KORE Outdoors Podcast

This is the core outdoors podcast. And I'm your host Christian roles. This is the podcast for entrepreneurs and the outdoor industry. Whether you're a startup or a seasoned veteran, this show's mission is to deliver actionable insights and new perspectives from entrepreneurs working within the industry. The show is a production of core, the Kootney outdoor recreation enterprise. Core is based in the Kootney region of British Columbia and is a nonprofit grassroots organization dedicated to makers and creators in the outdoor industry. To learn more about core.

[00:00:30] Christian: You can find a link to the website in the show notes. Before we jump into today's episode. I have one ask. Hit the follow or subscribe button on your podcast player. Pressing a small button makes a big difference. If you'd like to get in touch and suggest a guest or give some feedback, you can email meChristian@coreoutdoors.org.

[00:00:47] Christian: Today's episode is with Dan Durston. Dan is the founder of Durston. And gear based here in British Columbia. Dan is one of the founding members of the core community and has been a big supporter of core. Dustin gears, a leading brand and ultra light backpacking. And it's taken the world by storm over the last five years with its innovative products. My conversation with Dan centers around scaling the company and how he is dealing with the various demands that come with a rapidly growing operation. Dan has a unique perspective and loves to get into the details, which always makes for a great conversation. Please enjoy this conversation with Dan Durston.

[00:01:22] Christian: So I typically start with some easier questions about people's background and how they got to where they are today. But I have way too many questions and topics to cover with you today.

So we're just going to get into it. And if people want to hear your origin story or why you choose poly over nylon for tent, tarps, a tent of rainflies, then there's plenty of other places they can listen to it. , but I'm really curious about what Dan Durston has learned. , as being like a business owner and then kind of like riding the Durston rocket ship.

So with that in mind, launching a drop years ago, you created a , unique origin story for Durston gear. Like someone else essentially handled upfront costs, marketing, sales, distribution, like all those things. If you were starting today and you didn't have drop in the background, how Durston gear?

[00:02:10] Dan: Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. I, people often ask me like how we got started and I feel like, like it's a cool story, but it's not that repeatable for a lot of companies, how we actually did it on drop. Cause it was kind of just a fluke like opportunity. The fact that a company with like a proven audience of they had something like a million people in their ultralight camping community.

Already. So they already had that audience. They had like a lot of the skills and abilities. And I just sort of plugged in a product. So I can't like take too much credit for like that initial launch, because really it was just super fortunate. Um, but, but if I was trying to do essentially without that today, um, first thing I think I would do is I would really have a strategy around production.

And by that, what I mean is you got to decide for production, how you're gonna, what, at what scale you're going to kick things off at. So you could, I could be building these things like one at a time, boutique, custom and house, just trickling them out. You could partner with somebody where you're able to make little batches of them.

Or you could go all in and have like a full on factory and you're cranking out hundreds of thousands of them at a time. And I think you'd really want to have your marketing plan aligned with your production plan so that you're not going to. Just to have those things in sync. So if you're, if I was just going to do like trickle them out, start it like gradually, then I wouldn't do a huge marketing campaign.

I would just sort of let the product speak for itself. In the early days, I'm probably learning so much about just building these products that I almost don't want to market it yet because maybe the product's not totally ready. On the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum, if you're going to work with a factory and you're going to commit to buying, say, 1000 of these, you got to be have some reason to think you could sell them.

So, um, if I was doing that, then it would be much more of a build. And a launch. And so for that, I would have kind of the core of it would be, I would have a great website and I would have an email list because it's, it's all about, you can reach people, but if you reach people and you don't get them plugged in, then you, they're kind of lost, not totally, but potentially they're lost.

So I'd have a great website, email list, and then I'd be trying to get people plugged in and I would be doing that. Um, Partly through my outreach. So that's that's like building and building in public. I would be on like Instagram I'd be on YouTube talking about what I'm doing. I'd be on communities that are Important important communities in that space whether it's the reddits the Facebook groups just different websites I would be in all those places trying to in a very Authentic way build the product not be too obnoxious about it Hopefully you could find ways to talk about it that, that really are a natural fit.

If you're building a product and you're sort of like bring it up all the time, it's annoying for everybody. But if it actually like really ties into where you bring it up and you're selective about it and it actually is providing value to other people too. And they're like, Oh, that's cool. Like I didn't think about that.

So I would just be, I would have all that direct sort of me getting my message out in a way. I would also. Really, really focus on the product. I feel like we're a very product led company and it's going to be so, so much harder to market a product that's mediocre. So like, I, I just feel for some companies where like, it kind of looks like they're trying so hard to market something that's maybe not quite ready.

And it's just such a, such a harder job. So I would really say like a product led company, make sure your product like is, is awesome. Um, before you just got an uphill battle. Then get the word out through, uh, like all these direct channels that you can. YouTube, Facebook, forums, all these kind of things. And then I would work on getting the word out through other people.

And this is where we're trying to leverage existing audiences. So there would be There's some existing audiences you can just go into like, like a forum or Reddit, things like that. But then there's all these existing audiences that you don't have access to, like people's followers, YouTube, YouTube accounts with big followers.

You're trying to take advantage of the power that there's these big audiences that are maybe really aligned with your product, if only you could reach them. And then you're trying to get some exposure there in an authentic way. So that's hard. It takes time. You've got to build that. But you could, it could be something just like commenting on YouTube videos where you're, you're saying something insightful.

You're not just pumping your product, but you're saying something insightful, but maybe there's like a little bit of product information there too. You're just sort of planting the seed. Um, on Instagram, you can comment on like big accounts. Um, I think we'll get into some of the marketing a little more later, but there's a lot of ways you can just sort of get on the radar of, of other audiences.

And then if you actually have something, cool going on. So if you have that great product, that's when they're like, Oh, like I should, I should actually reach out to these guys and hear more about the product. So yeah, I would, I would think about the production and then, and then plan towards that launch.

[00:07:16] Christian: I'm curious if you would. Would you start with the tents? Would you do that again? Or would you just go, I mean, not the tensor, not nothing you're doing is easy, but would you, would you go with something easier now that you've lived through it? Would you like, I'm going to start with packs, then move into tents or like, what do you think

[00:07:30] Dan: Uh, I, I definitely see the appeal in an easier product. I don't think packs are that much easier. Packs are scary too, because they like people wear them like They wear them all day for five months straight. And like any little wear point is like going to turn into a problem.

[00:07:45] Christian: Yeah. And body shapes are all different as opposed to with a tent. We just need ground.

[00:07:49] Dan: But certainly if there was some product that, um, that was a little lower risk. Um, the, the flip side of that though, is that you want it to be kind of a big, ambitious enough product that it's actually exciting for people. If it was like socks or something, even if they were the best socks, it's still like socks.

Um, people aren't gonna like. It just doesn't have that enough enough there to really like draw communities around in the like it's to be a standalone like that so I Would want it still to be a product that's expensive enough that that it makes sense to ship and it makes sense to build a Business around and it's kind of big enough that people would be excited about it something that costs a few hundred bucks But maybe not a tent if it was like a sleeping bag is is safer because it's kind of just sitting there So yeah, yeah.

[00:08:42] Christian: you're, you're strictly a direct to consumer DTC business, and you've spoken about this a lot, but I'm curious, like, if you were to go back and you had to do it again without drop, would you, do you see a place where you'd build in kind of a wholesale sales channel if you were to do it all over again, or, you know, to kind of help that build that audience momentum, or do you say, no, no, we can do it without it.

[00:09:02] Dan: Uh, yeah. So I think I, one thing I want to say is I'm a little, probably a little, I don't want to say dangerous, but I probably a little ignorant about the value of retail because we've never really done it that well. So I probably underappreciate what, what retail can do. And I would just caution people about like taking my opinion too much on it because I could be fairly ignorant.

But the way I think of retail is that it does three things. It does, um, Marketing, where you're getting your product in front of people. It does fulfillment, so instead of me shipping out orders to customers, they're grabbing it at the store, or if it's an online store, they're the ones shipping it. And then the third thing it does is it helps with cash and forecasting, and all that sort of projections and things like that.

Uh, for, for the, my products, where we started with the xMidTense, They, I feel like they don't work that well in retail because they're not a product that somebody can effectively show off in a physical space. They're not freestanding. No store is going to have it set up. It's just going to be there in a bag.

