Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Durston Gear Creator Dan Durston | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 22

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Durston Gear Creator Dan Durston | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 22 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: Welcome back to Beyond the Trailhead. We got an extra special guest, probably because he's Canadian and I was born and in Canada. But his name is Dan Dersden with Dersden Gear. Dan, how are you? speaker-1: Hey, thanks for having me. Doing good. speaker-0: No, thanks for being on. Before we started chatting and stuff like that, before we got on here, you were drinking a little Timmy's and we were talking about Tim Horton's role for Wren to win and still going strong in Canada. speaker-1: Yep, double winner already. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, I just wanted to say thank you for being on and taking the time. I know you're a busy man and running that ⁓ the cult of Dan church over there. speaker-1: We have some amazing fans. ⁓ speaker-0: But you make some great gear and I see it on the trail all the time. think whenever I see videos, see like 50 % of the tents are X-Mids or X-Domes and stuff like that. So it's great to kind of just hear a little bit about your story. like, some people have heard your story. I've heard your story, but I love to talk with companies and hear how you came up with the idea, how long you've been around and then what were some challenges going up. let's just kind of run right into it. Like how you became, how you came up with Durst & Gear and and everything else that go for it. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. One of the things about us that has been pretty unique compared to most companies is that we genuinely, truly never meant to start a business. There was, was never a moment where we were like, we're going to be a business. Yeah. The actual genesis of it was that I was, I'm just a passionate guy. Like whatever I get into, I'm just going to nerd right out to that leading edge fringe and go down every rabbit hole. And that's what I was doing in ultra light gear starting starting around 2008. And so there was a good decade from about 2008 to 2018 where I was just a super passionate guy in the community. I'm on the forums like Backpacking Light. I've got thousands of posts. And it was all just centered around my passion for the gear and me making stuff for myself. I was learning about everything, loving buying awesome new gear and making gear. I made some actually just I actually just realized this week, I made a Dyneema freestanding tent in 2010, which obviously I knew I made that, but I didn't realize until a few days ago that that was actually the world's first freestanding, like Dyneema tent that was freestanding. Because we have one of those coming out next month, like for real in the company. And some people are like, I was like, I wonder. Nobody's actually said this, but I kind of imagine people would be like, ⁓ they're selling out because it's like freestanding, which I don't know. But I was like, that's actually like the first thing I ever did. But anyway, so I was just passionate in the community, making my own gear. I made Daini Moraine gear. I made a tent for my dog. I made backpacks, just whatever it was. I just loved making it and I was doing it just purely like self-taught on sewing. Originally, my sewing machine was this from this craft store. It was this $40 sewing machine and I still didn't want to buy it because it was like $40 and I was embarrassed to keep them. We got this coupon for like one half price item at the store. And so I used it on the sewing machine, brought it down to 20 bucks. It had no adjustments on like stitch length or tension. was just like, you're just sewing. And I used that and that was actually the machine I used to make the first standing free standing tent. So it was my journey comes from the community always just like with an eye for speaker-0: You're selling. speaker-1: making cool gear ⁓ for myself. And then the actual genesis of our company is just kind of that combined with some fluke chance where I hiked the PCT in 2014. I had no phone, no headphones, no music, like just straight, just walking. So you're like, we're crossing this forest for the next five hours. Like, you're just in your own head for hours straight. And I'm good with that. And my head will often go to gear and I sort of have these gear projects. I was working on a back, sort of a mental backpack and a tent. Sticking it through on the PCT. The main thing I was trying to solve at that time was I was using two different tracking pole tents for something I really thought was interesting. And they really can be divided into two categories. I divide them million ways, but I really like pyramids because they were simple. It's a rectangle. You stake it out. And then the pole, there's no measuring, there's no weird angle, you just extend it. was like, that's the experience of setting that up is awesome. But then I was also like, yeah, but the headroom kind of sucks because all the walls slope in so much. There's only one high spot. You can't sit there. And then I have this second pole. I'm like, why? Like, there's got to be something that I could do with this second pole that otherwise is just sitting in the dirt. And so, and then the alternative to that was all these tents that do use two poles, but they're all more complicated with six, seven, eight sides and more stakes and. And I was left feeling like I sure would love to do something in between where we keep preserve that simplicity, but we add in more space somehow. We're kind of solving that space limitation impairment. So I was thinking about that on the PCT and I didn't really have any great solutions. I thought about at the time I didn't have any great solutions. And this is sort of a, I think a trap that a lot of entrepreneurs can get caught in. You don't have great solutions because you're the solution space that you're open to is too broad. I was open to anything that could solve it. like struts and hoops and guy lines and I don't know, you could magnetically levitate the things I would have probably thought it through. And so I was open to all those things and I kind of had all these ideas where was like, yeah, it's sort of, it's different. Maybe some things are better, some things are worse. Is it really an improvement? don't know. That was 2014 on the PCT, finished the whole 4,000 kilometer, 2,600 mile hike. And then... Went back to university. My background is actually a biologist. I did a few degrees in that. So was sort of half ski bumming, half going back to school, half making my own gear. And then 2017, we did another big hike, my wife and I, did a first yo-yo of the Great Divide Trail in the Canadian Rockies. It's about 1500 miles, 2300 kilometers. And once I got back on the trail in 2017, I dusted off these mental projects. And at that time I was able to focus the kind of problem solving more because I was like, I finally had clarity on like, no, like I have two poles. I've got to use the second pole. I'm not going to bring in like a strut or hoop or a guideline when I have this thing right here that needs to go in there. And really once I focus the kind of solution space down to like, it's just one more pole. Where's it going to go? That's when I was able to pretty quickly be like, well, actually the only way to put two poles in a rectangle and sleep in there. I mean, there's some other ways, but really. The pole can't be near the edge because it's going to be a flat wall with a guy line. It can't be right at the center because that's what the other pole is and they're just redundant. So they have to be sort of medium