick diameter to be, and it was just perfectly. Balanced and I don't know, it was hard to explain that's but but it was it was just really, really impressive to watch. All of the things that thought about changed adapted over time. Even the way they quenched the metal on these big tubs. And I remember I felt kind of stupid at one point. They they were they have to quench the, the aluminum. Like 900 degree liquid, right? Not there, they're using salt so they would, they would get it, they'd get salt. So hot it would liquify and then they'd put the aluminum inside that, and I was like, well, why don't you just use water? And then literally, as it's coming out of my mouth and like, what? It's gonna boil it, 200 degrees, but, you know, so it's just, it was very interesting, just to look to see all those processes but Easton, this definitely a top-notch company making top-notch products. And, you know, if we are ever able to figure out a great application for them, I definitely look forward to that. And we've got a few ideas but you never I don't know. It's hard to say we've been so busy. We really haven't been able to start any designs and prototyping with the Easton pools yet but I guess to that degree too. I mean we we did redesign both of our tents and we do have plans to come out with another tent design, this year, potentially next year. I think right now. We're saying early 2021. Okay, but there's there's hope. Okay, I mean and then maybe we can just speak a little bit on the Redesigned tent and what? What we did there and then I don't know if he would want to speak on what ideas we have for that new Ultra Lite time. Mean, that's up to you. I would say if you pray tease out a couple things about that. Polls. Won't be a big factor. I guess we can tease that out. It'll be a Non freestanding tent, you know, trekking, pole style tent, but with our new tents, we did move to New polls for 2020. So yeah. So you know, it's kind of two phases. We we initially moved to one person tent, to DAC poles, and then this year, we rolled out the two person tent with DAC, poles and made a lot of adjustments to the two person tent and a couple of smaller adjustments to the one person tent. But yeah, those those are running back. Pulls that did shave. A handful of Oz off of both hands. We tapered him differently. We You know, we just all around cut basically a pound of weight out of our two-person tent. whether it be from materials, Design standpoint. But it made our two-person tent, go from lightweight to like an ultra light in my mind, freestanding design tent. Now, there's a lot of ultra, like, guys out there that would still say, that's too heavy for them. But, you know, they're not using a free standing style tent but Yeah, it's an impressive 10. I actually headed to Alaska in two weeks and I'm actually going to use the Dominion 2-person tent. I will have to cover serious miles or anything like that, but wind is going to be a massive Factor up there and we could see You know, 60 70 mile an hour winds and I'm gonna be utilizing our Dominion 2-person tent. For the most part. I'm going to take our prototype of our newer tent as well, and we'll see how both do and the craziest wind. I can imagine, I mean, we'll see, it's gonna be in the Arctic Circle in the tundra and so, We're going to see some win, and I need to make a little video about this and try this out for myself. But one other thing that I might do with with our tent is, The test this out. I think it's a cool hack that I saw, which was putting a trekking poles basically, inside the vestibule of a freestanding tent. Like our dominion and propping up those best deals for additional support from inside the tent. So, I'll have to, I'll have to try to remember to film a little video on what I'm doing with that. But yeah, I've seen our domain intense, take serious wind beatings, and they've just held up phenomenally. And now, at the back pulls this should do even better. So, I don't know anything else on the tent, side bringing them that we want to touch on. Yeah, I don't know where you'd want to touch on. Like I said, you were talking about the Ultra Lite, ultralight, people. And hopefully this newer design, maybe we'll appease to them a little bit more than the minion tent. But so I guess, We can hold off on that. Tell maybe end of the year. Maybe. Yeah. Well I think we'll tease more about the newer design than the the sample. I'll just put it the sample level design at a later point. But just know we're definitely thinking of you ultralight guys out there but we're kind of do it in our own fashion which is to still you know, maximize usability, maximize performance. You know not not take weight over everything else but it's a big factor in us you know, shaving off as much weight. I mean compared to the Dominion tents. I want to say, we're Probably 60 50 60% of the weight. Something like around that my You might be wrong there but it's a significant haircut when you drop out polls. Go to a trekking pulse system when you're not calculating those in and and just other other changes that we're making, so, And just going back to redesigning products and tweaking old products. I would say. I mean, for me from the warehouse inventory side of it. Since bringing his been here even within the last year, I would say basically every product we have for the most part. At least 85% of them, something's new. Like the materials new, the insulation is new. I mean, for me, you know, tracking old stuff, new stuff, trying to organize. Like I can genuinely say the majority of the things in the warehouse within the last 12 months is new and some fashion some way. It's a an updated version. So, if you haven't checked out, you know, the guts or the specs of some of our products, I would definitely say take a closer look at, you know, the details of the products. And that really is what we want to do going forward with this new new brand. So it may still, it might still say Summit, but If you bought a summit four or five years ago, it's totally totally different than the 2020 Summit. So I definitely say, take a look at that. So maybe some some other new and things that we have in the pipeline taste. In, what do you have coming up for us here? New and improved or yeah. There might be a couple of you that got a surveyed, you know, or surveyed for a face mask, and a gaiter headband piece. That's that's slowly moving forward. We've been so busy. We have been able to push it forward as fast as I'd like to, but Basically, we've got two different designs for a gator and one is like a full-on gator with our own spin on it. And bring them has actually been using that and really, really likes it. And this and I I'm yet to use it as much as I'd like to. But I'll be using it as well and getting a feel for that. But, but just some small tweaks, that that really helped you use ability on like a neck gaiter. And then the other thing is we, you know, we've obviously we've been paying very close attention to covid. We feel because we have. connections with such high-end fabric suppliers that we, you know, sometimes we have Almost a moral obligation that Supply, certain things, you know, there's a lot of cotton face masks out there. There's a lot of different things out there and so we were we, we got looking a little bit