Even if they wanted to set it up and set like a bunch of chairs to try to hold it, it's going to be tipping over like it's actually not going to be a very good experience. So everybody would sort of loves the idea of having this big marketing boost from retail like. You hear people like, if only we were an REI, like, we'd sell so much, but like, if our tents were an REI, like, I'm sure there would be some benefit, but they wouldn't be set up.

They'd just be like in a bin in the corner or something like that. So then, so for us, for the X mid tent, I don't perceive a lot of marketing value in being in retail. And I also like the cash financial forecasting thing is something I'm sort of prefer to deal with in other ways. So for us, I kind of see it more like the benefit is more just on the fulfillment side of things.

And we do do some of that. We have some partners in Europe where they're essentially online stores, where they have some marketing benefits, they have traffic, people get exposed to our products. But a lot of it is sort of a fulfillment thing. Instead of having a 3PL in Europe and giving them 5 percent or something like that, we can work with a store that's not going to take that much more.

But then instead of It's sort of like a premium 3PL in the sense that they're doing what 3PL would do, but they're also, they have a reputation themselves and credibility and a bit of traffic and things like that. So for, to do it again on the X Mids, I wouldn't, I don't think they fit that well in retail.

Um, but if we had a product that actually did really fit in retail, it would be totally different. I think it would really just think about, um, how well somebody's product. It's there like our backpacks are better in retail because people actually want to try them on, get the sizing. Um, our trekking poles like are something that people could actually pick up and be like, Oh, cool.

Like they could actually have a better experience. So I think it's product specific and people really got to think about how much benefit their specific product is going to get in a retail environment.

[00:11:58] Christian: Do you see a future where Durston gear is sold at retail in North America?

[00:12:03] Dan: Um, I'm not, I'm not like anti. Retail, but what I what I do really like is I'm a huge product guy. I'm like the products everything So if we cannot put money towards the cost structure of a retail markup, but we can put more into the product That's something that I find very compelling An example of that would be our new freestanding tent where?

We put carbon fiber poles and they cost about triple what a typical aluminum pole set does. We're able to go carbon fiber and make a tent that's stronger and lighter than kind of all our main competitors. And we're still priced slightly less just because they all have the retail market margin in there and we don't.

So it'd be nice to have both. It'd be nice to be in retail and be able to do that. But you kind of got to pick and choose. And so being very product focused, I like right now to put that. The portion of the cost structure towards the product. So what I'm looking for in retail is ways that, that, if we could somehow be in retail but have it work differently for the stores so that it doesn't have to be as expensive for us.

I don't know what that would be, but it could be something like, we actually own the inventory, so they're not actually taking any risk. They just sort of are a storefront. Maybe maybe they'd be willing to work for quite a bit less margin if they don't actually have to put up any risk and we're Gonna take the product back if they don't sell it So something like unconventional structures, yeah I haven't really thought it through but just some ways where because I don't really need them to like take on the financial risk Like I know that it's a product that's gonna sell.

I know it best. I'm comfortable with that risk They don't know the product as well. So they're gonna be less comfortable with that. So why don't I just take that risk on? And, and let them do kind of what I really need them to do, which is, which is maybe the, the showing it off to people in person.

[00:13:55] Christian: You should just leave your email address at the end of this show. Cause you're going to get some emails about like, I'm from retailers. You're like, I'm in let's do it. Come on,

[00:14:01] Dan: Oh no, yeah.

[00:14:05] Christian: I can name, I can name three off the top of my head right now. Okay. You've kept aspects. What's that?

[00:14:10] Dan: we definitely get a lot of inquiries.

[00:14:13] Christian: Um, yeah, no money down, you can have Durst and gear right now. You've kept aspects of the business, um, kind of as a cottage, kind of craft brand for longer than I think others might have for the size and scale that you've grown to, are there areas of the business that you planned on keeping? Kind of cottage air quotes as you scale up.

[00:14:34] Dan: Yeah, cottage is an interesting one. It's a term that people, people feel strongly about. So I'll just sort of define it because people also think of it in different ways. I think of it probably just really meaning Founder, I'm just sort of making up a definition here on the fly, but founder Founder like led in in certain areas.

So there would be like a Classic cottage businesses founder led in every area which would be like the founder is the owner the founders the designer the founders the producer they're the marketer they're like They're it, essentially. They're the connection point for customer service. They're everything.

We've never been like 100 percent cottage like that because we've always used production partners. But we're, in some ways we're very cottage in the sense that, like, my, my background is coming straight out of the communities. I'm very still connected with, with all the communities from like a design perspective, from an ideas, I'm just like part of that culture.

, and then historically I've been extremely involved in a, in a marketing and in a community connection, like answering everybody's email, things like that for, for that, for me, the easiest one to let go of is production because I, I don't even think it's that healthy. I see a lot of companies where the founder is the producer, they're like sewing the product over and over and they just burn out.

It's like, I know everybody likes the idea of this, this founder figure is, has personally handcrafted this product just for them. But if you want that and everybody wants that, that founder is like all day, every day at a sewing machine and it's like they're, they're banging out like the same thing. It becomes repetitive for the founder when really what their passion might be is a lot more creative ideas and it's, it can feel stifling and you do see a lot of brands that just kind of wrap it up because.

It's not that fun and they can't innovate anymore because they just sew the same thing all day over and over again. So I don't, I don't think it's like that important for the founder to be the one that physically producing the goods. We've never done that. Um, I do definitely want to stay like heavily involved in, in design and in, and in the community.

Like directly connecting that and heavily involved in what I, what you would call marketing. I don't, I don't really like the word marketing cause I feel like it's, it's not as authentic as what we're trying to be. But when I design a product, I'm thinking about it forever. You spend forever on this product.

And so when it's ready, I think it only makes sense to have me as the designer, explain the product to the, to everyone, if we instead subbed in a marketing team and maybe they're better spoken on camera and whatever, but it just doesn't have that authenticity. And that like level of depth is the person who actually made the thing.

So for me, it's, it's the design and it's this explaining of the product. That are, that I really hold on to. And then also just listening to community feedback, because I think people have such good feedback. Um, if you start getting ice. Isolated from that, like in some of the bigger companies. Like if you buy a piece of gear at a shop and you have a problem with it, maybe you return it to the shop.

The company doesn't even know about it. Um, if the company knows about it, then did it go back to the designer? Like it's pretty murky communication channels. And I think one of our core advantages is just having a very direct, like we have a, that Facebook group with almost 15, 000 people right now. I'm on there every day.

If somebody's got a problem with their gear, I know about it. Um, like within, within probably like an hour or two of anybody having a problem ever, I know about it. Um, usually it's a one off. Somebody, you know, drove, somebody drove over their trekking poles with their car. I'm not going to like, think of that as a problem with my design.

But if there is a problem, I'm going to know about it pretty early.

[00:18:22] Christian: . So you, you mentioned this and something, I think that's changed in the last year is that you used to spend, you know, three quarters of your day answering emails essentially, and that. I think you've kind of shifted away from that more and more. So I'm curious how you manage the growth of the company while you maintain your personal involvement in the details of the business, while also like having life outside.

Um, you've kind of gone from, you know, for many years you were a solopreneur, but now you're managing a rapidly growing company. Like what have you learned along the way and what's changed?

[00:18:54] Dan: Yeah, I, I wish I was a little more proactive and forward thinking than we are. It's, it's still very reactive where we're at, in the sense that I want to do everything. Um, I'm like, I have very high expectations and standards and want to do everything at a high level. And so for me, it's Like, you're trying, you're trying, and then once you start losing, losing the battle and you just can't do it anymore, then you end up having to retreat from a certain area, which is not great.

Like it's, it's sort of clinging to it as long as you possibly can. If we,

[00:19:30] Christian: Do you have an example? Can you give me an example of that? Just out of

[00:19:33] Dan: yeah, like, well with the email. It was getting more and more and more and about a year ago I would come into the office at 6am and I would just do email probably straight to like 3. Like I would just do like a 9 hour marathon of email trying to answer everybody and then I would have like maybe 2 hours at the end of the day to actually do something.