apart. And if they're medium apart and I got to be in there, then they really, they got to run at one diagonal. I got to sleep with the other. Yeah. So really once I was like, I'm doing two poles, it was probably like an hour. And I was like, oh, like that's, that's what you should do. I was like, that would work. So, so that was really the genesis of our kind of our speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: initial core product, which came to be known as the XMID. But at the time I thought of that, it was just, hey, I want to make one for myself. I had no business aspirations. I wasn't even sure if I was going to make one for myself because like a full tent is hard. It's like weeks of work and then you finish the whole thing and then something you measured wrong and it pitches bad and you have do it again. like, it's exhausting. So I had been through that on a couple of previous tents and tarps. And so I was like, Maybe I'll sew one, I'm intimidated by taking this on because it is such a different shape. And so I finished the hike and then after the trail, like a month after the trail, I was contacted by a US company in California. They were called Bastrop at the time. I had been reviewing, like I had a blog, had like nothing, like 50 followers, 56 followers, like nothing. But they were kind of giving these polls to everybody with a blog to get the word out and they had given me a pair. And so I was like, yeah, I did a review. And after that they were just, said that, if I have any product ideas to let them know, and they suggested maybe a cook pot. And I was like, I don't know, lots of pot, but maybe make a square pot or something weird or I don't know, diamond pot. But I was like, but I do think of this tent idea. And my motivation was just if I could have one without having to spend weeks sewing it, I naively thought it was going to be so much easier to just tell them how to do it and they could make them and then give me one. So. That was the of the in the forest on that 2017 hike was when the idea happened. The actual business was never like, we're going to do this. was just somebody emailed me. was like, well, hey, if you want to make these instead of me, that's great. So they did. They sent them, went to their management team and all right, yeah, we're approved to do this project, which I don't know what that means. I'm just like, cool. Okay, you're going to make one. So like I sketched it out. It was in PowerPoint. Like it's nothing fancy. just thought like, no, this should be about this long, about this wide and all. And then that was kind of the genesis of it was licensing them this design back in late 2017 at time it was. speaker-0: Okay. ⁓ wow. so you, so do you own it then or do they create it or how does your, does that whole structure grow? Did you like get it back from them or what? Tell me the whole process there. speaker-1: Yeah, that was definitely a process. we, there was definitely some pros and cons to how it started. And I'm kind of not in hindsight, like upset about anything because I was never going to do anything. So it was the only door. I'm very glad I didn't have to sink my life savings in all that kind of thing later. But so it was a door and it was a great opportunity because they had a community of about a million people in California that were in there. They had, they were, speaker-0: You speaker-1: kind of a weird brand, won't get too much into them, but they had different communities and different topics, cooking, baking, fashion. One of them was ultra light backpacking. So they had an audience of about a million people and so they could get it out. I licensed the design to them and then they figured out a bunch of stuff that I had no idea about, like supply chains, factories, how you sell things, how you cost things. I'm just there with the idea. so I licensed the idea to them, we went back and forth. got to iterate on the prototypes and made the product. But at the time it was under a contract licensing it. And I didn't even really read the contract that much because it was like, or I'm in no position to negotiate. I got no other, no other things. So we did that, that contract and then a little, it kind of took off. then we did another contract for the two person one, which actually had an end date on the contract. Okay. Which was like better. Cause the first one didn't even have an end date. They could have just stopped making the product and I would stuck there forever. And ended up, it could have just kind of went a few different ways. Like, you if you re-round history, it could have went a few different ways, but they ended up as a business actually getting out of the outdoors a few years later. And so they were looking to just wrap things up. They wanted someone else to take over some of their products. And I'm no lawyer, but they needed some sort of, I couldn't say no to them moving the product to someone else, but I could ask for a few things. so they worked with another company and I was able to say that like, okay, we like, you can transfer the rights from you to these guys, but now there's like a real end date and then everything comes back to me. And also it has to be sold under like the Durstin brand. Cause they were wavering on that, came out as sort of the mass drop slash Dan Durstin, then they've kind of put their name a little bigger and mines down in the subtitle. Which didn't make sense for anyone because yeah, everybody wanted the Dan Durstin to end and then the Dan Durstin's like in the tiny. It wasn't like the strongest branding for them either. speaker-0: Yeah. Dance name. speaker-1: So they did that. We renegotiated the contracts and then that, so this all started 2017, 2018. By about 2022, it had all wrapped up where all the expiry dates had been hit. And that was kind of the moment where it really was a kind of a real business. We're not just, at first you're selling stuff and you're getting a royalty, but it's a few bucks on a tent. I remember I went backpacking in 2018 for a week. They sold like 30 tents or something when I was in the woods for a week and I was like, whoa, I made $100 that week. I was camping. Yeah. is the dream, but it's like not nearly enough money to like ever like fund production or like actually run anything. So really around 2022 was when they were wrapping it up and they also weren't very clear on what they were doing. It was more just on hold. And we did have this other tent. speaker-0: How did that? speaker-1: Really the Dyneema version of that tent was actually on his own contract and they had never actually brought it to market because they sort of, we signed the contract, they had a year to bring it to market and then they paused their business. So the contract they hadn't fulfilled bringing it to market. then the rights came back to me earlier on that. around 2021, I was like, I don't know if I'll ever get these other, like what's going to happen with these other things, but I can do this Dyneema one because their contract expired. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: That's the first real product we're working on in 2021, launched in 2022, did a big, online launch for that. And that was the moment where it really was like, we're actually our own business. not just, until then I was never sure if we could actually reach people with our product because they had the big community, they had the microphone and we're just kind of nobody with, we made our website, but does anybody look at it? So that was 2022, I had to actually remortgage the house, fund production on like, Because it's kind of sucked, but the dining utensils are the most expensive ones to make with the worst margins. So you're like, that was like a remortgage the house and know, scrape every dollar ⁓ and then bring that to market. And then when we did actually see a ton of interest in it, was like, okay, we're people actually want a product. speaker-0: Do you think that, ⁓ I know it's sometimes it's, for me personally, my business, I tell people to kind of take their time, but I know in some industries, there's no way for you to just kind of slowly work your way. You kind of have to kind of go all in, especially if you're doing things like what you do, you've got to get a certain amount of material or else you can't really even get the material and stuff like that. And you think for those who are, you know, thinking of creating an idea that they heard, they thought about on the trail or they've gotten in their minds, you know, would you say that, hey, just go for it or really think about it before you go for it? speaker-1: Yeah, good question. It's, that's a tough one. And that's probably something that keeps a lot of people up at night. I'm fairly risk adverse from a business perspective. And so I definitely like to put off that commitment moment as long as I can. So. But also there are times when you have to. I would try to collect as much information as you can. Your product has to be really good. think one of the things I'm passionate about is we're a very product-led company. I really, really want to make awesome stuff. it's also just, that's what my passion is, but also from a business perspective, it's going to be so much easier to sell something if it's awesome. So don't try to like half-bake a product and then like launch this huge funding. and then try to sell something mediocre because you're just kind of pushing a pill. So I would recommend people do things I recommend for people is being very product focused, getting the product awesome. I recommend what I call and lots of people call building in public because I think for most brands, the risk of another company kind of taking your idea before you can really have it be identified as your idea and have some sort of connection to it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: The risk of someone taking your idea is smaller than the risk that you don't reach anybody. Yeah. The biggest challenge for a brand is just getting established. so, yeah, if you put, if you show your hand a little bit, somebody might take it and run with it. But if you, if you won't show anything and you're not going to open yourself to feedback and to creating excitement and generating a bit of awareness, and then you think you can flip a switch from basically incognito to poof, here we are. You're running on very little data. Yeah. On how many to make and the quality of your product, if there's problems. So many things can go wrong on a product, you know, even if it's just everyone hates the color. You mean you do everything perfect and everyone hates the color. And if you would have like showed people this, they would have told you that like a year ago. I recommend for people to really focus on the product and build in public and then try to also really focus on building a community, which would be things like you can create a Facebook group. Some of that's hard because you need a critical mass to keep these things going. But at the least create an Instagram and create a website and get people focused to your email list. So you can see like I'm posting with this for six months and I've got eight people interested like this. Probably don't want to make a thousand of these. ⁓ Whereas if you're like, there's like 20 people every day like joining this and it seems like it's going somewhere. That's like your ability to get people on an, getting someone on an email list is sort of like a much easier version of making a sale. They're interested and the commitment is so much lower. So if you can get 10,000 people on an email list, you could probably sell 1,000. So that's kind of, or maybe 2,000, but like you could sell some minority of that will actually convert. So that's a good indicator, I think, for people. And then there does come the challenge of scaling where are you gonna, like how are you gonna actually build this product? Are you gonna make it yourself ⁓ at a low scale? And that's so hard. think of some kind of comes into like a business model design, your supply chain design. I don't think of there as being a right answer, but there is you're kind of designing a structure that is going to work for your priorities. Things like, ⁓ cost, like, you, you trying to make like a, cheapest thing or a premium thing? ⁓ also cashflow that sounds like cost, but it's pretty different. Cause if you build overseas, you might have a great unit price, but you might. If you have to put up the money a year ahead, it's hard on cashflow. How much you want to innovate if you're going to just update your product every three years, or if you're going to like us, we update our products constantly, which is one of the challenges because we update probably three or four, every product gets multiple updates every year. So you've got your supply chain design. And if you're trying to go from like a very boutique supply chain, which is basically somebody building in their house to actually building at scale with a partner, there probably is a jumping point because of the minimum order quantities. But I would, yeah, I would recommend people have something proved out. Either they did okay sales on building it themselves, or at least they are getting like decent traction on an email list. I see way too many people that sort of. speaker-0: Yes. Yeah. speaker-1: just shoot for it and I feel bad because I'm like, ⁓ it's like, they're so passionate, but like, they haven't kind of gone through the fire yet. speaker-0: Yeah. No, like you're saying you have to have that awesome product and then you have to, so I've had talks with different companies at different trade shows and stuff where the creator has never camped a day in his life and he's got this product that he's like, like you're saying, he just hides it, hides it, hides it and then it comes out and launches this product that it could be a great product actually, but he's not passionate about it he's never used it. And then... He has engaged it. And so I never thought about even the things like color and stuff like that with what you're creating. Cause I meet so many people on the trail that, you you're sit there and you're talking at the end of the day or at lunch. like you said, your mind just kind of goes into creative mode when you're there, cause you have nothing to do but think. And if you can get your thoughts up there to other people and then they can help refine it without you having to spend any money at first. That's awesome. And then now you gotta go, okay, how much money do I have to put into scaling that right away? Because I know there are some people that they make, for example, tents, you can potentially make one offs and as you grow, you go, okay, at what point do you jump off the deep end and go into full on manufacturing? Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, there's that big commitment. And then there's also the commitment on the size of your product line. We have some other companies where I tend to work on one thing at a time. If we can launch two or three things in a year, that's good for us. There's some other companies that, know, totally legit strategy, you're just kind of going for it. mean, like one that comes to mind, Raid Research, they're crushing it. ⁓ I see their products, I'm like, whoa, they have like a ski jacket and pants and a base layer and a mid layer. And I'm like, like that's like, like, But it looks great, it's probably gonna work, but you're definitely having a higher level of commitment when you're doing more. speaker-0: Yeah, that's cool. kind of going back just a little bit, getting your first version of the product. when you were with, when you signed with that company, even kind of forget the question I was asked, but even that whole thing, would you say to somebody, hey, you'll really watch out when you sign something with somebody, because I'm sure you're kind of lucky in that you were able to kind of get out of certain things. Whereas, you know, I'm a wedding photographer, I have people to sign contracts. for our weddings all the time. And I think it's the funniest when I sign a lawyer, a couple who are both lawyers for my wedding and they sign right away and I go, either I have a really great contract that they can't get anything out of or my contract's really, really bad. And they're like, ⁓ there's plenty of outs in this thing. We'll just sign it. There's no worries. But what would you say to somebody who's got the idea that's ⁓ pitching it to other people but still wants to keep their? Keep their IP. speaker-1: Yeah, good question. think that, I think the negotiating is hard for that person. We get people that email us all the time and they're like, I'm going to have, I have a great idea. I'm going to actually, I'm going to give it to you and you don't even have to pay me. And you're like, you know, and it's like, okay, like maybe, but for our company, like I already have lots of ideas and the problem is not really the idea. It's, it's the sheer amount of work it is to develop and execute on something. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So I think when somebody has an idea, they probably love it. But there's so much work from there to a successful product that if you go to someone and you say, have this idea and I have all these stipulations about how we're going to structure it legally, you're not in a great position of strength to ask for too much. But still, I do think that you should do due diligence, and probably more than I did. I was kind of like, hey, this is the only contract. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: and I just want one for myself. I had no aspirations, so wasn't trying to start a business. at the time, I didn't care. ⁓ Hey, if I got a tent, cool. it would be better. A good example of something I should have understood better was the contract said something about six months. And I was like, ⁓ it's a six-month contract. Cool. But it was actually just they had to make the first prototype in six months. So anyways, I was like, ⁓ yeah, six-month contract. I said, not at all. ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ I see. speaker-1: But you should understand, at the very least, understand what you're signing. Yeah. And then I think you can do some things to protect the future, like end dates. Like you're not really in a position to negotiate like a super high royalty because the company is just going to be like, well, I'm to do something else. So you're not really in a position to negotiate that kind of short term structure. I want more money. I want like all the power immediately. But you probably are in a better position to negotiate some of the longer term health, end date and that sort of thing. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. Cool. I just, cause I was just spitting my idea out to somebody and I was like, kind of the same thing. like, I don't like, I had the idea for the longest time and I'm like, Oh, I'm not actually going to make that product. So, but someone will make it. here have it as a freebie. then later on, I might be kicking myself going, maybe I should have not said anything, but speaker-1: Yeah, it's tough because like the future plays out and some things flop and some things. speaker-0: Yeah. So was there a moment when you realized like, ⁓ wow, this is working. speaker-1: Yeah, we had we had a few moments Sort of like that the first moment I said already mentioned which was when I went They had launched it and it was on a one-month pre-sale Yeah, and I knew I was making like six bucks a tent or something like that I don't remember exactly but something small single-digit dollars and then I went camping for the week and it was came out of the woods and we had sold I don't think I think I said 30 I don't think it was 30 might have been 20 but I made like a hundred bucks and it was like whoa This is like something And in the context of what my expectations were, which was like getting a tent, was like a hundred bucks in a week. this is amazing. So that was kind of a cool moment of working within the mindset of it just being a fun little hobby side project. then the second kind of moment where it was actually kind of the next step was right around 2020. And it was COVID and COVID probably had a little drama and did help, but also the product was kind of blowing up right before COVID. So it's hard to really partition like the relative contributions of those two things. But we had in 2020 in COVID, the product was just really blowing up and we had them selling on eBay for like triple the retail price. Like they're like a $2.10, people buying it for $600 and we had scallops. speaker-0: I saw that. speaker-1: And then when we get a batch, sometimes they'd sell out in a minute. And it was like, OK, now it's not just like a hobby. It's like the product itself is successful. But it's still successful within the context of somebody else's business. Because I make a few bucks on this, but I don't have any control. I'm not really empowered around this product. I'm honored that it's successful, and it's cool to see. it's not really my business at the time. And then the third. moment was when we did launch the pre-sale of the XMID Pro in 2022, which was that was where we had actually, I'd remortgaged my house and everyone, because you really don't know, you can doubt yourself and be like, is this just popular because they are good at marketing and I'm just going to face plant immediately here. We saw good traction on the email list and things like that. Like we had more than 10,000 people signed up for that. So I knew like, speaker-0: That's crazy. Yeah. speaker-1: I knew there was interest, you really like until you see it, you don't really know. And so when we did that pre sale and we did sell most of them on the first day, was like, okay, like we don't need that other company anymore. We can be our own thing. Yeah. So that was kind of it felt like we were a company. speaker-0: Yeah. And when you went from, you know, going from your first product, so the X mid to other things. So know you did, remember there was like some stuff in there when we were, when you were doing the polls, I think, and stuff like that. ⁓ and then even like the X dome, like how did you, at what point do you say, okay, I'm going to now do another product. Is it just out of passion or is it out of, I have time to do it. speaker-1: Yeah, I, it is rooted in passion and I really am obsessive about the products we do have. So when I launched the XMID one, it's immediately into that pretty long process of refining. You make it as good as you can, but people are going to have feedback, you're going to have more ideas. So we're rapidly updating the product. We did a second gen, came out in 2018, a second gen was around 2021. There was just a ton of work on those first couple of years, just. just maturing and refining the product. And then for coming out with something else, originally it was partially driven by my partner, because they were like, you gotta do a backpack, you gotta do a backpack. And I love backpacks, I had made a few for myself, but I also put a lot of pressure on myself where I really want to do something if I'm super stoked and think it's unique. So I originally told them no, just because I was busy and didn't have any big ideas. And came back and... speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: or like six months