Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / AlpackaRaft Creator & Owner Thor Tingey | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 33
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome back to Beyond the Trailhead. This week is ⁓ a great week for us. We've got Thor on from Alpaca Rafts. Thor, thank you so much for joining us this week. Be here. Awesome. Well, yeah, I know you're out in Colorado. ⁓ I'm here in Atlanta, but wanted to have you on because I had a ⁓ a trip a while back and it was out in some ⁓ alpine and there was some alpine lakes, and I was like, man, I I want to do some potentially take a raft on the lake and speaker-1: Happy to be speaker-0: Do some pictures for a client of mine. And I saw your rafts and one, visually, they look really, really cool. And then secondly, I started to get into the whole, like for me, the ultralight side of ⁓ they've got really light rafts that function really well and are really durable. So ⁓ later on, once we started the podcast, I thought I'd really love to have you on and and chat more about ⁓ you and your brand, how you guys even became to be and ⁓ the growth of the company, and then also the the challenges of I'm sure there's challenges when you're working with water. that a lot of people don't expect. ⁓ and so I guess without further ado, just go running right into it. ⁓ let us know a little bit more about ⁓ yourself and the the history of your company. speaker-1: Yeah, we've ⁓ been around, we're closing in on twenty-five years, which I got my son here. He's gonna say this is Wayland. But we've been around twenty-five years now, which is crazy. I can't believe it's been that long. And we started the company ⁓ all the way back two thousand to two thousand two range. ⁓ and before that, pack rafting was not a I won't say we didn't invent the sport of packcrafting. speaker-0: Hey buddy. speaker-1: I want to be very clear about that. Pack rafting predates alpaca by a long ways. But we basically have invented the modern version of the sport. So before Alpaca, there it was confined to ⁓ a few people in various parts of the world, mostly Alaska, but we're where in Alaska you have huge landscapes with huge bodies of water. And so if you want to move across the landscape in Alaska. and you don't have a boat with you, you will get stopped because the rivers and lakes are ju they're just too big and too dangerous to cross without anything but a but a boat. And so I got introduced to it through that process. ⁓ I got some grants in college to go do these big and I grew up in Alaska. I got grants in college to go to these big traverses in Alaska. And I got introduced to the sport pack grafting by one of the forefathers of the sport named Roman Dial. And he said, You gotta try this pack grafting thing. But there was no boat on the market to do it. ⁓ there was a boat made in the eighties that was of reasonable durability and quality, but it was really built for mountain lakes like you're talking about. And ⁓ so we took vinyl pool toys, ⁓ the Sever Trail boat. It was made to look like a little mountain lake and boat, but it really made out of the same vinyl that you'd find on a ⁓ pool in or two. And we took those across Alaska and the concept worked. Like, wow, we can really traverse across the Brooks range using these. Yeah. But hypothermia was a real thing because they were very s narrow in the front and they scooped up water and you're sitting in water and we dry CT and FDs or anything like that. So we don't we were twenty years old, so we were pretty tough. And but so the idea worked, but the product didn't. Yeah. And my mom was had had her entire career in outdoor clothing design. So she had done ski clothing in Jackson Hole and Utah. And she had was a kayaker. And so she really wanted to get back into business. And I was out of c I was in college. My sister was nearly done with high school. She had more time on her hands. So we got together. I gave her the like, this is what I need to do these trips. And she designed the actual craft. And the original boat that we made 25 years ago ⁓ was just like it looked like a miniature raft. That's where it's a pack raft. It's a packable raft. And over the 25 years that we've been making bo boats, they've really evolved from these tiny little three to five pound durable large tubes but kind of like a cork in the water to now they're much more high performance ⁓ ⁓ paddle craft and they will do ninety percent of what a whitewater kayak will do or a flatwater kayak will do or a sea kayak will do. And so we've really evolved over the years into that. speaker-0: Wow. And ⁓ I I love your mom's designs of the rafts. I love the color choices and everything else. ⁓ so you did and I I I know this just 'cause I've I've read it all already, but ⁓ you did like six hundred mile pack rafting trip in Alaska. We did the pro with those prototypes over. speaker-1: Yeah, with with the ⁓ several boats. Yeah. So in nineteen ninety-eight, we did a hundred and sixty-five mile traverse of the Alaska range following a route that Roman Dial had recommended to us. And then two years later we got a grant and we spent thirty-nine days doing six to seven hundred miles. I don't have the exact mileage. Yeah. Across the across the Brooks range. So starting over in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: kind of in the center of there and then working our way and the Brooks Range is actually the Continental Divide because what flows north goes to the Arctic Ocean, what flows south goes to the Pacific Ocean. And ⁓ so we kind of worked our way across the spine of the Bricks range over those six hundred miles. ⁓ and yeah on though on those trips, we did a lot more walking and then floating. And that's the original concept of pack rafting was the boat was really there in case you need it to cross a river to get a few miles downstream, but you're not spending a ton of time on the water because the boat again, you're getting hypothermic, you were getting wet and the boats were delicate. So you didn't if the walking was good, we would walk rather than paddle. Okay. It's a hundred and eighty degrees today. People are like, Hmm, as soon as I can paddle, I'm paddling and I'm I'm paddling far. So I ⁓ doing as little walking as possible to get to the floating. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, 'cause I I back when I I grew up in Canada and so we did some portaging and stuff like that. So I was in canoes and stuff like that and we'd be carrying it for forever. And so man, when I hear about like a pack raft, I'm like, gosh, why didn't we have these when I was a kid? 