And then of course there's some, some something comes up or whatever. And half the days you can't actually really do anything. And so I'm feeling like a lot of the other stuff that's important, like design is not happening, like how I want because I'm just sort of handcuffed to the email inbox. And I, I love talking to people.

Like, it's not like I don't want to do that. I just like, it just gets to a point where you just can't. And so we. We do, like my wife started answering email and my brother and now we do have a couple more people. Um, so that would just be something where I just clung to it as long as I possibly could until eventually it was just like basically an impossibility.

Yeah.

[00:20:37] Christian: analogy you just gave, or that example kind of reminds me of the founder who's behind the sewing machine. Right. So if you were to give it, if you're, you know, if you were to scale up and look back and kind of 30, 000 foot view, like, what are the things, how do you want to be spending your time?

And like, what is, are you making those changes now? Like, is it a very clear, distinct difference now that you have more people in seats behind you?

[00:20:59] Dan: I still don't think that we're like, probably thinking ahead and planning as much as we should because it's such a whirlwind you're just hanging on for survival. Um, but there's a lot of things that we don't do them and then we do and we're like, Oh, we should have done that a long time ago. , like a good example would be like saving answers like I, people email me like how.

A basic question like how tall can they be to fit in our tent and I like type out like two paragraphs And then like two hours later, I get the same question I'm like, ah, like I just wrote this but I don't know where that answer is so I'm just gonna write it again, you know, and then the next day you're writing it again and you're

[00:21:34] Christian: You're just a large language model, basically, is what you're saying. You've just, you could just replace yourself with chat, GPT. I'm pretty

[00:21:38] Dan: Yeah So for things like that You're like then once we actually start saving our answers and we just have them in like a searchable bank It's still like an answer that I wrote that's like It's high quality, high value answer, but I don't have to like type it out every single time. So yeah, some of those things you're like, yeah, we should have done that a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:57] Christian: You mentioned this a second ago. And so I'm curious to get into it a little bit. , you talked about inventory when we're talking about retailers and managing cashflow and that stuff. And you have a different view of how you want to manage that. Like, what have you, what have you been learning about inventory management and, um, cashflow management, but also, , That perspective, , for years, you would launch two, 300, 500 tents and they just be gone in seconds.

Like, what have you learned? And what have any, has your perspective changed on selling out quickly? Cause God bless cashflow versus holding inventory to kind of meet demand throughout a season.

[00:22:32] Dan: Yeah. So we started, like, as you mentioned, we started with very like drop specific, like the company that we were working with mass drop, that was their thing was drops. Um, they did that. And then. When COVID hit, that got worse. Um, that's a whole big story, but there was a whole bunch of supply challenges.

So things really did get super scarce and really had those drops where there's thousands of people queued up and it's gone in 30 seconds. And then that's, that's a real double edged sword because it definitely, there is some like hype and marketing benefit from that, but it's feels kind of cringy to me in the sense that, I don't like to think that we would be sort of trying to sort of artificially try to create that.

Feels a bit inauthentic to me. So that really was like the COVID crazy peak really was like having to do with production challenges. We had, and Drop, Drop was moving out of the outdoors at the time. So like we had COVID and all the factories are like, we can hardly make you stuff. And Drop's like, we don't even know if we want stuff, even though all the customers want it.

They're not even sure if they're going to keep making this. So it, like, it really was like kind of a perfect storm of, of supply, um, which I think did have some benefits, but I don't even really think it was that. beneficial for us in the sense that we were already growing at a pretty high rate. And if we could have got more stuff, we would have sold it and it probably would have been better for us.

Um, so yeah, that was what happened then where I'm at now is a couple things. I, so I break this down into kind of two parts. One is there's, there's a product risk and that's like when you have a brand new product, you're bringing it out. You're not sure about the demand for it, and you're not sure about if there's any issues with it.

Especially a complex technical product. You test it, you do all your stuff, but you're never 100 percent sure. There's always going to be things that could be made better. So when we're just launching a product, I like to be cautious on how much we produce from a product risk standpoint.

If there's a problem with it, I want to be able to totally stand behind it, you know, and replace everybody's. That's going to be way harder to do if we made like a gazillion of them and, um, and especially if we made so many that we haven't even sold them all. And then we're in an awkward situation of, of having a product that maybe people know has a problem.

And it's like, Oh yeah, like batch one, you don't want that. It's got this problem. But if we still have like a year of it to sell, you could really stall your business out with something like that. So for I, for a new product, I like to be moderately conservative, um, enough that we're going to sell it out and then we can stand behind it.

, so I do definitely want to sell it out on the first run beyond that. , There's a lot of downsides to selling out all the time. It's, it's draining. People are always asking where their stuff is. People place like pre orders and then they want to cancel them or they want to change their address. And then with like your shipping like department, like we have, we have one or two people that ship here and it's like, there's, there's nothing to ship some week cause everything's on pre order and then all of a sudden there's like a bazillion orders to ship out and it's, it's feast or famine for them.

So it's definitely exhausting from like a business operating standpoint. So I would think where we're at more so for just once we're through the initial launch is more just kind of a just in time. model where we're still doing some extra work. We're not just going to order a gazillion of them. We're not just going to place like one massive order a year that's just like dead simple, but it's a massive amount of inventory.

So we are going to keep placing smaller orders. So there's a little more paperwork. There's orders arriving at a higher frequency, but we're trying to keep it in stock. And we were mostly there on a, on a mature product. That's there'll be a trajectory. Something takes where it comes out and it sells out pretty quick.

And then batch two still might sort of sell out kind of quick. And by batch three, it's sort of generally going to be in, in stock. , and then usually it stays in stock until maybe we're going to do a next gen. And then we sort of wind it down a little bit right before the next version.

[00:26:37] Christian: And are you doing the forecasting that you personally was handling the, the inventory

[00:26:41] Dan: Yeah, I do. Yeah. It's pretty basic. It's pretty, it's still like, it's pretty basic. It's pretty much, yeah, like when we have a brand new product, you don't have any data and you could sort of, you know, make data and type in numbers into a computer, but it's kind of all just guessing. So, yeah, I, we have a spreadsheet that sort of has like our inventory and how much we think each month is going to subtract off of that.

But we don't even bother making that kind of in the first six months of a product because you're just like, I have no idea. Like, we'll just, let's just order a thousand of these and see how it goes and then, you know, go from there.

[00:27:15] Christian: , what's the shortest, something is sold out. And what's the longest, something is taken to sell out.

[00:27:19] Dan: Yeah, the shortest, the all time, the shortest would be we've had in peak COVID, we definitely had 30 second sellouts. Um,

[00:27:28] Christian: Like how many units do

[00:27:29] Dan: like, like, like thousands.

[00:27:31] Christian: Jeez.

[00:27:32] Dan: Um. Yeah, it's yeah, it's all it was it was a big it was a big thing and yeah Then you get all the angry emails. It's like I like people in Australia, right? The time zones are opposite So they get up at 2 a.

m. And then they miss out and then they're emailing you about it

[00:27:47] Christian: so what's the longest, maybe you don't have to answer it, but like, what's the longest it's taking you to sell

[00:27:51] Dan: Yeah, they we had the longest would be the WAPTA pack that we launched just over a year ago That that pack Was definitely less than I thought it would be Not because it didn't go well though. Like I don't I don't see it as a failure It's not that the product wasn't really well received It was just that it was a smaller niche because we don't do a lot We didn't really do any like market business analysis business case stuff stuff we're just like oh, this would be a cool product and so we release it and then That pack was a smaller pack.

It was frameless. So you got to be pretty hardcore ultralight to use something like that. It's not going to have the mainstream appeals like a bigger frame backpack. So yeah, everyone loved it, but it did take 10 months to sell out batch one. ,

[00:28:37] Christian: No, but, but you did sell through it and you've, you've made them

[00:28:39] Dan: yeah, we sold through it. And thankfully the product went really well.

If we did have like a big problem with it, that would have been awkward if we're still had to keep selling it. But yeah, thankfully that product worked really well. I love that product, but yeah, it's not like the seller that our like mainstream products are. No,

[00:28:57] Christian: batch drop sellout thing. I think it works depending on your product and market. I've been following, if you ever heard of the Montana knife company, they make these, they make, they make these like hunting knives and they're basically like a rocket ship they launched in 2020.