later they were maybe could you reconsider? And I said, well, I might do it, but no hurry. Cause I want to really like take my time and really this through. So then we did end up having a back pack coming out of that. That was, which I, which I like, it's a really cool pack. And it was kind of originated by them, which is different than anything else. With the, with all the other new products that we do, the basic format for a new product is that I speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I love all gear because it's so cool. then, but I also love. Yeah. like, everything is awesome, but I really love innovation. So I'm thinking about all the main pieces of gear that I have in my kit and I'm always analyzing them and what can be better. And there's some things where I have no great ideas or I think cook pots are pretty dialed in and, and, and minor things like socks are just sort of inconsequential enough that I'm not actually about. But your big things like tents are super interesting and packs and sleeping bags and sleeping pads and tracking poles. Those are all pretty like major products that are interesting to me to potentially innovate on. And tents are probably the top because they're just so complex in the things we're trying to balance. Everybody knows, like space and weight and pitch and simplicity. And there's just a million things that all come together. often when you're making something better, you're making something worse. And so it's this. hair pulling, kind of ultimately satisfying if you get somewhere processed. And I had always wanted to do a freestanding tent. I thought that our original X-Mod designer early on, realized that there was going to be some nice benefits that would translate to that. had always used both trekking pool and freestanding depending on the circumstances. So I always wanted to do the X-Dome, but I didn't want to rush it to market. And so we, I started on it early, like 2019, 2020. Did some Proto's. speaker-0: Yeah. We speaker-1: It was, I don't want to be wrong on the dates, many years of work, at least three years, it came out at the end of 2024. And it was probably, it was conceptually in the works almost right away from like 2018, 2019. And we were actually prototyping it maybe in 2020, 2021 at the latest. But then I'd get a prototype. We did some weird stuff. I'd get a prototype and I think it's going to be awesome. And it was more just depressing how like, Oh, it's sort of cool and sort of just weird and you know, is that working? And I don't know what to do. You let it sit for a few months and just go for another hike and daydream a little bit and iterate on that. So it is just driven by like my desire to try to innovate on some of the main pieces of gear and people's kits. And when I think I can make a difference, then we do that. things where I have no idea, we just won't do them. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I mean, you have that platform to be able to, I think once you have that successful or at least one successful product, you kind of know. Like I always reference my wife and I, do like this white dad Asian mom stereotypes thing on Instagram. And we just found like a niche that took off. And then we have like 105 followers on Instagram and doing all these collabs and stuff like that with brands and everything else. And She kind of found that formula and now she's doing social media management for some places that are local here because she's understanding how to make it go viral or how to make certain things. once you understand it, like, now I can come up with this product, you already learned the how to make it grow and how to build the audience. And now you have a product that he's passionate about again, you can come out with it. speaker-1: Yeah, we definitely have our kind of recipe, like lightweight is a big one, but also simplicity is a huge focus and some protection. Yeah, there's kind of what a Durston product is like, and then we can apply that to different applications. speaker-0: Yeah, when I was talking with Ben from Hilltop, ⁓ we're talking about how simple is always a lot of times way easier than making complicated bags with 10,000 pockets and all this other stuff. It's like, simple is one simple is lighter. And then people think they need a lot of different things until you experience it. And then you go, I don't need that. And now you're creating what you've learned and giving it to other people in a physical thing instead of in knowledge. So, and it works too. mean, I see it, again, I see it all the time on the trail. I'm talking to a whole bunch of people on the Appalachian Trail. ⁓ And I think one of the guys I talked to, he had your KAKWA 40, I think, on him and stuff like that. it's neat to see ⁓ gear. was on the Colorado Trail with Taysen and his team from Outdoor Vitals. And we saw his pack on there multiple times and it's... I'm sure is when you create stuff, it's so cool to just like see it actually being physically used on trail instead of just hearing stories. But when you're on trail and you see it, right? You're just so stoked to be there and be like, that's how I create. I'm sure you're like, I wanna walk over there and be like, that's my tent. That's my bag, right? speaker-1: Yeah, my relationship with that's kind of unique because I, we're in Canadian Rockies a little more on the edge of civilization. And then I do a lot of remote trails. I'm doing this project to hike all these sort of historical trails that don't really exist anymore. So I'm just kind of bushwhacking terrible trails and I don't see people too much. But I did, I think the first time I, I didn't see one of my tents in the wild until it was either 2022 or 2023. So we were like three or four years in. and I got a really early start and was coming past this campground at like 7 a.m. and there was one of our tents and I wanted to just go over and be like, I'd be getting bear sprayed. speaker-0: been so good like Dan Anderson, bear sprayed in the Rockies. So I guess going into that then is there a place that you've seen like maybe what's the weirdest place that you've seen your product or most unique place that you've seen your products ⁓ in the world or whatever or being used? speaker-1: Yeah, there's kind of two different ends of the spectrum. There's kind of like some of the coolest places and some of the weirdest places. Just the coolest one first is a lot of this really started for me on the PCT because I just like I hiked it all day every day and spent hours and hours and hours dreaming about stuff. So we went back to PCT days last August, six months ago, and they have maybe 400 tents there and almost half of them were ours, which was like, Super cool, I had never been, I hadn't been back to the PCT since 2014, so it was a decade later. Same like vibe, same hikers, same sort of like nostalgia and community and it's so cool. And then to see people using our gear on that trail to hopefully have a better experience is like pretty cool to have that come full circle. And then the other end of the spectrum, so the weirder spots, two that come to mind, one is in some parts of the world they don't really have a lot of I can empathize. They don't have a lot of actual natural spaces. And so they're buying this gear, but they're not really using it how I would picture in like the true wilderness setting. We see quite a bit in Hong Kong where like it's actually, Hong Kong is actually our top city for sales. Which is like mind blowing to me. I think there is actually some awesome places in Hong Kong, but we, yeah, it's obviously not that big. And we definitely see a lot of pictures where it's just like pitched on like a patio and you're like, you bought like one of the lightest tents in the world and it's. on like a man-made patio