Thursday’s Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) brought together six entrepreneurs to encourage women and minorities to start their own businesses and participate in the $1.1 trillion outdoor industry economy. .
For example, Chris Perkins, vice president of programs, said Michigan has created a $3 million seed fund for startups in the outdoor recreation industry to help get things moving.
Each of the entrepreneurs in attendance had their own stories of successes and challenges in starting their own businesses.
Speakers were Katie Doherty and Ehnao Li of Founded Outdoors, Camilo Barcenas of GOES Help, Germaine Simonson of Rezduro, Jahmicah Dawes of Slim Pickins Outfitters, and Yvonne Leow of Bewilder.
Dougherty said his business helps entrepreneurs get into the business, but allows them to go into it with their eyes open.
“It’s all your responsibility,” she said. “All hats have to be worn. Work-life balance is difficult to achieve.”
But she said entrepreneurship can be meaningful for those who are attracted to the challenge and have the right skill set.
Mr Lee said starting a business has never been easier thanks to available resources such as social media, targeted advertising and artificial intelligence.
But she also acknowledged challenges.
“It’s not easy to get the funding you need to grow,” she says. “Few investors are focused on outdoor businesses. While financing options are available, they can be very expensive.”
Barcenas’ GOES Help provides essential apps for survival in the wilderness.
The app includes information about weather alerts, as well as 24/7 access to health and emergency information.
“We have grown to a team of 27 natural medicine experts who created our platform with my team of co-founders,” he said. “Changing weather conditions are creating additional dangers. With more people out and about, there are also more injuries.”
Simonson’s Rezduro is a growing mountain bike race on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona.
Simonson’s son became interested in racing and asked her to help him establish what he called a “brother race” among his friends.
Over the next four years, the race grew into a larger event with support from the larger community.
“It’s amazing to see 100% growth every year,” she said. “I needed a lot of support from my family.”
Due to its remote location, Simonson said funding isn’t as readily available as other would-be startups. For example, it takes him two hours to get to the nearest bank.
Dawes says his clothing business is the first black-owned business in the outdoor industry.
Since he started his business in Texas, five other black entrepreneurs have followed suit.
He stresses that anyone who wants to start a business needs to look at the amount of work required.
“Don’t glamorize the results in a way that conveys the lack of work,” he says. “True dreams require effort to achieve, effort to maintain, and effort to inherit and repay.”
Leow’s Bewilders will be enhanced as the next generation of Boy and Girl Scouts.
She said one of the group’s most successful programs is an after-school program for kindergarten through eighth grade that gets kids outdoors in nature.
“It helps improve their skills about flora, fauna and the natural environment,” she said. “Our challenge is how to adapt and bring others along.