And I think they're just, anyway, they, they launched it. A standard inventory, but they basically, cause they're making them all in Montana and they'll launch, I don't know how many units actually is a drop, but they drop basically once a week. And basically the only way you can get on is like a tech. So I just follow it just out of curiosity. I've never seen something sell out in less, like nothing takes more than five minutes to sell out.

[00:29:35] Dan: yeah, it's crazy.

[00:29:36] Christian: It's shocking. And these are like 400, 500 knives that are just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. So there is, yeah, there is something about getting this, that scarcity mindset that gets people all riled up and, you know, it feels like they're a part of a club if they win the golden ticket to buy one, right?

[00:29:53] Dan: that's one of the reasons why we can actually sell pretty well over the winter, is because people don't know for sure that they can get one next summer when they need to go camping. So that sort of, it's always there, like you got to kind of buy it when you can.

[00:30:06] Christian: Yeah, it took me two, it took me two rounds during COVID to get a Durston.

[00:30:10] Dan: heh. Yeah.

[00:30:12] Christian: proud to finally have gotten one. Okay. So we want to turn now and look a little bit at my marketing. We talked about it a little bit. First off, you said you don't like calling it marketing because that's not really what you do.

So what is it that you do? Like, what would, how would you define it then? And if it's not marketing, what is it?

[00:30:27] Dan: Yeah, I think, like, I think marketing is a fine word, I just feel like it has some baggage because it tends to be pretty, like, inauthentic a lot of the time, um, and we're just trying to be very authentic about it, um, So it is marketing, but it's, it's, really what we're trying to do is connect with people that actually would, would really benefit from our product.

And make those connections. Um, so we're not trying to sort of sell it to the world or to sell it to people that don't actually need it. I feel like, and sometimes if we sell something to somebody who doesn't actually, isn't the right user, it just backfires. Like, our tents being trekking pool tents, they tip over.

If we sell it to somebody who is a motorcycle camper and they're They're pitching in parking lots where every single night they're going to have to like get some bricks or stones and lug them over and set it up. It can work, but they're probably not having a great experience. Other people are going to see that out there and be like, that doesn't look like what I want to do.

Um, so it's, yeah, I, we don't want to sell it to those people. I feel like it's short sighted. Marketing for me is trying to reach people in a very authentic way. And then, could you remind me of the question?

[00:31:39] Christian: , I think that's, , that's it. You're, you're basically building a community as opposed to blasting out things you're, you're trying to tell a story and build a community. It seems like from the outside.

Is that fair?

[00:31:50] Dan: we are we're trying to build a community So the way I think of it is is like marketing step one is have a great product because that's just gonna be so much Easier to sell and it's sort of selling itself. It's like marketing itself when people see it out there They want it they you know, there's like that's the dream would be a product that sells itself and That's sort of the highest level of marketing, or the highest grade, you might say.

And then, sort of the next grade down from just like, it doing it itself, is us doing it, but in a very authentic way. So this is us getting the word out about the product. Um, that, what I like to do is, um, I think about the platforms. So I think, I think about kind of the platforms that I'm going to do it on and the type of content that we're going to create.

For platforms, YouTube is one of my favorite because it's, you can have such deep, rich content. Like we make our product videos, it's about five minutes and it's a really deep dive into the product. It, it is marketing in a sense that, I mean, that's, I guess, like what you would call it. Product video about about a product, but it's also something that I think is pretty interesting because there's a lot of thought that goes into these products We're gonna make some like Case we're gonna make a case for something like we did this for this reason.

We think it's better It's interesting to watch for people even if you don't buy the product or agree. I think We have some, some hugely watched videos, like even the pitching video for the X Med has like 140, 000 views or something. It's like, I think it's the most watched pitching guide video on the internet.

And it's, it's because the video is really well done and it's entertaining even if you don't have the tent. Like, like who watches a pitching guide video for a tent they don't even have? It's like, but people do because it's actually like it's beautiful. It's like well explained even even if you have a different model attempt There's some tips in there that are gonna be helpful So YouTube YouTube is a platform that I really like because of how rich of a content content you can make We use Instagram as well.

That's good. It's just a little shorter and a little more shorter attention span So you're not gonna have as much depth and then I'm also So those are the two main platforms, YouTube and Instagram. And then I'm also going to go to the enthusiast communities, whether that's websites on a topic, Reddits, Facebook groups, things like that, whether it's our own group or whether it's like groups that just exist around that, that hobby, I'm going to want to be in those groups.

And then for when I'm doing sort of our content outreach, I'm thinking about. , content in a few ways there's specifically about the product, which would be like, Oh, here's a cool feature. Here's why we did this. Explaining this. , That's important. , it doesn't always work because you can't just show up on like some Facebook group about some semi related thing and just launch like a product video or something.

And people be like, that's, you're just spamming your product. So there's also a second type of content is what am I calling expert content. And that's content that. That you're, you're being the expert in that category in a way that really truly is helpful for people. So I might make a video, instead of making a video that's like, here's our backpack and why it's so cool and all the features, it might just be like, here's how you fit a backpack.

It's not about specifically about our product, it's just, like backpack fit videos actually aren't very good. I need to make one because they're all very simplistic. Like the landmarks that, that, that people tell you to, to, um, measure from, a lot of people don't actually like to wear their packs on the Iliac crest on the hips, whether you're told.

So if you wear it there, then great measure from there, but like a lot of guys will actually wear it lower. And then if they don't identify that, they're actually not measuring it from where they're actually going to wear it. So, I mean, it's, it's nerdy, but there's so much, um, like expert content, how you, how you use guidelines, how you fit a backpack, like all these things.

You can create expert content that isn't about your product, but when people see it, they're like, Oh, these people know what they're talking about. Like, like I want to check out their backpack because obviously they put more thought into this area than, than a lot of people would.

[00:35:50] Christian: Yeah. And that's how you saw all your early growth. It seems, well, maybe not really growth, but I mean, you've been a part of the ultralight community for a long, prior to Durst and gear. So your name was there, but then you were also. On the forums, answering questions, kind of injecting your outlook and perspectives and opinions, you know, which then brought you to the place where you're like ultra light Jesus.

Now,

[00:36:08] Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Like credibility is huge, right? Like, like the internet is filled with, with kind of low level, low grade sort of filler content. And there's a scarcity of like true excellence. Uh, and so if you can deliver that, even if it's not about your product, people are going to pay attention, start paying attention.

So that's, that's something that can transcend. Like expert level content can transcend a lot of different audiences because you're not, it's not really an ad. It's, it's, it actually is helpful. People actually want to talk about it and want to read it. Um, and then the third type of content that is, I think, the least impactful but kind of interesting is, is sort of storytelling with your product, which is like trip reports.

Like we went and did this, you know, we did this big hike in six days and here's a pretty video about it and all this kind of stuff. People, it's good to have some of that, like you should look like you actually use your products and get out there and all that kind of stuff. But people definitely don't consume that, at least, or I'm not as good at telling the story, but, um, people like to consume content that, that relates to them.

So that you can say if you do a PackFit video, they're like, oh, I know how I could fit my pack better next time. Whereas if it's just a video about a trip I did, it, you have to do a super good job for people to, to find it that is interesting.

[00:37:20] Christian: , it's about making the customer, the hero and not yourself, the

[00:37:23] Dan: Yeah, so all of that is like what I do, like, like my sort of dance outreach. And then aside from that there is partners. Like other people, like people that have YouTube accounts, people that have Instagram accounts, other people that are leaders in these communities. And those are a huge opportunity too because they often have the audience or they have the credibility that that you need.

And you need to connect with them in a authentic way as well. Ideally, you would be doing something awesome and they would be interested and want to use your product and then it helps get the word out. So it again, it comes back to having a great product. But there's a lot of ways you can still be strategic about at least getting on their radar.

, you can comment on their YouTube videos, just, you know, say something nice. You can like their Instagram posts, comment. , You can message them. You don't want to be too pushy. , but I really think that, that the more somebody authentically wants to use your product, they're sort of like somebody that, that loves your product and they're going to use it because they're excited about it.

And then when they do that, all the viewers are like, It's compelling to them. The next level down is sort of content mills, like YouTube channels that sort of, you know, they're going to say your tent's awesome, but they're going to review the next tent two weeks later. And they're gonna say that one's awesome.