at Merino wool face masks and what that might be like, because it's going to be so much softer on your skin and not going to develop odor like Cotton's will or different face masks. And so, we got looking at that and essentially, we didn't want to capitalize on a pandemic. We didn't want to try to like, jump into the ring and sell face masks. So we kind of put our heads together and we designed a different style of Gator that just has a ton of functionality that really aligns with our brand but could be used as, you know, as a face covering when needed. And so we do have a gator that we are getting close to being able to order it and get it production on the way with it, which is, you know, you could use it as a headband. You could use it as a neck gaiter or you could use it to cover your face. In the situations as well. But it's made with, you know, the new yarn Merino wool which is just such a such a soft and You know. higher in more premium Wool with its capabilities of its dry times with its Strength with its, you know, loftiness Etc. And and so it's it's going to be very fun to release something like that. And and I think it'll work well because like I say like whether you use it for face coverings or not, which Just an option. I definitely use them. I've been using our Prototype at the gym, as a headband. I've been using them on trips. I've been using my handful of other things. And so we love the idea of being able to design, you know, multifaceted type products. And That really aligns with our brand. And so we're excited to be able to start rolling that out. Some of you might see some things teased out there, trying to get some some information on how many to order you know. Are people all are only our customers gonna be ordering it or are outside. People gonna be ordering outside, you know, our own customer base and we're trying to dial in some of that but definitely excited about about that piece. I mean, I have one on right now which actually like more of an updated version that I really liked, but me and my wife have been wearing it for at least a month now and I have longer hair. So I predominantly use it as you know, headband to keep their hair out of my face, but it's really nice. Like, you know, if you forgot to to bring your face mask and you need one to go into somewhere, boom, you just pull it down and and you're good to go. So it's very multi-use and we both like a lot like we walk a lot. So, you know, I don't keep a face mask on me all the time or, you know, you're in your car, you might keep one in your car, but If you're walking, you know, you have it on your head basically. They long. So it's really, it's really nice. Yeah, so that's that's definitely a new one and our full size Gator with that too. Has a lot of really cool abilities. I don't know how much I'll touch on that but really it's just Small adaptations that I feel like going a long ways that we were being Brigham were sitting at the last hour show in January. And we were contemplating some things and that popped in our minds and we prototyped it and Brigham's, Brigham's been in love with it. And now I'm getting to test it and So yeah. Excited about both designs there. And then yeah, I mean as far as other things, one one of the things you just touch on real quick. Is we did update our jacket sizing So we did. Once again make them a little bit larger. Hopefully accommodate a little bit more of the regular sizing scale from outside our company. We went athletic with our design and we've been we definitely got two Athletics. So We we've adjusted some of that, so if you're someone who's ordered a jacket, I mean, the sizing can fit before. That is a Justice. And then, you know, maybe in the winter, it's probably going to be around winter time. When we get our next shipment, we may try to add a Forex outside. There's a another quick update on things, but Probably a few people out there that are interested in some of that. So cool. I probably had just four just like in the you know, new developments like what's going on category. um, whether you know people listening are like regular listeners or first-time, listeners are kind of getting a feel for Who We Are? Regarding development. Part of what I I love. About like what we do and working here and my job is like, constant development on new things. but, there's also a constant looking at what we already have, and Looking at everything critically, you know like was attitude of constant Improvement. I think that's kind of a, an important quality to have that. We're not just, we don't Sit around on on things for too long. And, you know, we're whether it's going to visit New suppliers. We're constantly looking at materials, seeing what we can You know. Apply to current things or future things. And I think it's a kind of big part of what we do. Yeah. Hopefully, you know, people will notice that moving forward with with the brand and the direction that we want to go with. Premium materials, it's hard to know like, because our cells have been up lately, you know, is that just, is that just a covid affect or is that already? You know, people just recognizing, you know, I'm excited to see we've, we've I don't know. Obviously the better, the products get the more, the people want to rep them and see them. We do have some influence. We have an influencer, it's going to come out and hang out with us in a month or so I'll be really interested to just see his his opinions. You know, he's a guy who's run, a lot of high-end gear and we'll set them up with our systems. He's used a handful of our gear items, but it's exciting to just see that the stuff we're guys who's gonna compare it to an artery exact jacket, or this or that Just to get their feedback and so far. I've just been really happy with that. And I think I think it's been affecting some of the growth this year, about revivals for sure. And heck, we've got so much going on and with you know, we'll see how the next month goes as we release the membership and all of the the awesome things that are going to surround that, but You know, there might be more room for even another designer. Someone Works a little bit more in a Peril or, you know, or something to come and work underneath Brigham because we're seems like we've, we've got just so many awesome things and I'm always meeting with Brigham and he's always cranking on stuff and I'm like, look at all these amazing opportunities that we've also uncovered. It's like we get one done and we add two more to the board of design. Seems to be the Dilemma or in right now which is a sweet. You know, it's a fun dilemma because we get to really pick and choose what what's the most important to be focusing on? But yeah, it's it's it's it's fun to be a company that gets to focus 100% on user experience and not, and I think that this will be If you're interested in this part, definitely stay tuned to the podcast because in about two or three episodes will release a podcast where we talk about Venture Capital, we'll talk about retailers and why we choose to do direct to Consumer and not touch venture capital and how that allows us to stay. So focused on you guys, you know, you the listeners, you the followers, you the users, the products. and that goes down to every level from design to what we sell the way we co