'Cause that would have been lot easier than taking that at and it was a different type of trip, of course, but ⁓ I think the fascination for me is one is the ability to take something that ⁓ in the genre of stuff that I do is something that's light enough that I can now go and enjoy the places that I'm going to watch or going to going to hike to and be out on the water where no one else is, right? Where everybody else is, you know, sitting on the shoreline and I can go out there. I can go fishing. I can chill out there if I want. I can even cross the lake and then continue my trip instead of walking around the lake, depending on how how big it is, what my trip is and stuff like that. So I guess what is your demographic would you say of ⁓ the people that buy your rafts? I know you have so many different categories, but is there like one big main category that you find that you're at? I know you've come up with a couple of new rafts ⁓ this year. So I know you're in different categories too. speaker-1: You know, our demographic has long been people looking for backcountry adventure. And the early years it was all that. Everybody's doing big, you know, kind of Alaska, Canada trips. Yeah. And then the demographic kind of s ⁓ started I'm not shouldn't say soften, but started to shift a little bit. And yeah, people started doing traditional river trips with the boats. And a lot of that is attributable to the performance of the boats increased it. They tracked better. They have gear we added a airtight zipper into the stern of the boat so you can put your gear inside the boat and made a huge difference. We had a spray deck so you'd stay dry and warm. And then we added thigh straps so you have control. So suddenly now you have a boat that is will outperform a traditional ducky or something like that. And so people are buying them just to go do you know. normal river trafs. Yeah. And then the ⁓ So I would say we're more like sixty forty traditional river trips and forty percent kind of traditional pack grafting trips where you do a lot of walking and then some floating. And then a lot of people are doing what I would call ⁓ they're traditional river trips, but they are ⁓ pack graft focused. So low water or there is a hike in to do. and those those are really, really popular con crafters, especially out west, because you do have some hike in rivers that are low volume that you you can't hike in a fifty pound kayak into. You can't hike in a hundred pound raft to. But they're in the backcountry, they're really beautiful. Montana has some, Idaho has some, Colorado has some, Utah has some great ones, not this year because there's no water, but ⁓ that that's kind of what we're looking at. speaker-0: Okay. And I guess kind of going back into creating the rafts themselves and stuff like that. I know a lot of people are creating different products that might be easier manufacturing wise. I know that you're doing a lot of your manufacturing, if not all of it, ⁓ here in the US, right? speaker-1: Yes, all of our boats are made in Mancas, Colorado. speaker-0: Yeah. So putting those boats together, like I alluded to earlier, the the water and stuff like that. Hey, buddy. Hey buddy. ⁓ ⁓ you know, talking about the water and stuff like that, with your product specifically, what challenges did you run into when you first or when you're when your mom and you started first creating the raft, putting things together? I'm sure there were challenges when you're when you're making something like that because you're gonna run into punctures or leaks or you know, I again it it's fascinating to me. Go ahead. speaker-1: Yeah. So ⁓ really interesting. We've had ⁓ you know, the earliest challenge was just how do we make these things? You know, how do we source the fabric? How do we you know, we're just mom and me in our basement trying to figure this out and really you need specialized equipment to make these boats. And so early on we actually had to get Them manufactured originally by a company called Jack's Plastic Welding, which is just about 50 miles from here. We were in Alaska at the time. And then eventually by a company called Feathercraft, which used to make folding kayaks in Vancouver, BC. And then in 2008, as the business had grown, my mom moved down here to Southwest Colorado from Alaska and started her own factory. But a lot of that means like we had to, you know, get enough money to buy a $30,000. taping machine and a $50,000 RF welder and you start buying those machines and we've just slowly accumulated them over time. So that was kind of the initial challenge. And then there was a challenge of getting the right fabrics. And when you're really tiny, like we were in the beginning, nobody wants to talk to you. So you're like, okay, we're going to make 50 rafts. And they're like, yeah, you need to buy 5,000 yards of this stuff before we'll even talk to you. And you're like, well, that's 500 rafts and I can't do that. Yeah. And so we kind of got lucky and a few people took ⁓ I would say, pity on us and liked the idea, even though they knew how small it was. Yeah. And ⁓ so we got lucky there and got some early fabric. And now we're big enough that we can get exactly the fabrics we want and stuff like that. So a lot of those problems have gone away. But early on there were those problems. The other real problem that we had was was, I would say, acceptance. And kind of where I talk about the evolution of the sport. In the early years, the people that wanted to do this were ⁓ They were pack rafters. They wanted to go do these big traverse routes. But every time they take if you showed up in two thousand and eight to a put in at a normal river at at best you got sort of the what is that? Yeah. But more likely you got, do you know what you're doing? Do you know what this river is? Why are you here? You're going to die. That's dangerous. All of these things were happening. And then they'd see you run speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: you know, some class three raft and they'd be like, I can't believe that boat can do that. And then they want to buy one. But there was a long time of acceptance. And if you go dig back deep into the archives of blogs and and forums and people asking about pack rafting 15 years ago, there's a lot of negativity from the kayaking crowd, from the rafting crowd. And now their pack grafts are widely accepted from those groups. They don't necessarily like them but they they respect them and understand the the how they can perform in water and how big is what's funny is you brought up being Canada and and all the canoeing routes and stuff like that. And that's an area where we haven't made a lot of headway. And we're running into it's funny, we're running into exactly the same pushback this year that we it's I I feel like it's deja vu because we came out with these splat water boats. Which are longer, narrower, they track much better, they're much faster. It's one of the real problems with pack rafts in what I would call the boundary waters, Canadian lake systems, the Northeast, where you're linking together lake systems with portages, is the the pack rafts are slow. And I get and so they're not as convenient as a canoe. And so we're getting people saying, have they ever been to the boundary waters? These aren't gonna work here. And I I'm seeing the same sort of Comments on Reddit that I saw 15 years ago from Whitewater kayakers and rafters. Yeah. And my response to a lot of that is kind of we're not trying, I