with like a lantern and stuff and chairs. And it's very different because they're actually appreciating some of the aesthetics and the brand of it more than they are actually using it for like deep back country adventures, Hawaiian vision. So that's a different experience for me to be thinking. I think of it very much like a hardcore back country adventure and people take it other applications. The other one is I speaker-0: Design. yeah. speaker-1: I didn't actually see the outcome of this, but Cotopaxi ended up buying a bunch of our tents to use for some big party that they were having. Some indoor party of all the theme and they're gonna have all our tents set up inside and it's like, cool. ⁓ But also a very different application than how I normally see our products used. speaker-0: That's cool to see it kind of use that Hong Kong story is kind of cool. there's like, it's when you create something, it's like an art piece almost, right? And I'm sure with the lines and everything from a photography perspective myself, I can see it like sitting in an urban setting with like really harsh lighting on it where it creates these really cool lines contrasting with the buildings or whatever. I mean, that's neat. So is there like a customer story that a review that hits you really hard, you know, cause I'm sure you could talk all day about the positives or are there any negatives or like even going back, I never even asked you this, but what was like an, ⁓ crap moment that you had in your business, you know, whether it was manufacturing or whatever, do you have one of those? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. we, for an ⁓ crap moment where those tend to come up the most often, I think is when you have, when you're creating a product and there is some dimension to that product success, some kind of variable or that you didn't even realize existed. So a good example of this would be on the original X mid I'm like developing this thing. I'm very focused on that. It's going to pitch good. We're using good fabrics, you know, all the kind of the obvious things you need to solve, we're trying to solve them. And a variable that existed that I didn't even know about was the shape of a trekking pole tip. I had thought that they were basically standardized. I didn't even think about it. I had a few pairs. They all kind of fit fine in the interface that we had developed. And so I didn't even recognize that this was a variable that we needed to consider and refine. So we launched the product and then speaker-0: Yep. speaker-1: It turns out there are actually some poles that have a much longer and slimmer tip that go way too far. Just like a metal ring that it fits into. They're poking way too far through the ring. And there were some cases of people just putting their poles in and basically puncturing the tent. And obviously they're bummed out. Thankfully it was a pretty rare pole tip. It was only a few percent, but it was when it comes out and you're like, somebody's like, ⁓ I just set up my tent and it popped right through the top. You're like, ⁓ crap. I didn't even realize that that variable existed. And the same can be true for other things. Look at an example would be on a backpack. You could optimize for a ton of things, but then a real challenge is how the shoulder straps, if they're going to rub on the hip belt. And that actually depends so much on somebody's posture and their waist size, the body shape, where you can design something, especially in the earlier days where it was really just like me doing everything, like testing. I'm like, we are good. this is like nowhere close to touching, but then somebody else is a very different set of parameters and it ends up having a conflict. yeah, that's, it's not really the problems that you foresee and gear test towards, it's the problems you don't foresee and don't even think about happening that kind of really blinds you. So going back, what was the other question? speaker-0: The Yeah. Well, the other one was the review. Like, do you have anything that's like, hit you really hard? Maybe there's a great story about your gear or a bad story about it. Like, do have any kind of crazy reviews? speaker-1: Yeah, one thing that's different for us is how connected we are to our community because we are basically online. I come from that community basis. We have a Facebook group of 20,000, a Reddit group of 10,000. And then, and I still answer a lot of the email. We have other people that help now, but we're still like right in there. And if there's a problem, it gets back to me. So we are more connected with other people. And I think one of the ways that manifests itself is that when we have a problem with our product, We're much more aware of it. So I had one where a guy was camping with our tent and he had a problem with the joints between the pole sections. One had come unglued, slid inside the pole and then the poles just cannot be joined. So the guy is sending me pictures and he's on this camping trip and his tent's like half sort of half pitched because of this problem. And he's talking about how like disappointing this is. like, and you're like crap, like we are, I want to help people have a better back country experience. that's not happening here. And like we've failed this person, you know, and that sucks. And we feel that more strongly, I think, than some other brands, not because they don't care, but just because we're more directly connected. actual, that specific issue was something that had actually been affecting a lot of 10 brands for years and years. ⁓ but bigger brands, ⁓ and they probably the standard outcome is that the customer talks to the retailer who may once in a while goes back to the company and I'm sure the people there care, but they don't have that one-on-one direct, like, wow, somebody right now at this minute is camping and just sent me like a, maybe even like a text message, like this sucks. You're like, I've let this person down. So we have a much like more like visceral strong connection to our customers that ⁓ really makes us feel and be passionate about problems and fixing them. speaker-0: I know that like you, I've seen people say all the time like you answer like you're always online. Like I see, if I see a post on Instagram or whatever, I can see that Dan liked that post. Dan will even comment on that post. You know, so I know that you stay very, very connected. And I think people need to learn from that. Like you said, is as a brand, maybe if you're a bigger brand, but you need somebody to stay connected in the community and not just. Because I would say like you had just said, like if I buy something at REI real quick, right? Like I might have to return it. I return it and for the most part, it's probably just gonna get thrown into a big return pile. No one's ever gonna say anything to the manufacturer or anything like that. It's just gonna be like, ⁓ he's returned this because of whatever. But when you can hear firsthand what it is and then you can look at it and go, many people are having this problem. How can we resolve this instead of just that? Because I know running a business, it's like, what's that saying where it's like 10 times easier to keep the one person than it is to gain. It's 10 times harder to gain a new customer than it is to keep an old one. So I'm always trying to, for photography, for family portraits or weddings or my corporate clients, always trying to under promise and over deliver. And I feel like you do that. You still over deliver and over promise, but people know that they're gonna get taken care of. if something is messed up. speaker-1: Yeah, we're definitely going to take care of people. I'm super passionate about that. Nobody's going to get everything perfect all the time, but I think that what