mmunicate, but particularly the designer right now, Is a blast to just be able to design without so many outside influences and in particularly just focus on on you guys. So stay tuned. Lots, lots of fun things in the works there. So and I would even say like pay backing on that. Like if there's anything that you guys want to learn about or whether it be products or be about the brand, let us know you know, shoot us a message, Facebook Instagram, leave a comment on you know the podcast and and we can definitely do that. I think like moving forward as a brand and with this podcast definitely more Informative if anyone spend following this last few months. So that's really wanna, you know, educate people. Yep. Yeah. Like you say stay tuned to those next podcast, I think will be really enlightening. For listeners to see how, you know retail is hindered Innovation or how BC can hinder Innovation and companies and see how we're trying to avoid all of that. So Excited to kind of share that and what not with with you guys. So I don't know if I mean, speaking of new products and we're really going to speak in depth about this on a podcast on the road. But I don't know if you want to briefly tease, The backpack or anything like that, if you have any. Input, I guess just a brief. synopsis of what that might look like, maybe just Quickly material and size or something like that or whatever you'd like to speak on, but I know we're really gonna get a detail down the road on another podcast, but I think talking about bringing on and ideas that he he's had. This is probably one of the more time-consuming projects out in for you, correct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like handling it together so I would assume that that's that's time consuming. I mean we brushed over real quick I mean because this is kind of like State of the Union what's going on? And it's and it's a it's a major Product or it's, you know, it's like one of the big three. So, yeah, and I would even say from where we're at backpack wise with the wildlife, which we actually don't have anymore, but our original backpack to maybe where we're at here with this one, maybe just a little description of Yeah, it's fine. Um, you know it's whereas the rhyolite was you know, maybe you might even think of it as like kind of a traditional style internal frame backpack. This is just more. The backpack we're doing now is just more of an ultralight Focus backpack. You know, so it'll be significantly lighter. Used very high quality fabrics and Hardware things like that. Just a lot more like deliberately selected kind of everything. I mean to put it in perspective, we're cutting off. Like over 50% of the weight of the rhyolite. We are probably keeping the same level of strength in a lot of these Fabrics. Still, it even though we're cutting out that much weight, we might lose. I hate to say we lose functions or like features really, we just change them, a lot of them, you know. so, There's really only like one feature. I can think of the top of my head which is using like the the top brain as a hip belt fanny pack that one. You know, that's not going to be there, but pretty much everything else is just changed or adapted for. For this new backpack and so I think like, in a nutshell, that's what's so cool about this pack is like, it's gonna be more comfortable. It's gonna be, it's gonna fit you better. It's gonna handle loads. Really well. And it's gonna be half the weight or less. Without Really sacrificing anything off of that other design, and basically the same capacity, correct? Yeah, we're shooting for 45 and 60 liter sizes. Cool. so, yeah, I mean, I could say we're gonna do a whole podcast on that and That's not going to be very far on the road like a week or less from a, this goes out. So Yeah. Stay tuned at that because there's, there's a lot of fun stuff we can dive in there. But I'm I'm definitely stoked about the backpack and I think very good Brigham is as well. We think that we've we're going to fill a much needed Niche and hole in the market where we've kind of got Two different competing parties. And I feel like we can We can bring something to the, to the table that really satisfies a lot, a lot of outdoor users right now. So Okay. Awesome. I mean, that's really it for me. I would say, I mean, Anything from you? Tastings Maybe. We've talked about where we're at up to this point. I mean, anything, you really want to hit going forward or yeah, it's closed out, you know, to close out the rest of this year. Obviously, a big thing for us is just keeping stock in place. Releasing the backpack, releasing the membership. And, you know, a few other maybe smaller, things smaller adjustments. But yeah, I need a big Focus for us is just to close out this year. Keep everything in stock, you know, if you are eyeing something, I hate to, like, put pressure on you, but with stock and there is some, you know, very abilities. There you may want to pull the trigger the later for certain things or email us and let us and, you know, you can ask us what are stocks situation? Might be first individual skus. But yeah, close out 2020. Hopefully, it's a smooth or sailing, right. And it's more of us getting to deliver on the kickstarter and sort of selling the kickstarter and getting to deliver that getting all that feedback and And and I'm excited about that. And then just bringing out some really polished finish Goods to, you know, start shipping those. So that's that's and 2020 is flying by and it's been a heck of a ride. But, you know, around here we really can't complain about much. It's been It's been good to us compared to so many others. So, All right. Well, that's really all I have for for today. So, thanks for listening and say, stay safe and catch you on the next podcast. If you like to help us spread the word about the live ultralight lifestyle, please give us a five star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple podcast Spotify, Stitcher and have you made your listening app as well as little vulture like.com. So, thanks for listening. So here's the big question, how do we live a life? Full of Adventures travel and memories on our terms without being millionaires without previous experience? And without unlimited amounts of time, that's the big question and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm your co-host Tayson Whittaker and I'm Dave Keim and you're listening to the

