Austin Tech & Outdoor Innovator's Panel
Tuesday night a crowd of young men and women gathered in their yoga pants to talk business.
A panel of local outdoor businesses, including a cooler maker, a clothier and a bike-share company, were part of a week-long event called Made in Austin, hosted by global education company General Assembly. Tuesday’s focus was outdoor originators, showing how to combine tech, sport and community to improve the outdoor space. The panel spoke to a crowd of men women interested in ways to improve the outdoor space, as well as, entrepreneurship in Austin. After the panel discussion, Wanderlust Yoga held a sunset yoga class on the terrace.
The idea for this event and choosing the panel, General Assembly Regional Director Danielle Barnes said, came from her teambrainstorming about the things that really make Austin special. They knew people in Austin loved the outdoors and there are so many different angles you can talk about. Anywhere from digital products to how to experience the outdoors. Her team thought it would be really great to have all those different perspectives on the panel to talk about how Austin's innovating in the outdoors.
The panel included representatives of five Austin companies: Atlas Wearables, RoverPass, Yeti Coolers, B-cycle and Camp Gladiator. The conversation, mediated by RoverPass co-founder and CEO Ravi Parikh, ranged from explaining business models to reasons these companies chose Austin.
Camp Gladiator’s approach to building a customer base “is with culture, Camp Gladiator has social events and trips outside of workouts. They want to make it a lifestyle and they think it all starts with passion,” said Ally Davidson of Camp Gladiator.
The panel continued with questions and discussed the challenges of growing their business in the smaller Austin market. Parikh of RoverPass and Peter Li of Altas Wearables discussed their immense need for funding and outside investors.
“Funding is a problem. As a tech company, it takes a lot. It’s a smaller market. The amount of potential partners is smaller. It requires more hustle, but it’s ok because you can be a big fish in small pond,” said Li.
But, Davidson from Camp Gladiator encouraged “any entrepreneur to do as much as you can on your own. Austin is such a great market. You can build something organically. You don't have to give up equity.”
In discussing what each company plans, Corey Maynard, vice president of Yeti Coolers, said they have new products coming out and will offer a brand experience flagship store with a bar, theatre, and concert hall in the fall.
Likewise, Elliott McFadden, executive director of B-cycle, said “we’re receiving a grant to add more bike-share locations and are trying to break into UT’s campus and work with other universities.”
The audience listened attentively and asked multiple questions at the end of the discussion. The questions ranged from the target age of the businesses’ marketing to inquiring about the panelists’ opinions of the Austin market for fitness and outdoors.
Answering one of those questions, Camp Gladiator’s Ally Davidson said, “it is the attitude of the people who live here. I love that half of you guys are in workout clothes and so am I. I think my response to being asked to be on the panel, was can I wear workout clothes? And come straight from workout? I think it’s just us maintaining that culture here. Us having that laid-back mentality where fitness is first and it’s ok to come straight from a workout.”