you can do is do your best and then take care of people if you let them down. speaker-0: So how do you stay connected then, because I know you said you were doing some historic trails and stuff like that, so I know a lot of people, you create a product in the outdoor industry because you're so passionate for the outdoors and then now you're so consumed with your business, how do you stay connected in the outdoor space and stay connected to the brand? Yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ At first, I naively thought it was going to be easy because I was like, we make tents and you only set them up at the end of the day. ⁓ So then I can just go backpacking all day and not even think about anything business related. And then maybe when I'm setting it up at dusk, I'll be like, ⁓ let's add this feature or something like that. I thought it would hardly interface. ⁓ And partly we make other products, but partly it's just, ⁓ there's always stuff to think about. And then also, to what I was saying before, I do feel an obligation to our customers, which is hard to have a healthy relationship with because I always want to be there for people. And I hate the idea of like, go backpacking in the woods for a week and then come out and find out that like four days ago, somebody had this like big problem and we let them down. I'm always, so yeah, I feel an obligation, a burden to our customers. It's not really like, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I need to be working because I need to like invent something this week or create new product, like some businessy deliverable. just, I just feel like I need to be somewhat present for our customers to always help them. So for hiking, ⁓ the good thing, so it does affect my hiking. Like if I'm hiking and, if it's harder to get out on long trips because of the obligation, but it has made short trips easier because I have a lot of fun opportunities now. Maybe I've gone on some hikes with some YouTubers, meet some new people. People are actually friendly around hiking because people actually recognize me. It's kind of fun, you go through a campground. We went to one a year ago where like four out of seven tents, we went into a campground and four out of seven tents were ours. It's different, right? Because it's almost like in small circles, it's like minor celebrity thing where you're it's very different than what a camping experience normally is. And that's partly why I do a lot of remote stuff too. But so it certainly affects things. Long trips are harder. Short trips actually have some cool opportunities. And then I do on the trail, does, I do think about gear and business stuff, which I don't love, because I'd love to just be purely present in the outdoors. But the flip side of that is I do love it. Like if I'm thinking on the trail, I'm like, I have some products we're working on right now that I'm so excited about. And I have a few, I always have these. like unknown things I need to solve that are so hard to solve in the day to day because life's so complicated and fast paced and busy. And then I go out on the trail and I'm like, okay, I need to solve like, how do we make a three point connection, sternum strap or something? I'm like, I got two hours here. I can zone in on this. And I love it. ⁓ So yeah, yeah, it has an effect, but I usually like it. speaker-0: It's like when you get on the trail, it's almost like when you're either sitting on the toilet or in the shower, you solve problems because you just like, are just like, ah, and then you hit the trail and you're like, oh, it just came to me after and you've been, you could have been sitting in meetings or whatever, trying to figure it out with friends. But then all of a sudden you're just out there and your brain just goes, snaps in. And the next thing you know, you're, you figured it out. So that's cool. I can't wait to hear the kind of stuff that you guys are coming out with next and everything else. I'm sure. You've got some crazy things in store for everybody, so. speaker-1: Yeah, we're about some fun stuff. We're at a really cool point where we have the resources now to do more. We have like a laser cutter and we can 3D print and I'm not just sending a PowerPoint to a factory anymore. So it's pretty fun. speaker-0: I've seen, like, I've talked to people and I didn't realize how not easy, but like I could get something on a napkin and then I could get somebody in a factory literally like try to make that for me and then kind of work back and forth. I just don't have the capacity to think that way. speaker-1: Some of them are so good. That was a fortunate thing on the original X-Mod, is I'm sure my drawings weren't very good, but we used a factory that builds for MSR and Nemo, and they're probably the top 10 factories, so I can give them some bad drawings, and they'll be like, you sure you want to do that? yeah. They're like, what? This is a... speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. So I guess what would some advice be to that you would give to somebody that's, you know, thinking about starting a business and you know, how, how do they get started? What's, what's like Dan's one piece of advice for starting your business? speaker-1: Yeah, I think the recipe that works for me is that for anything you're going to do, you have to be a giant, giant nerd on that area where you can look at the entire market and say, you know, these are the leading products and these are what is good and bad about them. ⁓ You could basically like constructively critique the frontier of what's on the market today. Yeah. And when you're doing that so severely nerdy, you start to see what's over the horizon. see like, yeah, like Like an example would be sleeping pads are getting a little bit thicker and a little bit wider every year. This is like not rocket science, but it's like pretty obvious to me that what was like, we had 20 inch pads and then there's some 25s and I'm sure, I don't know if the data, but I'm sure the percentage of 25s is up every year. Where are things in 10 years? It's probably like dominantly 25s. And so when you're nerding out hard enough, you could see the trends even if there's not like published data on them. And so I would, for somebody, I would just be a giant, giant nerd on the product. And then I would, speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: when you're making your own, would just, when you're trying to have that idea, I would parameterize the search. So you're really defining the type of solutions you're open to. That's really consistent with your ethos, the kind of like identity you want to have, like whether it's, you know, maybe you're bringing tech in or maybe you're bringing simplicity or whatever it is, but you're very product, product focused. And then building in public, even though somebody might steal it, you're built mostly strategically building in public while also putting almost as much effort into the community side of things. ⁓ you, you express in the early days, you got to answer everybody that's reaching out to you, answer every comment, share on Instagram. And that's, that's kind of your hurdle. ⁓ Really what you need is the two critical things is like, you need your successful product and you need your moment where it actually gets traction. speaker-0: You need, cause. Yeah. speaker-1: And so those are the two things you're really building towards. And that's where building a public, getting it towards an email list, those are I think the critical things. speaker-0: That's cool. mean, that brings me back to my wife and her social media thing. She was like, as soon as someone comments, she comments. And then they'll even comment sometimes, wow, I can't believe I've talked to other social media people and they won't even give