Dave: live ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals.

Brigham: All right, welcome

Dave: to another episode of the live ultralight podcast. This episode is going to be a little bit different. It's our state of the union episode. So we kind of just want to talk about where we are as a brand. Taste here with me today along with bring them and we want to talk as about is where we are here today. Kind of how covid has affected us. How are Kickstarter went at the beginning of the year and a few other things, just kind of the direction that The company is going. So let's get it kicked off with kind of the Hot Topic right now in the world which is covid and how this is affecting us as a brand. Regularly inventory wise. Stocking out of. Items and things like that. So I guess. Is in. As the owner of the company, what do you see? As the biggest issue with covid and how it's affected our I guess overall day-to-day operations,

Tayson: Day-to-day, I would say. Hasn't changed too much for us. I mean, our

Dave: office is really

Tayson: spread out and and we haven't had a lot of internal changes that have had to happen here in southern Utah as well. Except for the fact that. Yeah, our sales you know have been have been doing really really well but our our stock has been struggling and you know we've got nothing that we can complain about. I feel like, I feel like we've been so lucky to be in the industry we're in and we've been pretty fortunate even with stock to be able to airships and things and and keep as much stuff in stock as we can. But Yeah, that's kind of been the battle is. I'm sure that there's been times in customers have been a little frustrated, with stepping out of stock or different things, but it's definitely a battle that we're we're facing and we just there's no way for us to predict some of this stuff. But overall I would say sales are up and, and we're just doing everything you can to keep the stock in place.