we were never trying to replace kayaks. We were trying to make an alternative craft that that's useful in situations where a kayak is not useful. If you have to hike it in, if you want to put it on an airplane, if you want to put it on a small plane in Alaska. Any of those things, aircraft is great. And it's a very good learning craft in in the whitewater realm because it's very stable, easy to handle, stuff like that. Well, in the flatwater realm with these new flatwater boats, I don't think they're gonna and I don't intend them to replace your traditional classic boundary waters routes or your or the routes you've got in the Canadian lakes, where you've got beautiful well built portages and and routes and campsites and stuff like that. Take your canoe. That's what I would take. I own kayaks, I own rafts. I love all the different paddling types. Yeah. But the I think the Boundary Waters has 27 primitive management areas. And these are like the remote spots that are ⁓ there's you don't have to get a necessarily have to get a permit because it's so hard to get back in there that no very so few people go that they're less concerned about it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: The reason nobody goes there is because hauling a canoe through those zones effort. Like ⁓ max effort. There's no trail. You're bushwhacking through, you know, who knows what for long the portages are longer. You might have two or three mile portage with no trail. Well, that's I I could not think of something more miserable than trying to portage a sixty pound, sixteen foot canoe through those things stuck on your head while getting eaten by flies. You can take speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: your pack raft, roll it up, put it in your backpack, and cruise through there. And now our flat water boats are kind of like designed for that kind of thing. So it's not supposed to replace the traditional stuff. It's supposed to be a new craft that can do things that you can't really do or are inconvenient to do with the traditional watercraft. And we've always tried to pick around the edges and kind of be additive rather than a substitute. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's cool. I and I I apologize because us Canadians were a little hardheaded and sarcastic. So ⁓ but no, I I I love the fact that you're like you're coming out and you're not saying, hey, this is a replacement for this. It's saying, hey, now you can do this. Cause I I know when I went from going backpacking to going to ultralight backpacking, for example, there's a t there's again, there's like a whole it's the s same thing. It's I can do ultralight. And do certain things that I can't do when I have my full set of gear, but I'm not gonna be able to carry out a deer with my ultralight gear, right? So you have different ways about it. And I did I guess my thing is before I had looked into pack rafting and stuff like that, I had my hard shell kayak ⁓ that I mentioned earlier before we got on. And that thing was great for what it did. And it cause in my mind I was like, I can't go on a river. when I feel like it's gonna get punctured. But then my had a friend who had a pack raft eventually on the river that I was on. And I was like, ⁓ like you had said, those people go, are you gonna you're gonna die because they just don't get it? And then once I saw him, I was like, ⁓ he's fine. He's actually maneuvering and having a better time than I am because I didn't have to carry this big thing in on my car. He just pulls it out of his his bag basically and uses it. So are you, do you think that's a that I'm sure that was a hurdle to get over. May is that another hurdle again with the Canadian audience or when you come out with that and try to go into a different industry each time or speaker-1: Yeah, it's always a hurdle and you kind of have to demonstrate where the ⁓ the real like niche of use is. 'Cause a lot of people haven't really been thinking about it through from that perspective. If you live in Duluth, Minnesota, and you spent your whole life going to the boundary waters, you have a way of looking at the boundary waters and you're just like, This is how we do this. And so when I say, Hey, this packcraft is great for the boundary waters, you think, Well, that doesn't make sense to me. And you have to shift your thinking of like ⁓ I can approach this from a different perspective. Or you also have to shift your thinking and think like just if I want to go do the boundary waters from southwest Colorado, well, I don't have a canoe in in Minnesota, and I'm certainly not taking a too and putting it on my car and driving for 35 hours to get up there. And I can't check one on the airplane. So now I'm stuck with I've got to deal with a rental. And that means I gotta reserve it. Who knows what condition it's in? I've got to meet them. I've got to do the whole thing. I I don't nothing wrong with rentals. Rental companies are great and all that thing, but for me it's not how I like to do things. And not much different than the guy in Duluth who's like, I wanna go skiing in Colorado. It's like, okay, wha how many pairs of skis do you own? Are you gonna go and go to Thale and buy a rental and do all that other stuff? Yeah. And if you want to go backcountry skiing in Colorado, it's even harder to find rentals. So, you know, but the pack draft is like, hey, I can take our new Zether boat or our Chinook, throw it in the bag, fly to Duluth, brand car, go up and do my trick. And then I might actually even be doing a traditional boundary lodger's trick. ⁓ just because of the travel element that we're pack drafting made that more accessible to me, even though I recognize the canoe is the best craft in that situation. ⁓ the canoe is not convenient for me because I don't live there. Same thing goes, I love paddling whitewater. South America's one of has incredible whitewater. I've only been down there once and I actually went down and did a guided ⁓ trip in Ecuador where they rented a we had whitewater kayaks demo and that was great. But if I were to go back, I don't know where to get a kayak. I s and in renting a car, how I'm gonna put the kayak on the roof. Well we have a really nice whitewater boat that can handle ⁓ you know, class four pretty reasonably. Well, I can just check that in my bag and go down and get a bunch of rivers done and have a great time. And is it the best craft for that river? No, a whitewater kayak is, but getting a whitewater kayak to Chile is hard. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's good. I love how you're finding answers to I'm the exact same way. I just want to take everything and go. Cause the minute you gotta start renting stuff, even even gosh, even going to national parks and then having to rent a bear canister because you can't take yours. And next thing you have to deal with returning it versus going there and getting it. It's just that little extra hassle that can cause you a full day's worth of extra travel. when you gotta get a rental 'cause then you gotta go on certain times and and everything else and it cuts that out completely. speaker-1: And then the rental service is open from nine to five. Yeah. And your flight arrives at eight PM. And we're like, okay, we have to wait till nine o'clock the next morning to kick up the rental. And then we actually our flight out is at five AM. Yep. The and so we're like, we have to actually be done with the trip and back to drop the rental off before it's, you know, it's inconvenient. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's good. ⁓ I wanted to just go back a little bit to when you were talking about the machines you had to purchase and stuff like that. ⁓ I I think it's it sounded really good. Like it sounds like you have a really good mindset on like you're taking your time. I know that a lot of companies and a lot of people will ⁓ try to do that ⁓ instant growth. And I know some industries and some things you create, sometimes you have to take a big step to create your product, but I think a lot of The products and services that we we use can grow slowly. And I think slow growth can a lot like oftentimes be a lot better than that instant growth where you're just exploding and now you've just got a lot more problems because you don't know how to deal with them. Do you think it's it's ⁓ it was beneficial for you guys to grow slower versus just getting hundreds them made by someone else still like even now and then growing faster? speaker-1: Absolutely. I I feel like we were fortunate. Now we're a small industry or small business and the paddle sports industry itself is small. It's not a good way. Patty Sports is not a good way to make your fortune. ⁓ it's a it's a good way to pursue your passion, not a good way to make the fortune. ⁓ but we were fortunate. I I think we were really fortunate to be able to grow without a lot of competition and and and grow slowly. And it really ⁓ it benefited us. There are industries where that's just you don't have that. choice and I've got a funny story about this. It's didn't happen to me. It happened to my mom. She went to outdoor retailer and I can't remember whether it was 2004, 2005, 2006. Somewhere somewhere in that range, she went to outdoor retail. And we don't traditionally go to outdoor retailer. ⁓ but from the early years she went and she went as a vendor, not as a buyer. And so she had a booth and she, you know, stuck in the way back corner of one of the tents or what have you with tiny booth. And right next to her are two surfers. with a little camera that's ha was on their wrist so they could take pictures while they were surfing. They were GoPro. And it was and they had so she's hanging out with the founders of GoPro when they're just two surfer guys like that aren't business people. Now and GoPro, you know, went through the roof. They didn't have a choice. 'Cause if you're in consumer electronics and cameras, you have Sony, Samsung, Apple. I mean, Google, you have the biggest companies in the world who have so much more market power than you can possibly imagine. If you don't accelerate your growth into the billions in inside of a couple of years, you you will your idea will get stolen, trampled, and you will lose everything. And so I yeah I if you're in that camp, ⁓ there are times where it's like, yeah, you gotta go find out the big private equity and deal with all of that world. Yeah. And accelerated growth and marketing and all this other stuff where the goal is, you know, create market share and create sales long before creating profit. But that's not the only business model out there that works. And there, you know, there's a joke out there that, you know, the old fashioned business model is make stuff and then sell it for more than it cost you to make it is a surprisingly simple way to earn a living. And you know, we kind of approach it from that perspective is, you know, we're we've been fortunate to grow at the pace we've grown and we've let the market really grow with us rather than trying to push for growth. speaker-0: Yeah. I think that sounds great that you are it's almost like you're you don't want to outpace the market because you know your market and you know, hey, if we grew too fast, there's not even that market yet to really handle what you could potentially push if you were to just go in even more so with like a bunch of debt and stuff like that. So Yeah. speaker-1: backlash effect of of a mistake there means you lose your business. Yeah and ⁓ you know we really saw that with the COVID in the bike industry where there's huge boom in demand combined with a huge bottleneck in the manufacturers because there are only a few manufacturers for bikes over in Taiwan. So to spool all that up all the brands ended up committing and so they were ⁓ essentially a ⁓ agreeing to volume purchases way out in advance trying to get inventory so they had it to sell when it was ⁓ really the demand was high early in COVID and then when the demand fell in twenty twenty three, they're still dealing with that outfall of having way too much inventory and and the cost of carrying inventory. And then, you know, when you start putting I I remember Mountain I never saw a mountain bike from a premium brand on sale before twenty twenty. Yeah. And now they've had so many twenty, thirty, forty percent off sales that it's hard for them to sell them at retail because everybody's just sitting here saying, Well, in six months that bike will be thirty percent off. So why would I pay a full price for it? Yeah. So you can just I've seen a lot of closers and rebuys and bankruptcies in the bike industry over the last few years. So you can get if you get ahead of yourself, you get in real trouble. speaker-0: Yeah. That's that's very that's interesting. I never even I didn't even see I hear about that. That's crazy. I I I don't wanna be in the bike industry then. There speaker-1: I I can't remember what it was because but there's some really good podcasts, long ones, like five or six episode podcasts on what happened to the bike industry in over the last five years. speaker-0: Wow, that's crazy. And I actually bought one of those discounted bikes. Well, who wouldn't? ⁓ Okay, so I guess moving into the next portion of it, you kind of let me know a little bit about ⁓ some things that were that that happened. But do you have an ⁓ crap moment as you were building your brand ⁓ that you would say, ⁓ man, like if if I could do this again, I wouldn't do this or I would do this differently? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's a that's a that's a good question. ⁓ you know, we've nothing where we've nothing where I felt like we've made a catastrophic mistake. And I think we've been lucky as far as that goes. but second guessing yourself is the nature of business. You're always second guessing yourself. And you it's business is hard. You know, we've had twenty years of steady growth with very few years where we pull back. And then this year there's no water in the West and we're experiencing the most significant, you know, business downturn that we've had in twenty five years. And, you know, we go from like every year, no sales are gonna be great in April and May to this year. I'm like, Wow, we might actually be losing money and and thank goodness I've saved all this cash over the last ten years and because we're gonna have to spend it this year. And ⁓ you know, so I I think it's really hard as a business owner to like not get caught up in the daily of just like, where's the money going? Can or are we gonna make it to next week and next month? And we're a really healthy business and I and I feel like I know so many small businesses that they're just like employees, you know, sometimes they're living paycheck to paycheck too. And it's just like, Are we gonna make payroll this month? And so ⁓ I have a lot of respect for the fortitude of small business owners to like you know, deal with the stress of that. speaker-0: Yeah. When ⁓ I think it's great to hear that like you have that mindset of, hey, I think when people see a business grow, they go, ⁓ look at all the profits that they're taking. Can't they make their price lower? But you have to have that forethought of, hey, okay, as I grow, I need to have this because you never know when the market's gonna turn a little bit and you have to dip into those pots that maybe you didn't you you have and when you dip in you feel bad, but you're like, No, but that's why it's there. Right. Knowing that okay, it's going to come back and and you have that versus some people who live that and sometimes you just can't help living that day to day paycheck kind of a thing, but you also have to look and go, Okay, I can't have maybe I can't have fifty SKUs. Maybe I should only have twenty and that way I can have a little more money saved and I can add in slowly instead of having so much stuff. You know what I mean? speaker-1: One of I think the There's actually, I think Jeff Bezos comment basically that no matter how big the business is, mm there there's no business that's that's infinite. All businesses will die. You know, ⁓ I think Hudson Hudson Bay Company died. ⁓ I think it was the oldest operating business in the world. It was like four hundred and something years old as continuous corporation and it's gone. Yeah. You know, and at one point it owned something like forty percent of the land mass of Canada. It's crazy. ⁓ Don't quote me on that, but I know it is like you know, it was a huge company in the seventeen hundreds and you know, and and it's it's spent its last days as a you know, department store somewhere in Ottawa or something like that. speaker-0: Yeah, I remember that department store. speaker-1: Yeah. So what's really interesting is when you get bigger, yeah, the money gets more, but the losses also accelerate. So yeah, back ten years ago when we had ten employees, you know, payroll might be twenty-five thousand dollars every two weeks. Yeah. So if I've got two hundred thousand in the bank, I have eight payrolls. Great. Well, now I have forty six employees and payrolls a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. So now, you know, a million dollars in the bank, which looks like a big number, that's like three that's like just a few months of payroll. And and so that's where the whole thing goes. No matter how big you are, it when cash flow turns negative, it it turns exponentially negative. Yeah. And so you can lose a billion dollar business just as fast as you can. lose a million dollar business is just as fast as you can lose a ten thousand dollar business because you know the the it's all relative. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's good. That's even alluding back to GoPro, right? They blew up and then now they're like like where's GoPro? Where's GoPro, right? Everybody's kinda taking over. speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. And and they, you know, they went public, their stock price went way up, then it cratered. ⁓ I don't think they went through a bankruptcy, but they but they did go through massive restructuring. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ okay. So I wanted to go a little bit into you yourself, maybe, you know, how do you stay connected with the outdoor space? 'Cause a lot of people they get into the outdoor space and then now they get disconnected from it because you're one, you're working so hard or you might get sick of it. So how do you as a business owner stay connected maybe to your brand or even just the outdoors itself? speaker-1: That's a really good question. and I've got a little bit of a unique story. I I was super fortunate I grew up in an outdoor household and I've been a dabbler in everything. So I was never like you ⁓ singularly passionate about one sport. I grew up fishing, fly fishing, hunting, backcountry skiing, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, dog mushing, like canoe trips. speaker-0: So speaker-1: RAF trips, everything, hiking, what you name it. So I've had a lot of different like sports and passions that I've pursued over the years. And it's funny, I'll pick up one and be like from two thousand and eight to two thousand fifteen, all I did is mountain bike. ⁓ if if I had a weekend, I only went mountain biking. And the last five years I hardly mountain bike at all. And then from two thousand fifteen to two thousand twenty, all I did was whitewater paddle. If had a minute, I went whitewater paddling. So I kinda like balance around and a lot of those things. But for me personally I ⁓ the last six years have been ⁓ pretty ⁓ a roller coaster. So ⁓ we have my wife and I have one son. ⁓ he's a sweetheart, but he is autistic. And we had him two weeks before COVID shut down. Wow. So it's like, you know, we went to the hospital, she had the baby, everything was great. We went home, and then the world shut down. And then I was like, A hundred percent on the business because the first two months of COVID, everything was shut down. It was like, how are we paying employees? How are we keeping this business afloat? And then the faucet turned on and it was suddenly like I was hiring a new employee every week, trying to keep up with business and demand and stuff. So I wasn't home and I didn't go hardly paddling at all during that time or doing any kind of stuff. And then right about the time as things kind of like started to smooth out from there. Well, that's when our son got diagnosed and, you know, lot behavioral issues came out and so we were like now swimming with, you know, having a a child with a disability and that's a whole separate ⁓ yeah commitment and just kind of takes your brain and your focus elsewhere and it's really taking the black's focus out outside of there. And then on top of all that, I got COVID for the first time in twenty twenty three and then got long covet, which really sucked. Yeah. ⁓ And so I spent all of twenty twenty four with no energy. I could barely, you know, like a a a a mile walk was like, Wow, that's a lot of effort for the day. And I and I build my way around it and and got good treatment and and now I'm doing a lot better. So In all honesty, the last five years