After an enjoyable hotel breakfast—that isn’t a joke, I love those waffles—I walked the couple of block to the Salt Palace for day two at Outdoor Retailer. If you read the day one recap, you know my immeditate take on the tradeshow, but I was hopeful that today would be a bit better. I still had a little less than half the showroom to walk and chat with brands. So, let’s dive in:

Chestnut trying to understand what he is doing at OR.

Hitting the showroom floor, the place was still a ghost town. I wish I could report more, but that is the reality. Once again, the benefit of that, great convos. The downside, not that much to see.

Highlights:

Tickmitt: Yup, you read this correctly, a mitt for ticks. While living in Lake Tahoe, I don’t have to worry about ticks, but on this road trip, checking Chestnut several times a day for ticks has been a headache.
Nestout: There is something satisfying about a plug-and-play system and Nestout just gave me a paradigm shift to what is possible with a portable charger.
Rogue Jerky: Growing up I was accustomed to beef jerky from my uncle’s farm and Rogue Jerky brought me back to my childhood with their premium jerky.
Hydrogen Water by Echo Flask: After a 20 minute chat I can say this is a wild idea. Drinking hydrogen water sounds like a 1%er kinda thing, but Echo Flask has made it accessible to everyone.
Toaks Outdoor: Looking for that ultra-lite gear for your next backpacking , thru-hike, or just casual outing? If you don’t already know Toaks, you must be living under a rock. They have the lightest gear on the market and it’s all made from titanium.
FKT Gear: Sunglasses for running and setting those FKTs. Okay, maybe that’s only for the pros and those addicted to Strava, but I can say the founder is a great guy that I enjoyed shooting the shit with for a little while. I hope it works out for Josh, his sunglasses are rad.

Things I Found Interesting:

There were several products operating under a licensed legacy name. I found this to be a great way into a market if you have a product, but I wonder what the long term trade-offs of this are?
Body wipes and electrolytes are on the rise. The last few years these industries have been hitting the ground hard as they jock for position in the market. While I am no market specialist, I would say the competition is fierce but there are some companies doing it well. Redmon Re-lyte has a solid chance at taking the market over if they lean into their story and focus on being a no sugar electrolyte mix.

A Final Thought:

While I am obviously disappointed about OR, I can say I got to chat with more companies for a longer amount of time than any other trade show. Hopefully, this means those connections will remember me and I will remember them. Shows like this can lead to a massive impact, but they can also lead to a lot of nothing. While I am not sure where this will go, I can say that I enjoyed connecting with the brands, sharing a few meals with other people, and can see myself staying in contact with a variety of these companies. Now, if I step back to the 10,000 foot level, connecting with humans in the industry is the purpose of these shows, right?

If that is the metric of success, than this was a great show. If it was landing clients, I am not so sure, but only time will tell.

One More Night, One More Shower

With yet another pile of business cards to upload into my CRM, I am happy to be back at the hotel and do some stretching. The long days of driving and exploring have left my body tight. The catch, Chestnut is all up in my face and even-though we gave him a bath yesterday he still stinks. So, I got up and gave him another shower only to see so much dirt streaming off of him. I had to yell to Kristin, “Babe, get your camera, this is crazy how much dirt is coming off of Chestnut!”

Together, we laughed.

Tomorrow, we hit the road again and head for Great Basin National Park.