Dave: Yeah. I'd say, out of all the industries in the world, I think the outdoor industry. The RV industry is one of the few that I think are I would even say surviving I would say even thriving when you go and you look at you know bikes you can't buy a bike at the bike store and things like that. So on that expect I guess we are kind of fortunate that the demand is still there but unfortunately, the, you know, inventory hasn't really been that I guess. can dig a little bit deeper on that, like, What do you think like is the what was the delay? Like how how did we go from you know, Limited the amount of inventory. I feel like that a man is there. I bought. Why is it being backed up? Like, is it the travel time? Is it the manufacturing? What do you see is the biggest issue with that?

Brigham: Well

Tayson: let's just talk about kind of Asia Manufacturing in general because we have factories throughout Asia and For some reason, doesn't matter where you're at. You could be in Vietnam, Bangladesh, whatever. When Chinese New Year rolls around Factory shut down any any country, every country. Because I guess there's just so much of a presence through all of Asia. And so what happens is around, you know, the end of January 1st, part of February, there's Chinese New Year, but but they like to close up books that the close up businesses, you know, fabric, suppliers, stop taking orders and it just kind of trickles down to where, you know, a two to three week like out of office experiment experience turns into like at least a month, if not two months of what it feels like, production stopping. Because once they get back from Chinese New Year, they essentially start they Place fabric orders and they start the next round of production and Manufacturing. And so it really slows things down. It's not like it's very it's more rare for them to like have the fabric just ready to go, right? When they get back. Like if you're one of those guys here, that probably means like us that you actually missed getting man. Before Chinese New Year rather than that was the original plan. And so typically around Chinese New Year, we feel as a company on a yearly basis. You know one to two months, slow down in production or stop in production, but this time You know, China and these different countries locking down around that same time Fabrics, you know, camping can't be shipped so on and so forth. What it ended up feeling like to us is our factories? Even though they're, they were shut down for an addition about month, month and a half. It ended up feeling like like almost four months worth of non-production and so that really set us behind the eight ball and then on top of that, that's when sales and demand sort of to increase. So like I said, we were pretty fortunate that. Things didn't get a lot worse than they did and that were definitely on the rise now, like, things are really getting back in stock. There's only like one or two skus that are that are a little bit low and we're getting more of those and so but but yeah, I mean, you talked about like four months of like, non-production is kind of what it felt like to us on top of that, the demand or anything. So it created a perfect storm in a sense and then I guess that's my next question. Do you feel

Dave: pretty comfortable where we are now and where we are moving forward with maybe potentially the holiday season coming up with our inventory levels and Manufacturing and things like that?

Tayson: Yeah. As of right now, everything looks good to go. We still might have a little bit of on, like, a few skus, maybe over the next like in a month or two. We might get a little bit low or stock out of a couple skews. Pads is one that looks like it's gonna get a little bit low, we just put a big influx on sales on those. We were, I, I went really aggressive on an order and it still wasn't aggressive enough, but, but overall our stock levels are good. We've already got more coming in, you know, booked, you know, to be shipped and so on and so forth. And so, yeah, I feel, I feel good a lot better than we have been and if there are issues, it's going to be with just a few select products.

Dave: And then I guess rolling into the next question. Our biggest project that we had you to date was our

Brigham: our

Dave: Kickstarter project and being on the customer service side. A lot of questions we get is how are we doing with the role of that? And it's still expected to launch and be shipped and in the fall. So I guess maybe talk a little bit about how the kickstarter went and where we are and in line for delivery on that order.

Tayson: Yeah. So I'll kind of start off by talking about how I feel like the kickstarter went and then all let him talk a little bit about how the production side is going right now. Um, for us, the campaign started off really good. We were pretty excited about our first couple days of the campaign things don't really well. It started to trickle off towards the end of the campaign as far as demand. And I think that like we had some covid affect essentially on that. but in general, the campaign did really well and we were excited about, obviously, you can get really high hopes, we tried something different this time, which May have turned out to be a little bit of a negative for us, where we put the dragon wall in the same campaign as the Sawtooth hands and I think it split focus and for some people they loved it. Other people. It was just too much to grasp perhaps. So I think our Dragon will just didn't get the love and attention it deserved because it is an amazing and amazing fabric. And we've put it into some amazing products and so that would be my only like downside. What I was filled a little bit let down on as I feel like we should have sold and done a little bit better with the dragon wall. I know like the people that watched it are Really excited about it and I kind of can judge that by friends family community. How many people just asking me like when am I gonna get this? And so many people are so interested in Dragon Ball as well as the cells. But I think there's a lot of people that didn't end up getting the Dragon Ball because we, we compiled the campaign like that. But overall, definitely very, very happy. I don't know if I would have changed anything from what the way that we did it. But yeah it was a lot of fun and super excited about just just the apparel that's coming out and getting it out there from the production side though. All up Brigham talk about that. But I don't know. Are we to my knowledge? We're, we're on Pace