And every tent's awesome and it's, it's fine, but it's, it's a lot less impactful because it loses that, that specialness and that authenticity. And then all the, and then all the way down to just like purely paid ads where you might pay someone to use your gear. And then now it's costing you the most, but it's, I think.

The least effective because everybody usually would know it's paid. So just the credibility is lower, even if it's awesome, even if they love it, just the fact that people know it's paid, but it puts that asterisks on it.

[00:39:08] Christian: But you have a big audience now. So, I mean, what, what are you doing? Like, I guess, what are you doing now, but also what are you wanting to do in the future that you have, you have a larger audience and what is it, the things that you want to do or change at Durston gear to be able to. You know, see those larger bumps in audience or see those larger bumps when you do drop new products.

[00:39:27] Dan: Something I try to do is nurture our community. So we have a Facebook group of about 15, 000 people. They, they own our products. They love our products and they're huge advocates for the brand with a lot more potential than, than I personally could do. , sometimes we directly use that. Like when, when my X mid pro came out, this was.

Two or three years ago. It was the first time I'd done totally myself. I'd like remortgage my house You're like like this is a big scary thing. I Go on there and I just make an ask I'm like, hey guys like this sounds like it's a huge massive deal for us I would just really appreciate it If you guys when it comes out of you guys could just like share it And it's still very like authentic because it's not like some corporation being like like and subscribe It's like a real person making a video like like please guys like

[00:40:14] Christian: Yeah. Holding your baby up. My, my, my baby needs to eat.

[00:40:17] Dan: yeah, so um, so we can use the community like that to like to ask them to share about our products They'll do a lot of that Anyways, like they'll recommend our our products on to other people all over the internet And so the more we can support that like, um when i'm on the community just the fact that i'm helping everybody out They're like this is the kind of company I do want to support.

I feel good about Recommending these guys because they obviously care about their product. They care about their customers so by By nurturing that community, , we were able to maintain the, the, the power of that community to get the word out. So that community is huge. , and then also just that content, like the YouTube videos.

I wish we made a lot more YouTube videos. I put like such a high bar on them that they're like these major projects and then they don't happen because there's so much work to do. , like the backpack pitching, backpack fit guide video I mentioned. It's like I've been thinking about it for like two years and I have like all these points.

, but I was like, you know, how are we going to make the perfect video? And then it's like, still hasn't happened.

[00:41:17] Christian: Yeah. I'm, I'm curious. You've, you mentioned it a couple of times, just the different communities. So you have the ultra light community and the, the NYOG make your own gear communities, which are, you know, kind of one in the same and a lot of ways. And they're very active and they're innovative. , within the outdoor industry.

And how do you think these communities will affect the future of the industry and gear innovation?

[00:41:38] Dan: Yeah, it's interesting. One thing that I've always sort of a hunch that I think is true is that communities, there's a certain, the, the true soul of a, of a hobby is often found in some of these very communities. So I call them the thought leaders and they really, they really punch outside their, their weight.

, in the sense that there might be a subreddit or a website that doesn't actually have that many people going on, going on there, but it has some of like the best people that really know the topic and are, yes, the number of people actually talking is small, but the sort of the number of people that are sort of just watching that community, , like for example, on tents, most people buying tents don't want to go online and like debate Poly versus nylon and all these things.

They just want a tent. , but they think it's pretty cool that, like, other people care enough that they're debating that. For like the number, if there's, if there's a community, a hundred people debating these things, there might be like 10, 000 people that are sort of adjacent that might, might, might browse that, or they might follow the YouTube channels of some of those people and, and learn from them and, or just look at their gear list, like the gear lists are a huge one.

What are the, what are the pros using? , I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go toe to toe and debate. You know, which, which sunglasses they should have in their kit. But I think that's cool to look at their gear list and just take some influence from that because they've put work into it. So I think one of the nice things with those communities is they are the thought leaders and they punch outside their weight and influence where if you can have credibility there.

I think the alternative is there's some brands that come out and they're very ad heavy and they're, they're, it's all hype and it's like so awesome and all this kind of stuff. But like the enthusiasts can see through that. Because there's no substance to it, it's just a lot of kind of bravado. That might sort of work initially to reach sort of these sort of peripheral people that don't know too much about the topic.

They just see the ads and they buy some of the stuff. But if you're not actually connecting with the core, you can end up getting kind of mocked at the core where it's like, Oh yeah, all the posers are buying this thing because they're just a sucker for these ads that are everywhere. But if the true, the true authentic thought leaders in the community aren't on board with it, then over time, I feel like it just, it, it kind of crumbles a bit.

, authentic, if you have an authentically great product, you should be able to reach like the , authentic people at the heart of the community and they should be, they should think it's cool if it is.

[00:44:20] Christian: , I think you've said the phrase already once, uh, building in public and the idea is really, you see it more kind of in tech founder led tech businesses and kind of building in public, but that's something you're a proponent of and, you know, mentioned you just, that would be your growth plan.

If you were launching again, it's built in public. , You've built in public and you actually release, I mean, you obviously been working things and things in development, but you kind of hint already what you're working on the future. Like you've talked about, you know, apparel is something that you're interested in getting in.

, sleeping pads is something you're interested in getting into eventually one day. Like, do you see a downside to building in public from a competitive standpoint now that you're actually, , you are a target on some people's list of competitors.

[00:45:01] Dan: Yeah, , I think there is a downside, but I think people often miss sort of wait the downside. So I think when you're a brand new company, you haven't really done anything. If somebody says build in public, you're worried. You're like, Oh, I'm going to like give away all my ideas and people are going to steal the ideas.

And there's some validity to that. But , your bigger problem is not that everybody's going to care about your ideas. Your bigger problem is , that nobody cares about your ideas. , Right at the beginning, nobody's paying attention to you. And your biggest problem is how do I get some attention? So for a, for a early company.

I, I, I tilt towards building in public because you, it's, it's a trade off. Like, I don't love telling the world what ideas I have way before they're ready. , because it could, it could get, somebody else could get knocked off or somebody just lets competitors start moving towards you sooner. , that is a real risk.

, but I feel like it's a necessary evil for a small company because you just need to start getting the word out and building content and building excitement. You can be a bit strategic about it, like if you have something that, that's really special. , A, you could just get a patent in, so you're building in public but your patent's already in.

, or you could just , not really show that particular aspect of it that you think really is the sort of the, the secret sauce. , so early on, I think you've got to build, I think most people got to build in public to, because that's an effective way of getting, getting attention. Alternative, like if you don't want to do that and you want to be like totally quiet, then you're going to have a way harder job when you launch, uh, nobody, you come out of nowhere.

Now you're. Now you're maybe doing a whole bunch of advertising or you're gonna or you could be in retail and exchange a bunch of margin for for that marketing. Like there's ways to get a lot of different paths to get eyeballs but a good the lowest cost path is is to just cultivate that attention by building public.

As we get bigger, there's less need for that because we already have our audience. We have our brand, people know us. And so we don't have to build in public anymore. So we can slowly walk that back over time. An example would be our trucking pools that came out in, 2024. Those came out of nowhere for people like we, two weeks before they were launched.

It was, Hey, completely different product, brand new category coming out shortly. Poof. Two weeks later, they're here. They're in stock, you know, now they're sold out. , just kind of poof out of nowhere. But if I would have done that, like as our first product. We would never have sold them because nobody would know who we are.

And so, yeah, I walk it back over time and then it depends on the circumstance. Like if it's a, if it's an update to, of course, if it's an update to an existing product, you can't build in public because you're Osborne in your, your current products. If you're talking about how next year's is so much better.

,

[00:47:47] Christian: so let's, let's put it, let's put it to work here. Let's, let's put this building in public to work. Nobody listened to this podcast. Anyways, this is me and you here, Dan. So don't worry about it. , I want to move into the idea of innovation, kind of the topic of innovation, something that you've built.

That's kind of the cornerstone of your, of your brand , and of you as a, as the leader of the brand too. So first question , is there pressure for every product release to be bigger than the last one? Do you feel that kind of personally?