me the time of day. And yet I'm talking to you like as if we're friends and stuff like that. And then you grow that trust that then ultimately leads into them buying your product. You're not just doing it to sell a product, you genuinely do care about it. I think that's what people is being genuine. speaker-1: Yeah, that's cool. huge fans of that, like authenticity. We don't do any advertising. Like we could definitely like pour a bunch of money in ads and kind of supercharge things a bit. But it's like, I don't know, I don't really need to, but it would just feel less authentic. I love when we can say that any review about our product is just somebody that chose to do that. Someone to say something nice. speaker-0: Yeah. Like on Amazon, when you see there's 50,000 reviews and they're 40,000 of them are all just like paid reviews or whatever. You're like, I can't trust it anymore. Well, that's cool. Thank you so much for the insight. So I'm going to go into our rapid fire round. But before we do that, since you just picked up that cup, I think what we should do is do the roll up the rim to win to see if you win a vacation or a car. I don't even know what the prizes are, because I'm here in Atlanta, Georgia in America, so I don't know what the top prizes are, but. speaker-1: Yeah, we got some nice vacations and then we got the Volkswagen electric ⁓ v-van thing. They discontinued that, hear? Sorry? speaker-0: Volkswagen is not making that anymore. Yeah. speaker-1: I heard they're dropping it. The pontoon boat would be pretty sweet too. Yeah. Not ultra like. speaker-0: I'm speaker-1: Here we speaker-0: Drum roll. I think I saw a YouTube video of some guy who went to Tim Hortons and was like, you know, they buy like a hundred cups and they just see what they win. They were like, don't fill up the coffee. We'll still pay for the drinks, but just give me the cups. speaker-1: get right into it. So yeah, I didn't take I didn't take down the pontoon boat this time. Roll up the room to lose. Next time. You'll see me on a pontoon boat one of these days. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, all right, Dan, we're going to, I'm going to ask you a couple of quick questions. Most of them are just kind of one word, two word answers, but there might be a couple that are just like a sentence answers. But without further ado, first question is coffee or electrolyte drinks on the trail? speaker-1: ⁓ it is coffee, but man, I've learned electrolytes are more important. speaker-0: Yes, they are. All right, favorite national park. speaker-1: Jasper in Canada. speaker-0: Jasper. Oh man. I gotta go. speaker-1: 20th of the 70. speaker-0: Really? Okay, that's our family's favorite favorite favorite park. Though my wife is starting to get like really loves Grand Canyon as we've been hiking in there quite a bit. So ⁓ I'm so torn between Canada and America when it comes to like hikes and then even the Olympics. was like with that final game I was like who am I rooting for? know? Yeah, I'm so sorry we beat you but speaker-1: It's casted. speaker-0: I think a lot of my friends from Canada unfriend me after that game. Next question is solo hike or crew mission? speaker-1: I love a crew, but I always end up solo because nobody wants to do what I want to do. So it's usually solo. speaker-0: ⁓ Worst trail snack you've ever tried. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, there was- There's something that was so bad. Yeah, oh, we're on the PCT and someone gave us this peanut pad thai, which normally is delicious. And this one was just like absolute disgusting gunk. We were at a hunger hunger and I just, oh yeah, that was 12 years ago and I was just. speaker-0: Thank goodness meals are a little bit better now than they were 12 years ago, hopefully. Well, I know they are because I've talked to a lot and tasted a lot. All right, so what's your favorite trail snack? speaker-1: I'm a simple man, I'm like that Oreo guy. speaker-0: Really? Okay. I never heard anybody say Oreos. speaker-1: Yeah, PCT's got the whole stack of them working down. speaker-0: You could just put them in a Pringles container so you can just slide them out instead. I'm gonna 3D print. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna 3D print an Oreo holder for trail hiking. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, because it could be slimmer than Pringles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ could even be like one those Pez ones that pops one out for you. speaker-0: That's good. You know, it's funny you say that, but I'm sure somebody, if I go on like the message boards or like the, I could download the drawing, I bet you somebody's done that. Cause I've seen them do it for all kinds of different foods. Mountains, forest, desert or coast. Mountains. Yeah, ⁓ Biggest splurge you've ever made for your business. speaker-1: ⁓ It's gotta be our laser cutter we just bought. That was pretty expensive. Yeah. speaker-0: Really? Okay. No, it's funny you say that because Ben just said the same thing from Hilltop Axie. I asked him and he said that's what he said. said it was such a game changer too that he would go from like someone's what someone cuts in a week. Now he's cutting it in like an hour or two hours something like that. So I'm going to buy a laser cutter next. Last thing you Googled related to your business. speaker-1: You need one. ⁓ I sometimes will look at on like product categories. I'll ask Google like what are, what are like the, think what I was asking people like, like what is the size of the tracking pool market compared to tents? ⁓ speaker-0: Okay, and then ⁓ what's ⁓ one thing you're still learning as a leader? speaker-1: Definitely to delegate, I'm still like a do everything and I really have a hard time handing off anything because I'm so perfectionist. I don't, we have amazing staff so it's kind of working but my tendencies definitely don't fall that way. speaker-0: And last question is what's one outdoor skill you still kind of suck at? speaker-1: I still feel like I suck at pack rafting. ⁓ I love it. I see the people that can actually do the rolls and actually paddle the white water and I'm just sort of bobbing down the class too. I'd love to really actually be good at it one day. speaker-0: I've never been pack rafting. We're ⁓ going to have alpaca rafs on in a few months or so. so I can't wait to talk to them about everything. Because when I was on the Colorado trail, ⁓ we were somewhere and I ended up, I hurt my ankle on the trail, long story short, and I ended up having to sit in a small town and wait for everybody else to finish the trail. and I met a bunch of people with their rafts. And then from there, it just was like, ⁓ I want to do rafting now. speaker-1: Yeah, and Alpaca is so awesome. They're kind what I would love to be as a company in the sense that they have like decades of just innovation and community and just, yeah, what they've built is so cool. speaker-0: That's cool. Well, Dan, thank you so much for being on today, taking the time, the chat, and I'm sure everybody's learned a ton of stuff. I learned a crazy amount of stuff. I almost run out and start a business again right now. But if people are looking for your gear, where can they find you? speaker-1: Yeah, we got a website durstingear.com, which has lots of nice photos, but Instagram's a good spot too. Or if people really want to get involved, our Facebook group is kind of the spot. I mean, it can be too much for some people. It's kind of the frenzy in there. That's if you want to nerd out, but if you don't want to get that deep, the Instagram's good. speaker-0: That's awesome. Well, thanks for being on everybody. Thank you for so much for listening this week and we can't wait until next time. Thanks so much Dan. I appreciate it.