Derek: and my own, I'd say we're on Pace. you know, and like with being on Pace, there's like, There's a plus and minus that, you know, kind of unpredictable Factor. But I think we're I think we're on Pace there. They've been pretty good about Getting everything rolling that, that they can. So there's never like any real stagnation. I'm just really just out of complete set stand still. So if like they're waiting on receiving a certain material safer, trim piece. They're still manufacturing the fabric and dying the fabric and so that's still going on. Yeah, Productions underway. Now. Unforeseen things, you know, in the upcoming months, I don't know. It'll be, I hope not. And I don't have any reason to believe there would be, but definitely wouldn't rule. You know, say that's not possible that there will be any delays but Um, production wise I think we have been pretty good. You know how you were talking about like Chinese New Year and like for us this year like it it really was just like the worst timing for covid. Well it also so like our one supplier There's a similar situation where? Right after covid. Kicked off, they We got on a call with them, they're like, well, we're kind of like reorganizing and shifting our offices around and we're not talking about like moving building's. We're talking about like, moving offices, to a different country and all these things and it's just kind of funny because it was just like, of course, that would happen, you know? And if there were like, I know this like delays and communication, and things like that is just again like that perfect.

Tayson: One of our primary contacts there ended up shifting out of the company because they didn't want to move with the company. Yeah, five, definitely created some additional headaches

Derek: for us little bit. Their communication was in the clear

Brigham: but

Dave: it's seems like overall there's no major covid snacks or anything like that, which I think. No.

Tayson: I mean I would say in general maybe we had a couple of delays because we just been working so hard to dial the sizing in his perfect as it possibly can on our jackets. We just did not which we'll talk about here in a second week. We struggled to get The sizing perfect for the mass majority of people. And so we really have been working hard to to avoid any situation like that with these. So we've actually maybe had some delays on that side, but the pro of some of this covid stuff, is it actually shortened up their lead times in other areas and so I think we're going to net out to be even still ship on time and yeah it's just gonna be right there. Yeah that's

Derek: true. That is kind of like where some of that communication delay came in is because we're trying to narrow down some of the sizing a little bit. But communication breaks in communication over like long way longer than normal. So I think there was that little bit of delay But overall production delay that I don't see. They're really being any.

Brigham: Mm-hmm.

Dave: Awesome. Well, that's good. Yeah, I'm sure everybody will be happy to hear that. Everything is hasn't now on track to deliver in the fall. So that's good. I'm rolling into the next topic which is actually something that I was super excited about was our rebranding about their vitals or what we like to call Outdoor Vitals 2.0. And some of the things that came along with that along with you know minor things is logo and things like that. But actual new products themselves and the direction that we would like to move in as a brand. So maybe we can talk a little bit about that and some new products or new innovations that we might be rolling out for 2020 and Beyond. Guys just took a visit up to Easton and maybe if you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing up there and how that trip went for you guys.