[00:48:11] Dan: I Feel like there's pressure for product releases to be respected They don't it doesn't have to be from a sales perspective at the very beginning We did have like some chatter about one hit wonder type stuff where it's like, oh, you've got one product These guys have one hit wonder, you know that kind of stuff So then in that early stage you feel like hey, well, we gotta have like at least one more good product so we're sort of like Have the respect of the community and we didn't just do one thing Now that we've had several successful products.

I don't feel Pressure from a from a just a dollar perspective, but I do feel pressure from a like I want to represent our brand Well, I don't want to release a product that's half baked and looks like oh these guys If we release too much products that sort of fell apart, it could really undermine the brand so Yeah, not from sales, but from reputation.

I want them to be respected

[00:49:08] Christian: People can find the story for the story elsewhere is that, you know, basically the, you, I think you're hiking the great divide trail. You've yo yoed the PCT, you have a yo yo the great divide trail. You've hiked the PCT trail and you've, you've basically long hikes. With your mind wandering and thinking about how to make better gear, right?

So you have that as your background, like that's kind of where the X mid idea comes from. , I recently just finished a book called slow, slow productivity by Cal Newport. And, , I thought about you during the reading it because basically he makes the case, his three points are do fewer things, work at a natural pace, obsess over quality.

You do those things and , you will make better stuff. You will be more productive in that way. And I thought about you in that because. You had those, those long, slow productivity hikes. Now you're running this big business that requires your time and energy regularly. You have a young child, like, are you, how do you still make time?

Are you still making time for those long meandering walks? I mean, obviously you can't leave for four months anymore, but like, how do you create space for that? Because it seems like that's how your brain works the best.

[00:50:13] Dan: Yeah, um, yeah, a few things. So it definitely is harder to get away. , it takes a pretty special time in somebody's life to be able to go for a five month walk. Even if I was just kind of a, you know, in my old life and not running a business, it still is pretty hard to get away for that long. I am super busy right now, so it's hard to even get away for a week, it's pretty hard right now.

, But a couple things that, that sort of make it work are, First, ideas take so long that I still have, like, ideas from like ten years ago. Like, I have an idea for a camp stove that I'm like, that's awesome. I have not even touched it and it's probably actually about like 12 years ago. I'm like, like stove should be like that.

, I don't think it's a big moneymaker cause it's, it's like a pretty inexpensive item, but I think it would be really cool. , you know, one day if I actually have the bandwidth, maybe we'll actually start working on this stove. , so I, I do actually have like a sort of a list of in various stages of sort of Nurturing.

I still have a list of ideas from those, from those stages. But the other big thing is, you can get a lot more, or I can get a lot more effective in thinking. Thinking through ideas in my head, so I think it doesn't take me as long as it used to. And an example of that would be, um, on the PCT I was thinking about tents and backpacks, like, like, everyday.

Like you might, okay, we're just walking for the next four hours and in the next 30 minutes I'm just gonna sort of zone out and think about these things, but my thinking wasn't focused It was just sort of like what would be awesome and you sort of like think about this for a bit and anything about that For a bit and it's very scattered.

It's not focused on on certain areas and then that ends up being Fun, but not very effective Uh, because kind of this, the number of things that you could possibly do is just so vast. Uh, the diff, number of different ways you can make something so vast, you just sort of, you're just feeling around in the dark almost at that point.

And it's not until you, , do what I call parameterizing the search, and it's like, and that is really kind of putting up guardrails so that you can focus in on the areas of that sort of, solution space, you might call it the search space, but allows you to really like, okay, no, my solution is not over there.

, it's going to be over here. And then you keep chiseling it down. And then once you do that, then you can actually find those solutions a lot faster. An example of that with the X mid would be on the PCT, I just knew that I wanted more space in a tent. So I was like, I thought all these trekking pole tents just had one that had one pole, these pyramid ones, you did.

Yeah. I only had one high spot and you couldn't sit there because the pole was there. So I was like, you know, are we going to do guy lines or struts or hoops or weird different shapes? And it all was sort of like, yeah, it's sort of better, but worse and I don't know. And then I eventually put in a bunch of parameters.

I said, it's got to be a rectangle. The tent's got to be a rectangle base because that's like the simplest. . I'm not open to solutions that are more complicated than that. And it's gotta use my two hiking poles. Because, I'm like, they use one pole right now, I've got a second pole here that's unused.

That's gonna be the most, like, effective I think that's gonna be the most effective way to try to solve this problem is with that second pole. Rather than bring something else in from the outside, like hoops and struts and guidelines and extra things that I don't currently have. , and once I had all those parameters, there's a couple more, once I had them all in there, then actually the solution was like, I think once I really finished my parameter list, I think I had the idea, like within a day, , I was like, Oh, like the only way that that could all work together would be this, , so that, yeah, that helps with the, with the search is, is parameterizing it.

[00:54:04] Christian: I was going to ask about if it. I mean, we've touched on apparel a couple of times and mentioned, I've heard you talk about it elsewhere. So I feel comfortable talking to you about it. If you're open to mentioning it, what are the parameters parameterizing the search, like, what are you doing that I'm not saying you're coming out with apparel anytime soon, but you're obviously thinking about it.

, what does that look like? I mean, can you use that, that idea to kind of give us a better understanding of. Um, Parameterizing the search with a new product, you know, going forward as opposed to reflecting back on a previous product, like, what are you doing specifically repair on? You don't have to like build too much in public about what you're doing, but, , yeah, I'm just curious, like how your brain works about how you're going to conquer this problem or what are the problems you want to solve?

[00:54:46] Dan: Yeah, so I'll give you two examples. One's in apparel, one's not. So the first one, not in apparel, , this would just be like an example I came up with for, like, parameterizing the search. And that is just, if you take an everyday object, like, say, a cigarette lighter that everyone uses camping, everybody can think of problems with that.

Like, when it's cold, it doesn't work. If it gets wet, it doesn't work. It's not that hard to think of problems, , with a lot of things. But when you think of solutions, so let's say our problem is that when a cigarette lighter gets cold, it doesn't work. The solutions, there's tons of them. You could say, well, let's, let's put a heater in there and then it will never get cold.

Or let's, , let's, you know, let's insulate it so it'll get cold slower. , but you, but then you look at these solutions and you're like, well, I don't really want to make this complicated with like a heater and now there's batteries. Like, I'm just going to say that like anything electrical is out. It's not that it's impossible, it's just not the type of solution that I think is gonna be what I want.

And then if you end up putting a bunch of parameters like that, you might end up realizing that for a cigarette lighter, what you could actually do is just change the fuel to something with a lower flashpoint that actually in minus 20 still has lots of vapor pressure and still works. I don't know exactly if there's that fuel or not, but But that's the kind of thing we're like, okay, that's the type of solution that I'm open to because it's not making it more complicated.

It's not making it heavier. It's just like a nice actual fix without creating a bunch of other problems. So for apparel, if we do apparel, and we haven't prototyped anything, we're not like choosing it. But what it would, if we do do apparel, they would be because there's a functional reason for it. So when I say all this parameterizing search and solving problems is all in the context of making technical.

Goods if you're just making like cool stuff like fashion, which is great But you're not really going to be prioritizing search because it's basically fashion and it's a different sort of approach But if it's a technical product where you're actually trying to solve a problem Then an example for apparel would be a good example would be down jackets So, down has the problem that when you get it wet, it loses a bunch of its insulation ability.

And when you look out at the market, you see all sorts of different solutions for this. You see, uh, like, Arcteric cerium puts synthetic kind of on the wrists where it's most likely to get wet. So their, their solution is something, something else in the more vulnerable areas. Other breathable shell, um, trying to keep the whole jacket dry.

, another solution that's a pretty neat one is the dry down. So it's actually, I think it's actually uses BFAS. So maybe it's probably on the bad list now. Um, but, uh, but aside from that, dry, dry down is pretty neat because you just, you coat the down and then it just doesn't get wet. So if I was parameterizing the search on like a down jacket, I would say that.

for a product that I want to make, I would say the waterproof shell is, is out like any sort of trying to block the water with a shell is out because that's going to kill breathability. And I'm just like, fundamentally, that's just like not the path we want to go down. We could spend years trying to make a more and more breathable shell, but it's always going to be well behind if it wasn't a waterproof, breathable shell.