have been tough, but I it's almost, you know, like life in ⁓ life in your late forties. You're just gonna like deep. But ⁓ I've come out of it pretty good. I feel pretty healthy now. ⁓ we've got a good routine with our son. We're getting care. The school's really good to him, and it's like I'm like starting to build back up. I just bought a speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: a a Zwift bike trainer and I'm like, I'm going to start getting back into shape. And I went over on a trip to Europe and ⁓ for a trade show, but we also went to a pal a pack rafting festival there. And I was able to paddle and and so kind of just build the stuff back up. Sometimes you have your mirrors. That's yeah. I d I think that's anybody's life and and certainly, you know, if you've made it to fifty and you haven't had a really tough sequence, you know. you're you're lucky. But I think a lot of us have kind of had those kind of down times and you gonna gotta fight through ⁓ and get back up. ⁓ but I try to get out. I try to get trips in. I try to fit trips with friends in and and prioritize and kind of ⁓ make those a thing that is like sacred. Like I'm not skipping. I don't care if the business feels like it's blowing up, I'm still gonna be like, I'm going on this trip. Yeah. We'll deal with it when I get home. speaker-0: Yeah. Does your son like the outdoors at all or or anything like that? speaker-1: We are so fortunate and it's actually pretty common with kids on the autism spectrum is the outdoor outdoors are ⁓ helpful to them, you know, because social situations and like a lot of noise and stuff is is is is hard. ⁓ whereas nature is amazing to him. Yeah. So he's not athletic and coordinated, so he doesn't want to he still won't ride a bike, won't ride a strider bike, won't do things like that, doesn't wanna pick up a paddle and do that stuff. But he's endlessly fascinated with animals and bugs and things like that. So yeah, you stick him in a pack raft and we go floating down the river and he's like, There's a heron, there's a tricolored heron, there's a blackbird, that's a red-winged black bird, and and he's excited in the That's correct. We took him up to the Arctic last year and did a trip off the Noatak River and he did amazing and spent eight hours a day in a boat with me and was wild. So ⁓ I feel really lucky that we can get that. speaker-0: Yeah. That's the best. That father and son son bond of just like seeing your kids so happy and stuff like that. I mean, that's that's awesome. ⁓ my goodness. ⁓ okay, so I'm gonna ask you ⁓ just one more question, I guess, ⁓ in that genre of ⁓ is w if there's anything that you know, staying connected, not connected, was there anything in the outdoor space that as you started the business or maybe you're still seeing that ⁓ you didn't know someone told you was gonna be hard, but you just kinda brushed it off and then you were like, ⁓ I should have listened to them in the first place. speaker-1: Not in the outdoor space, but certainly in running a company not in our sport space specifically, but certainly in in running a company. ⁓ You know, ⁓ I so before I came back to Alpaca, I went to law school and was an attorney for ten years. I actually did bankruptcy law. I thought that would it it turned out to help me a lot in running a business. And you would think, you know, as a lawyer like I'm like hard nose and you know, an OBS and like, you know, but I'm a softy. Like I love my employees, I care about them, I want them to succeed and when they don't act well, I am have a hard time disciplining. had a terrible time firing them. And I remember early on when I was like came back to run the business. Yeah. You know, went to a few different business things. And, you know, to a person, every single business owner, when you go to these conferences and they say, what do you wish you knew at the beginning that you didn't? And they're everybody's like, fire faster. And they're not being negative, but they're just like when you have an employee that is causing real problems and you kind of like feel bad and you have like an emotional connection to them and you don't. Yeah. And and it's not working. They're just like you have to say, you know, it's not the end of the world. Like they'll go find another job that fits them and you've yeah. But I still struggle with that. And I think a lot of a lot of people do. speaker-0: Do think it comes down to not want knowing that that person might not be able to pay their bills kind of thing? Or is just a co I I've done that before. It's hard for me to tell someone that that I don't need them as an assistant for my photography and stuff like that anymore. And my wife's like, we just can't we just can't have them anymore. And I'm like, ⁓ but I love them as a person. It's like, yeah, but yeah, they just are either they're they can be toxic to the work environment or Maybe they just don't have the skills and sometimes you try to train up a person, right? And then they just can't grasp that skill no matter what. And you're like, I guess this isn't good for you. So maybe even you're just repositioning them somewhere in the company saying, Hey, you can't do this. Maybe you maybe you can, you know, do something else. speaker-1: Yeah, the the where I've had to learn the difference is there's a difference between somebody that's having a hard time. And I know people they're just like, Yep, sorry, I don't you know, your personal problems are not my problems. And if you're late for work or not producing, you're out of here. And I'm not like that. Like I have a lot of sympathy for people and their life experiences. But it's the different thing when they're not fitting in with the company. And so like that you're clashing heads with them and not agreeing on the direction of things. And and so it has nothing to do with their talent or what's going on at home. It has everything to do with like you just don't fit here. And you know, that's the one where you have to kind of like be like, when somebody doesn't fit, you know, you have to be nice about it. But it's like this isn't a fit. And going find a place because it's amazing how when one of those people leaves Ever like it's like the whole mood in the factory lightens because everybody was dealing with the with the with the challenges. And as soon as they're gone, everybody's like, ⁓ I feel so much better. And it wasn't because they were a bad person. In some cases even a lot of people stay friends with them outside of it. It's just that they didn't work with the business and the way it operated. speaker-0: Interesting. No, that's good. That's really good advice. speaker-1: Yeah. Let me add, you know, the other interesting thing it's okay, we know. ⁓ the other thing that I see in the outdoor industry though is there's been a lot of change. You know, you bring that kind of stuff up and My parents were early in the outdoor industry and you know, in the fifties and sixties, ⁓ th that's the the the beginning of the whole outdoor industry. So they were close personal friends Let me see