Tayson: Yeah, so I'd say Brigham has got to be one of the busiest guys, in the office all the time. I feel like we've got so much on the design board at all times, and that's just because we're just constantly working on whether it's improving products, or, or building completely new products. I would say right now, majority of your time is on new products like a vast majority. We've really gone back through a lot of our older products and Proved those there's some other maybe smaller improvements that will will be making over the next six months or so maybe with some fabric options and they're switches and some little things like that. We're just continuing to work down, Supply chains and lines and get more control over all aspects of it. Yeah, most I'd say most of our time right now on on the outer vitals 2.0 stuff, is building more of what our customers want and not so much redesigning things. So for instance, we've talked about this and we actually have a dedicated episode on this. Thing, right on the challenge of this, which is backpack. You know, you may have seen our rhyolite backpacks of completely stocked out and our new backpack is right around the corner and that's been, you know, big project for Brigham. Super soaked about that. And in fact in a week from now we're gonna release membership, which we can kind of tease out. And with that you'll be able to preorder the backpack. If you are a member So make sure to stay tuned for that episode because there's some big big announcements we'll talk about in there. But yeah, let's let's talk about Eastern for a minute. So part of what we're always trying to do here is always I always I always likened to just knowing as much as you can about all the raw materials you can work with. And then, from there, it allows you to You know, put everything together that you want and make the right product. And so, we, we went up to Easton their headquartered up here in Salt Lake City, actually. So it's about three and a half hour drive from from our headquarters. And we went up there to basically just learn what we could about, what they do, what raw materials we might have to work with with them. We had some ideas of things would be interested in and that that visit was really interesting because it was just a factory tour. We actually had to sign some ndas to walk through, you know, where they're making their carbon fire reports. And so if you don't know this Easton is a Is basically. The only like, like the other high high-end tent, pool manufacturer to DAC, seems to be the leader, in aluminum products, and Easton has made a little bit more of a name for themselves with carbon fibers stuff. And so, if you see like high-end, carbon fiber pulls, there's a good chance that they are from Easton and So we went up there to tour that. So what are your thoughts on touring? The factory Brigham.

Derek: It was really cool. To see the scale of things and to see their processes. We've talked about this on other podcasts before, but I love going to factories and suppliers and seeing their capabilities, kind of, like, how you were talking about. It's like, I don't know what was, like, what came first? The chicken or the egg like on the from like the product development standpoint like knowing what you can work with is like, oh, it's almost like Oftentimes it's like well if you know what you can work with, then you think of things that you can apply with those materials totally. And so, you know, like,

Tayson: Tasting.

Derek: You said we have some ideas of things that we would kind of keep an eye out for or like Have an application for their capabilities. But at the same time, Being open to their capabilities at all. It opens up doors and kind of Sparks ideas, too. So, I think we accomplish both of those things, you know, whether it's things that we can maybe that we already have or make that we can Implement their capabilities into versus new things that we could use our capabilities for. So it was really cool, really fascinating, some of their, their processes. Some of it was just mind mind blowing. Like just, I just would not have thought certain processes.

Brigham: Well,

Tayson: it's interesting. The carbon fiber side. Let's start there for a second the way that they design it. It first, it was like to a guy who didn't know much about the way. The carbon fiber was made perhaps it was Whatever. But then as we got further in the day, we started to figure out what made it different. How it's like perfectly balanced. And and just, yeah, it's just all around better made because of the Priority way that they make the carbon fiber and, you know, it's not in these sheets and just rolled and with loose ends and different things, which was, which was really, really cool. But, and I think what was more mind-boggling was watching them make aluminum And the processes there. I mean it went through of this massive warehouse space or you know, manufacturing facility, like 15 20% was carbon fiber production area? The rest, you know, the other 80 plus percent of it was just how they all the processes they have to take aluminum through to make polls. And that was super interesting. Particularly the part, I think that was super interesting to me, was how they take in order to make like a perfectly balanced small. Aluminum pole. They were, they were essentially pulling and necking down the, the aluminum, like, how do you say this? They start with a big a big thick pipe essentially and they would just pull this through a die, that would neck it down. And every time you neck it down at a long Gates, the pole and so they just run it through this process a bunch of times. So you'd go from like say a two inch thick diameter tubing to a half a centimeter thick diameter to be, and it was just perfectly. Balanced and I don't know, it was hard to explain that's

Derek: but

Tayson: but it was it was just really, really impressive to watch. All of the things that thought about changed adapted over time. Even the way they quenched the metal on these big tubs. And I remember I felt kind of stupid at one point. They they were they have to quench the, the aluminum. Like 900 degree liquid, right? Not there, they're using salt so they would, they would get it, they'd get salt. So hot it would liquify and then they'd put the aluminum inside that, and I was like, well, why don't you just use water? And then literally, as it's coming out of my mouth and like, what? It's gonna boil it, 200 degrees, but, you know, so it's just, it was very interesting, just to look to see

Brigham: all

Tayson: those processes but Easton, this definitely a top-notch company making top-notch products. And, you know, if we are ever able to figure out a great application for them, I definitely look forward to that. And we've got a few ideas but you never I don't know. It's hard to say we've been so busy. We really haven't been able to start any designs and prototyping with the Easton pools yet but

Dave: I guess to that degree too. I mean we we did redesign both of our tents and we do have plans to come out with another tent design, this year, potentially next year.