And then I also don't really like the idea of, of subbing in alternative installations. , Because they have different lifespans other things like that. So like I would also say like I feel like to me that feels a little clumsy So if I was making the jacket, I would say like how could we make? You might say, how could we make down that, that doesn't have that problem in the first place?

Like, how do we fix the core problem instead of sort of blocking, blocking it somehow? , and so dry down is a good example of, I think it has problems. I think it's falling. I think there's like some other things going on there. But with, but when somebody thought of dry down, they were like, oh, like crap.

Like, this is awesome. Cause now we don't need to like sub in different installations that aren't as, that aren't as compact and aren't as long lasting. We don't need to like kill the breathability. We don't have all those downsides because we just avoided the problem from the outset. So I might say, for an insulating jacket, like, there could be other solutions too that accomplish something similar.

Like, like this is a little sci fi, but you could, maybe you could breed, breed, uh, like a special breed of geese that have a little bit stiffer plumes and that they don't, like, Or whatever, or maybe, maybe there is like another, another bird that, that is just a little stiffer. Um, I don't know, like, but if you could, if you could avoid the problem at the outset.

Um, that might be the type of solutions and you might say, if I can solve it in that area, I've got a winner product. If I have to solve it in these other areas, it's going to be kind of a mediocre problem product because there's Already a bunch of solutions that kind of work. Okay, and my solution will kind of work.

Okay

[00:59:15] Christian: So what you're saying is you're raising geese now.

[00:59:17] Dan: Yeah, we have we have a thousand geese out back

[00:59:22] Christian: Animal husbandry is your new thing. , that's awesome. You're always scratching your own itch with your, with your products. And I'm curious if there are categories outside of your personal interest where you'd consider creating, you know, new innovative solutions, or are you just going to continue to scratch your own itch?

And if you do have ones outside of your own interest, what are they? I'm

[00:59:40] Dan: Yeah, I I don't um mostly because For me creating a product is so hard It's like it's draining. I think about it for years. I think to create a great product You need to get to the the bleeding edge like the forefront of that space to really know the problems and really know What's we're solving?

What's not what type of solutions really if you're gonna be putting in like parameters if you're gonna be picking problems all of that requires High level of expertise in that category It's so much work just even to get to that idea part The classic portrayal of an idea is like this eureka, epiphany moment where you're just walking along with kind of no effort and you have this great idea.

And like the reality of it is that ideas are just like all work. It's all like learning and finding the gaps and then once you find a gap then working and working until you can maybe, maybe address that gap. So for me, it's so much work. To have that and then to actually develop the idea and get it work And then you make a prototype and it sucks and then you reiterate it and eventually finally, hopefully it's good It's just like When I work on my own products, it's already kind of I don't see depressing but it's already like oh, here we go Like this is gonna be this is gonna be the long haul like if we start raising geese out back for the for the superjacket It's like, you know, you're like you got to believe in that idea or you're not gonna see that through So for me, yeah, it's too, too much work to do it in areas outside of what I'm just naturally really passionate about.

[01:01:20] Christian: That makes sense. So you definitely, yeah, you dive into things headfirst, for sure. All the way. You've got a, you've got a strong, obsessive focus, which I really appreciate and has served you well. And I'm curious if you're taking a similar approach to building the business and the brand, you know, if designing new products takes so much of your thought, like how much now are you refocusing?

Not that you're taking your focus off to product design, but like, how much are you focused now just like actually learning how to build a business? Like, is that, are you kind of all consumed by that? And if so, , what are you doing kind of to put fuel on that fire?

[01:01:52] Dan: Yeah, my personality is, is pretty obsessive and like, I just, I'm, I have very high standards. I want, I want everything to be amazing. So that, that manifests itself in the product, but it also manifests itself in other areas. Like customer support, for example, like when we email a customer, the customer has a question, we email them.

And if somebody else answers the email, like I feel things very strongly. So somebody else answers the email and it's like fine, but I'm like, no, like we didn't tell them like this other thing, you know, it's like, Oh, it could have been an even better answer. Um, you know, it could have been more helpful for them.

So my sort of high expectations and sort of perfectionist tendencies manifest like in the product, in customer support, in like the website, I still make everything on the website. Like I do. I do a lot of the product photography still. I, I write all the text. Um, so I'm that sort of, yeah, level of, of OCD, high standards manifest itself across the, across all the things that I do.

But in terms of building the brand, we are, I think of us as very product, product led. We don't do a lot of intentional brand building. Like we don't, Say like, what's a, what's a slogan we could have or what's like, like we do have values, but they, they're, they come through in the product. Like the product is going to be led by values like being elegant and being simple and user friendly.

And that should, our products are going to show those things. I'm not really going to like have like a sort of a brand strategy where we're like, we're trying to like tell everybody that we're those things. We're going to let the product speak for that.

[01:03:32] Christian: How about from the operation stance standpoint, just like, yeah, are you diving into finances and, and inventory management and cashflow, like all those things that had come with growing a business, like. Are you, is equally obsessive and focused on those things as well? Or do you have people who are helping you with those things?

[01:03:50] Dan: I, the one area that I am pretty involved in is shipping. Um, it's just such a complicated thing. And I'm always thinking about like, like how to get the shipping working better. And all that kind of stuff. Cause shipping can turn into a nightmare so fast. So shipping I'm pretty involved in. But a lot of the other stuff, not as much.

, my brother in law is involved in the business too. And he's more like the accounting, legal, um, kind of eye for things. We don't, like, I don't spend too much effort on that because we're not like that, we're not like beholden to anyone or like having like profit goals or anything like that.

We're just like, we want to obviously be in a healthy position. But beyond that, it's like the main thing is to create great products that establish our reputation and give people a great experience. And later, you know, , we can squeeze out some inefficiencies in the business later. But my kind of eye is on like just like product excellence and delivering for

[01:04:47] Christian: That's cool. That's good. Are there companies or brands that you looking to emulate or that, you know, even before you got started that you're trying to emulate, or are there ones that you grow that you're, that you look to if, you know, as a guiding light, so to speak.

[01:05:00] Dan: Yeah, I think, I think of this in two areas. One is in innovation and one's in community. Brands that I think that have done an awesome job on innovation. A couple of them that come to mind are Alpaca Raft. They do pack rafts. They've been crushing it for, I don't know, 30 years. They've been the leaders.

Like, every cool feature that's kind of the standard came from them. They're still leading the way. Their boats that came out, like, last month, they're still, you know, better than ever. Um, I just love to see, like, the decades of, of steady innovation. I think that builds, like, such brand value when, when you Just like keep your head down and just like make stuff better, , for people, , other brands that do that.

, a big one is Therm a Rest. , they're kind of, you know, big and corporatey, but like they came out with like the first sleeping pad, like inflatable in like the 70s or 80s. , But then they came out with the Neo Air. This was probably like 2008, like totally different design of pads. So there's, they're like decades into their business and they're still like, boom, here's like a completely different style of pad that now like everybody does.

And they do lots of stuff I don't like, but they, but they do some really awesome stuff. , so from an innovation standpoint, , 2025, they've got a new pad that I'm just quite sure what I think of it, but they're like, they're trying new stuff. , So from an innovation standpoint, uh, they would, they would be pretty strong.

And another one is Zen Bivy. , so that. There was a guy that used to work for MSR, Michael Glavin. He, he came out with, he was involved in the original design of the Hubba Hubba. And he's done a bunch of products, he's worked for a whole bunch of companies over the years. Now he's got his own company and they're making these, it's sort of like a sleeping bag thing.

It's hard to even explain, I haven't even used one. Um, I should try one. But um, they, they have sort of like a hood thing and a thing. Everybody loves them because they're um, They say the more comfortable than just like a normal sleeping bag. , the cool thing is they're just thinking outside the box.

It's like, nobody's seen something like that before. And I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Like that there, that there, this Glavin, Michael Glavin, in particular, just has such a long, like multi decade history of thinking outside the box. Which is something I aspire to do. I hope that we could look back like 20 years from now and been like, Oh, Dan just wasn't this like one cool tent.

He was like 30 years of pretty cool products. , and then for community, , Alpaca also has been really good there. Like they have leaders in the pack rafting community. They're like sponsoring the events. Everybody knows them. Like they're. They're presenting their story, their people, they're open to, like, you can go there and see their factory, like, they've just done such a strong commu So, like, Alpaca is probably my favorite example because I'm both innovation and community, I'm just like, they're just like five star.