that. Okay. Ouch. And the backing story about that back in the day, you know, they were close personal friends with the Chenards who started Patagonia and Peter Metcalf who eventually took over Black Diamond and Royal Robbins and all these like famous figures and just because the industry was so small. And over the I have noticed over the last ten years that a lot of the brands that are really big names in the outdoor industry, the The founders are moving on. Yeah. And, you know, ⁓ the Schenards are still kind of active in Patagonia, but it's largely moved on. And ⁓ you know, Kokatat just sold, I think, a year ⁓ it sold early on the pandemic from the founders, but now it's owned by Mustang. And I keep seeing that over and over again. And so we're kind of g getting into second generation in a lot of the signature brands in the outdoor industry. And I'm curious of where that's gonna go. speaker-0: Yeah. Do you think that that can potentially I guess it could potentially be good because it could be bring a refresh to some things, but then also it could pr possibly lose the the original vision and and outlook on it? speaker-1: ⁓ it depends on how it's done. So the you could definitely get a refresh because young people have great ideas and new things. And you in the outdoor industry, I think you have to be passionate about you don't have to be good at everything. You just have to be passionate about what you're doing. And all of the people that found it the kind of like iconic brands of the outdoor industry, they weren't business people. They were people who are passionate about the the the the activity. Yeah. And so that's what drove them. And then the but the problem is is they build a brand that's worth 10, 20, 50, 100 million dollars, a billion dollars. They can't sell it the passionate young employee who's going to have the ideas and the sort of like drive. If if you want to sell your brand for 30 million dollars, there's not many people that have that. So you either sell it to another brand that has the equity to bring into that. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Or you sell it to private equity and I worry and there's you know tons of worry that private equity keeps buying into the outdoor industry, but they have their passion is to make money and that's it. Yeah. And so, you know, every time I see a brand sold to private equity, I'm like, what's this brand gonna be like in yeah of five years? And in a lot of cases, it's not a good picture. speaker-0: Yeah. We we did have a guest on and they ⁓ had sold to private equity and ⁓ with the understanding and the deal that hey, once we're sold, you're still gonna be a part of the company and everything else. And the minute the contract was signed and everything, ⁓ they pushed her to the curb and they just knew that, you know, the legal battles that are in gonna be entailed in that and everything else is just gonna make you go go bankrupt. So there's no way to to fight that. So ⁓ it's it's sad that it's ends up it can be that way, you know, where's where it's like, ⁓ you feel like you're still gonna be a part of your child's life, so to speak. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it's like you get kicked out of your child's life and they take it out of the country, okay? speaker-1: It exactly. And you have to think about that hard when you're deciding whether to sell your company. You know, and I know it's ⁓ I don't blame anybody for doing it because it's a lot of work to build it and and then you're stuck there at the end and you're like, you know, I I got into this because I really love the sport and now I'm looking at spreadsheets and dealing with staff and dealing with paying things and other things, and I'm fifty some years old and I can sell it to have enough money to live on for the rest of my life and I can go do the things I really want to do. So I don't blame anybody for doing it. But it's definitely I do think there's a mental side of like, if you're selling it, like I tell you what, I've thought about this. Like I'm like, if I we get to the point where I do have to sell alpaca or decide to sell it, it's gonna be a hard decision between like, do I try to cling on to it and have a say in it where I'm like, nope, we're cutting it off and I'm just going to like put on the blinders and say it's now somebody else's child and it's okay whatever happens to it. speaker-0: Yeah. I think for when most people when you start to lose the passion for it, you kinda will look at it and go, Am I losing the passion and I need to get out of this? Or you know, what are what are your reasons? I think what you had said is like it's almost like you have to look at it and reflect on it and see if it's a good decision. I mean it you know, a lot of people in the end are you're there to make money, but then also, you know, you you build a a brand and people love that brand and everything else. And so and it sounds like like you said you're a softy and so you care about people so much. And so it's like, okay, I I could sell this or whatever. But then you also look at it and go, okay, well then these employees, are these employees still going to have their jobs? It would almost be that that saying of, hey, listen, I'm willing to put the blinders on and not be a part of this anymore. Just, you know, contractually you still need to keep these people for at least a, you know, a year or something like that. So that way, you know, Instead of taking it maybe they take it out of country if you all sudden were to sell for speaker-1: Totally. I think about that a lot in terms of like what is my long term strategy. Yeah. No, I think about that ⁓ constantly when I'm kinda like 'cause I'm forty eight and so I'm like in theory I could do this for twenty more years. Or, you know, I could be like, Hey, it's ten years from now I'm ready I'm ready to do something different. speaker-0: Yeah. That's good. Well, I guess you answered my last question, which was basically the, you know, ad advice for somebody who's in the outdoor space. I mean, I think the the last ten minutes that we talked was basically a lot of advice if you're going to look for to do a company is look at why you're doing it and when you go out, if you're doing for the right reasons. speaker-1: I think that you I'll go back to this one. Like the key to success in the outdoor space is being singularly passionate and good at one thing. So mom Wayland, I'll be done in one minute, okay. He's like, I want to play. He's been sick now, home homesick for two days, so now he's all all spooled up. Anyway, so my mom, she is not a good business person. She is not ⁓ great at marketing or sales or anything like that. She is singularly passionate about design and creativity, and so. All of the evolution of alpaca's designs are from her and she was successful because she pushed them. And I speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: have been much more passionate about manufacturing. And so I've focused on that, but I'm still passionate about the product. But I'm I'm not a go out and bang on doors and market and sell kind of person. I'm much more like continue to focus on the product side of things. So I think if you've got a passion somewhere and you can focus on that and pursue that, then I think you can be successful. But if you're only kind of trying to get to the bottom line of money and, you know, coming at it from a business school background, you can struggle. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: successful cottage companies and they're all like passionate for the the product and the craft afterwards. And and then ⁓ I mean and that goes all the way back to the beginning. Yeah, you can come and snuggle me. speaker-0: Anybody? speaker-1: And I mean, if you think about even the biggest brands that are out there, we'll go back to him. Yvonne Chenard was a climber who built Patagonia and black and you know what split off to be black diamond equipment because he was making stuff to go climbing in Yosemite. And ⁓ Dub Tompkins at North Face does the same thing. And I I don't know them personally. I'm sure the guys at Enlighten Equipment now who make such incredible stuff for sleeping bags and kind of like change the sleeping bag market. They're not in it because they're business guys. They're in it because they're passionate about sleeping bags. Yeah. And Mike Pete Saint Pierre that started Hiker Light Mountain Gear is he's I mean, he's a smart business guy, but he's neurotically passionate about ultralight backpacking. And so that's what drives him. And I'm sure the guys at ZPAX and I know that Durston at Durston 10, they're all like this. Yeah. And so if you have the passion for the product and the and the sport you're doing, that's what's going to carry you through the bad days. speaker-0: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for all the insight and everything. ⁓ okay, I'm gonna go into a quick lightning round. I'm gonna let you get back to your son so he can go play with you. I my as soon as my son comes home, he just wants to like cuddle for about five minutes and then next thing you know, he wants to go play basketball. So ⁓ okay, so before before I get into that lightning round, if people are looking for alpaca rafts, where can we find you guys ⁓ online and on socials? speaker-1: Alpaca Rap dot com for ⁓ our website online. That's gonna be the most comprehensive source of information. We're on Instagram, a little bit on Facebook. We don't do as much on socials, but there's some good stuff there. If you're into hunting, we have an alpaca raft hunt channel on Instagram. ⁓ so we keep that kind of ⁓ split up as well. And then we've got ⁓ pretty good dealers, mostly focused in the West, ⁓ but we ⁓ around the world. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay, cool. I was actually in North Carolina and I passed by a place and I saw one of your rafts ⁓ outside ⁓ blown up on display on the side of the on the out front of the building. Yeah we speaker-1: Just got into Nanta Halo outdoor center this year, so ⁓ that's yeah. speaker-0: That's cool. Okay, so ⁓ without further ado, I'll get into the really just like one, two word, maybe a sentence answers. ⁓ but first question I'd love to ask everybody is your favorite national park? speaker-1: Nolly. speaker-0: Denali. Sweet. speaker-1: Grew up 'cause I grew up there. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. It's ⁓ yeah, Denali. speaker-0: That I was gonna go there a few years ago and then it ended up being like June, July when we were gonna go. And my best friend who she's from North Pole, Alaska, ⁓ his his wife's from North Pole, Alaska. She was like, Don't go there in June or J June, July, 'cause you'll be getting eaten by giant mosquitoes. And so we we changed our plans. But ⁓ all right, next question is solo hike or crew mission? speaker-1: Crew for sure. I haven't done much solo stuff. I'm I'm much more of a small crew kind of person. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ worst trail snack you've ever tried. speaker-1: ⁓ man. We ⁓ we used to make this terrible thing on our trips that we called the fried egg. And it was a pilot bread, which is basically a shelf stable for thirty years piece of like hard tack. Yeah. And then we put peanut butter on it and then and then we ⁓ scoop open the ⁓ peanut butter and then we put squeezable margarine on top of that and salami on top of that. It was awful, but it had a lot of calories. speaker-0: the that there's no point of that part of that that sounds appetizing at all. Okay, so what's the best trail snack you've ever tried? Or the your go-to trail snack? speaker-1: ⁓ man, best trail snack that I'm I'm a huge fan of dried peaches. I'm at home. I love dried peaches. speaker-0: I'm this close to getting a food dehydrator, so Yeah. speaker-1: There's I mean, I think there's something special about a peach. You only get them for a few months a year. Yeah. The flavor's absolutely incredible. And you dry them and they stay amazing. speaker-0: Yeah. Next question is what's one outdoor skill you still kind of suck at? speaker-1: Running. I don't run anywhere. speaker-0: ⁓ all right. What is the biggest splurge you've ever made for your business? speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, we spent we spent two hundred thousand dollars on an automated cutting machine four months before COVID. I spent over thirty percent of of the business's cash. And then COVID hit and I was like, We are going under. And then and then the the the boom hit. And if we didn't have that cutting machine, we would have not survived. So it was like the most fortuitous, but like I mean, literally like it showed up. And then COVID hit. And I was like, We get our money back. I need that money. speaker-0: all right. Second last question is ⁓ tent hammock or cowboy camping? speaker-1: ⁓ My preference is cowboy, but if I must, I'll sleep in a tent. But I love to sleep just sleeping bag on and pad on the ground. speaker-0: ⁓ that's awesome. ⁓ and then I guess what's one word that best ⁓ you would use to best describe the outdoor industry right now? That could go very deep, but we'll just go very quick with it. So speaker-1: it's at the tip of my tongue and I can't come up with it. ⁓ I would say it's We just saw some deer. ⁓ who It's in a state of flux. It's like un uncer uncertain is the best word. speaker-0: Uncertain. Okay, cool. All right, awesome. Well, Thor, thank you so much for being on. I mean, it was great talking about alpaca rafts and just everything that you guys have in store and the crazy the stories you told were incredible, by the way. So ⁓ everybody, thank you so much for listening. ⁓ we look forward to the next episode. And Thor, I look forward to seeing you on a river somewhere sooner than later. Thanks for being on. speaker-1: Absolutely. It was it was it was super fun. I actually got to tell a bunch of stuff that I haven't told before. Sorry for the chaos in the background. speaker-0: ⁓ no totally fine. speaker-1: ⁓ that's my life right now, so people get to see it. speaker-0: Awesome. Well thank you. Talk you soon.