Tayson: I think right now. We're saying early 2021.

Dave: Okay, but

Tayson: there's there's hope.

Brigham: Okay,

Dave: I mean and then maybe we can just speak a little bit on the Redesigned tent and what? What we did there and then I don't know if he would want to speak on what ideas we have for that new Ultra Lite time. Mean, that's up to you. I would say

Tayson: if you pray tease out a couple things about that. Polls. Won't be a big factor. I guess we can tease that out. It'll be a Non freestanding tent, you know, trekking, pole style tent, but with our new tents, we did move to New polls for

Dave: 2020. So

Tayson: yeah. So you know, it's kind of two phases. We we initially moved to one person tent, to DAC poles, and then this year, we rolled out the two person tent with DAC, poles and made a lot of adjustments to the two person tent and a couple of smaller adjustments to the one person tent. But yeah, those those are running back. Pulls that did shave. A handful of Oz off of both hands. We tapered him differently. We You know, we just all around cut basically a pound of weight out of our two-person tent. whether it be from materials, Design standpoint. But it made our two-person tent, go from lightweight to like an ultra light in my mind, freestanding design tent. Now, there's a lot of ultra, like, guys out there that would still say, that's too heavy for them. But, you know, they're not using a free standing style tent but Yeah, it's an impressive 10. I actually headed to Alaska in two weeks and I'm actually going to use the Dominion 2-person tent. I will have to cover serious miles or anything like that, but wind is going to be a massive Factor up there and we could see You know, 60 70 mile an hour winds and I'm gonna be utilizing our Dominion 2-person tent. For the most part. I'm going to take our prototype of our newer tent as well, and we'll see how both do and the craziest wind. I can imagine, I mean, we'll see, it's gonna be in the Arctic Circle in the tundra and so, We're going to see some win, and I need to make a little video about this and try this out for myself. But one other thing that I might do with with our tent is, The test this out. I think it's a cool hack that I saw, which was putting a trekking poles basically, inside the vestibule of a freestanding tent. Like our dominion and propping up those best deals for additional support from inside the tent. So, I'll have to, I'll have to try to remember to film a little video on what I'm doing with that. But yeah, I've seen our domain intense, take serious wind beatings, and they've just held up phenomenally. And now, at the back pulls this should do even better. So, I don't know anything else on the tent, side bringing them that we want to touch on.

Dave: Yeah, I don't know where you'd want to touch on. Like I said, you were talking about the Ultra Lite, ultralight, people. And hopefully this newer design, maybe we'll appease to them a little bit more than the minion tent. But so I guess, We can hold off on that. Tell maybe end of the year. Maybe.

Tayson: Yeah. Well I think we'll tease more about the newer design than the the sample. I'll just put it the sample level design at a later point. But just know we're definitely thinking of you ultralight guys out there but we're kind of do it in our own fashion which is to still you know, maximize usability, maximize performance. You know not not take weight over everything else but it's a big factor in us you know, shaving off as much weight. I mean compared to the Dominion

Dave: tents.

Tayson: I want to say, we're Probably 60 50 60% of the weight. Something like around that my You might be wrong there but it's a significant haircut when you drop out polls. Go to a trekking pulse system when you're not calculating those in and and just other other changes that we're making, so,

Dave: And just going back to redesigning products and tweaking old products. I would say. I mean, for me from the warehouse inventory side of it. Since bringing his been here even within the last year, I would say basically every product we have for the most part. At least 85% of them, something's new. Like the materials new, the insulation is new. I mean, for me, you know, tracking old stuff, new stuff, trying to organize. Like I can genuinely say the majority of the things in the warehouse within the last 12 months is new and some fashion some way. It's a an updated version. So, if you haven't checked out, you know, the guts or the specs of some of our products, I would definitely say take a closer look at, you know, the details of the products. And that really is what we want to do going forward with this new new brand. So it may still, it might still say Summit, but If you bought a summit four or five years ago, it's totally totally different than the 2020 Summit. So I definitely say, take a look at that. So maybe some some other new and things that we have in the pipeline taste. In, what do you have coming up for us here? New and improved or

[Transcript trimmed at Shopify metafield limit; local full transcript is archived in the project folder.]