Um, and they've been doing it for decades. Oh, oh,

[01:07:44] Christian: funny. You're the second person in 24 hours to mention the word alpaca raft backgrounds to me. So yeah, they're in there and I've used their products and I think they're very cool. So that's a good example. , you just mentioned like 20 or 30 years, this is going to be, and I have a heart that's good to like vision out that far, but I think reality is like, I can't think much past three, three years max, but I'm just curious where do you want dursting gear to be in five years?

And how do you want to grow as a business owner in those next five years?

[01:08:13] Dan: as a company, I really, what's hard is that everybody kind of says this, but like, we really want to make products that are like actually great and actually give people better experiences. , you know, there's a lot, I was watching a video today that was like, we only release a product if it's going to make everyone a better experience.

I'm like, that's kind of what I see too. And it's, it's sort of true for them. , but it's like, We're, we're, I think, more serious about it than, than other people. But I would like to, , really give people a, like, a better backcountry experience through gear that is actually, like, more functional, more protective, simpler, lighter.

It's just, like, better. It's, it's hard to imagine exactly what that would look like because you've got all these different types of products and some of them can probably be made a lot better other ones that maybe you're don't never going to have an idea on how to make that better and so you might end up with this sort of weird company where you sort of of the 10 main items in hiking you have like six of them or something like that because we don't want to go in like Like a sleeping bag.

I wouldn't want to just come out with another sleeping bag that's like a big bag of insulation, essentially. Like, I hope we can have an idea that's like, oh, that's, that's awesome. Like, we've actually, you know, advanced that, but until then we're not going to have that product. So we'll just, from a company, we're just going to kind of keep like, feeling out, trying to have ideas for these different areas where hopefully we can make something that's a substantial step forward.

I do have some ideas I'm so excited about. I have like one idea that I'm like, that's hard, um, but it's going to be cool. And then I have one idea that's like, that's crazy and could be like truly enormous. It could be like, I don't want to talk too much about it cause it probably doesn't even work. Um, but it's like, it's, if it did work, it'd be like, it'd be a huge deal.

, so I, yeah, I just want to keep trying to make things better. Um, and it will be a little bit haphazard exactly what products those, those end up being in. And then you, you mentioned personally, um. For growth

[01:10:13] Christian: Yeah. As an entrepreneur, like, how do you, how do you want to grow in the next five years as an entrepreneur, as the business owner,

[01:10:19] Dan: I would love to, um, like one kind of door that's opening now is learning from other people, um, making a lot more connections in the industry where like we started off very isolated, didn't really know anyone. You're just sort of there tinkering in the dark, trying to learn. And now that we have like a bit of a presence, we can connect with other companies a lot more.

. So historically I would just like probably read books, you know, read like Tip Wilson's Lululemon book and Nike's book and you know, you're reading all these books, which is great. Um, now there's an opportunity to learn more directly from people as we can collaborate with some people.

So in the next few years, I would love to just nurture relationships with other people that have, that are innovators and learn from them. , still very like product focused. My like, that's what motivates me is like great products more than like great, great business models or. Great sort of management systems.

I know those important too. Um, but yeah, the passion's on the product.

[01:11:15] Christian: Love him or hate him. That's a deal on mustard is you read. Like that's either the, he'll say that's how he taught himself, all these things. And that's how he launched rockets into space and all those things.

So love him or hate him, but I will plug the greatest podcast known to man is called founders and it basically just reads biographies and autobiographies of business leaders and innovators and gives you his notes on them 45 minutes, an hour of his notes on that biography. And some of them are out of print.

So it's like a 5, 000 book. You're not buying it.

[01:11:46] Dan: Oh, that's

[01:11:47] Christian: his brain is like, uh, Rome research, whereas, you know, it's like a, he has all this, like cloud map of like all these different biographies. So he's always pulling in, Oh, this is like this. And then, you know, he's comparing and contrasting and

[01:12:00] Dan: Yeah. That's perfect.

[01:12:01] Christian: best.

I can't believe it's free. I'd like, it's so good founders podcast. Everybody should listen to it. And if you do listen to it, you'll know where half of my ideas come from. So last question.

[01:12:10] Dan: as good as the core

[01:12:11] Christian: You. Yeah, this dog and pony show he crushes. Okay. So my last question I ask everybody is how do you define success for yourself?

[01:12:20] Dan: Yeah. So I, I definitely thought about this one a lot. Um, cause it's hard. I think that there's sort of like all these sort of more enlightened, like definitions of success that, that I think more mature people have. I, I feel like for when you start off the, the basic definition of success that you kind of need to have is, is sales related, , where like you could, You can like you can tell yourself you're changing the world and you're doing great things But if you're like losing money and going out of business, it's like hard to call that success so I think like level one success is just like Is financial where you're you're able to sell your product keep the lights on And do that kind of stuff and and you have to achieve that before you can Kind of move on to sort of like higher levels of success.

So for me, the basic is like, at first I'm just like, Oh, you know, can we sell these? We just, we just made a huge production run. Oh my goodness. My house is mortgaged. I sure hope I can sell these. And then if we do yay, that was a success. , beyond that, once we sort of achieve that, the next level, , I kind of think of is, is respect in the industry where it's like, if, if.

I can go to like enthusiast communities and read content and people are like, Oh yeah, those guys are like, they know what they're doing. , that's like, I think, I think how they have their products. That, that means a lot is, is like a, that community respect. , so we're, yeah, respect is sort of the next level.

And then ultimately. Those are sort of like pre reqs, almost, in that you gotta have sales, you gotta make some sales, you gotta sort of be reasonably respected. But long term, the big picture, I think, my definition of success is how we, how we benefit the user. Am I actually giving people a better experience with, with the, with the gear outside?

It's easy to, I think over, overstate, like you think, Oh, a product's like so good at all these things and somebody is using it. Maybe they're having like a 1 percent better experience because it's like the, yeah, but the other products fine too. , Or, or hopefully you're like actually like sometimes you really do save somebody's experience where like.

Like our tents pitch fly first. And so somebody goes out camping and the first night is pouring rain. And if they were on the other tent, everything would have been drenched. And now it's not, and they've actually kind of saved their trip. , so for me, like big picture, I really think about success for me is, is helping people have a better experience.

And then more people would want to do that activity. , Yeah, because we're just making it work better.

[01:14:57] Christian: Very cool. I like it. , Dan, any final thoughts you want to leave a, where I get nobody, no more people should be emailing you. So don't, don't let them know where to contact you, but like any final thoughts or, what you're dropping in the spring,

[01:15:10] Dan: yeah, the one thing I'd like to say is just like a big thank you to our community um, because they really have made it all possible like we i'd just be sort of one guy yelling on the internet if uh, if it wasn't for all those amazing people kind of joining there with us, so Um our fans like to just like try our gear give us feedback around the communities.

It's just huge and we're so thankful for them yeah, if people want to get plugged in like our website, durstongear. com, Instagram, and some of the big things in 2025 for us will be our freestanding tents. We just launched the one plus version a couple months ago and the two's coming out in the spring.

That will be our big launch for the year. , We got a bunch of stuff, but the, definitely the, definitely the two person tent. I feel like I'm really excited about it. I feel like it's just like. Really, I took like four years to work on this thing. I feel like for the longest time, it kind of sucked. Um, and not finally got to a point where I'm like, Hey, now it's actually awesome.

So, , really excited to have that coming out in a few months. Uh that'll be our kind of a big launch of the year.

[01:16:11] Christian: I hope that I can be fast enough on the draw to get

[01:16:13] Dan: It is, it is going to be one of the faster ones to sell out. Yeah.

[01:16:17] Christian: Yeah, well, I mean, if you need help packing boxes, I'm happy to come to golden help pack boxes if it gives me front of the line.

[01:16:25] Dan: Good. Good. Yeah.

[01:16:28] Christian: and your insights, and it's been fun to watch. And as always have a conversation with you and, um, yeah, I look forward to, , seeing where you take Durston gear, but also just, uh, yeah, where you take community.

So thanks so much for, being a champion for growing a community and a strong, strong brand around the users. It's very cool to see. So thanks,

[01:16:43] Dan: Thanks Christian.

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