Outdoorsman Creates “Boat in a Backpack”

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Hey there what's up it's Chris Guillebeau here with you for Side Hustle School. This is episode 257. If you're listening in real time there are just five days to go until the side hustle book comes out. It is in fact the final countdown. Now we have a lot of people out there who are listening and one thing I said when I started the show way back in January is that people have different goals for their side hustle.

So I kind of knew that from the beginning and designed a show around it. But that fact has only been more and more reinforced as we've gone through the year. Like I've said several times I am learning along with you. So side hustle goals are different and unique some people want to make quick cash others want to replace their income others want to do something creative and so on. But one benefit that we haven't explored at all in 257 episodes at least not like this is the ability to pursue a big project over time without going all in and risking your savings.

Now when I heard the story I first thought it might not be right for side hustle school because it's a 10-year project to invent a new kind of boat one that folds into a backpack actually which is crazy but we'll get to that but I was thinking well 10-year project that's not really what a side hustle is all about. But then I realized that the outdoorsman the guy who invents the boat is able to do this because of his job like he's able to take on this big project have this long-term focus and actually take some risks because he's working full-time and also because he's working full-time the risks aren't as significant. So I thought this was really interesting and of course it's also interesting that the guy builds a boat that fits into a backpack that story coming right up today's side hustle story was inspired by the great outdoors. Pete Pludd has always enjoyed nature getting away from the crowds and up to the mountains lakes and rivers is his refuge from everyday life he spent many a trip camping fishing hunting and scuba diving from the Bahamas to Alaska and he wanted a boat that could help him explore these hard-to-reach places a little easier for years he would wake up in the middle of the night imagining this boat he would have to be light versatile and easy to assemble and it would help if he could carry it with him perhaps in a backpack unfortunately nothing like this existed on the market. So finally after years of thinking about it Pete started his folding boat side hustle with a trip to the hardware store he purchased PVC pipe glue and some fittings at the same time he was designing and prototyping his boat he also had the hobby of flying ultralight airplanes so he was able to borrow ideas and techniques as well as some of the materials that are used in airplane construction and since Pete has a full-time job as a senior construction project manager for a software company he spent his nights and weekends off and on for several years prototyping over 20 designs until he was happy in 2008 Pete headed to the outdoor retailer show in Salt Lake City there he was able to connect with some other guys building unconventional boats they realized they weren't in direct competition so they offered Pete some help based off that experience he went back home made 20 more revisions to his design and finally had a prototype that would allow his boat to go from completely packed to ready for the water in four minutes designing and creating a boat even a small one is quite a bit different in scale and scope than selling something on eBay or creating an online course and putting it out to the world for his next big step Pete had to find a manufacturer who would bring this prototype product to retail reality this led him on a three-year quest around the country from New York to California to Virginia Pete eventually made three chips to China as well finally settling on a manufacturer he felt comfortable with after another long wait the first round of k-pack boats that's what he decided to call them were shipped to Pete back home in North Carolina the end of one successful chapter it meant the beginning of another now that he had a product he had to get to work marketing it Pete initially approached some brick and mortar stores about stocking his boat but he quickly realized it wasn't a good fit for a couple reasons to start with the boat requires a bit of explanation remember this is a boat that folds up into a backpack if you're wondering how this is possible there will be a picture on the show notes page so in a store the average customer would see a black backpack and then an assembled boat and have to make a mental leap to connect the two and since the boat sells for about a thousand dollars it's not exactly an impulse buy the other interesting obstacle he encountered is that his boats don't require anything other than a paddle and a life jacket which sounds good because any other boat would require a variety of other products a roof rack a baler pump a skirt a cart and a lift system to help store it retail stores were used to getting all those additional sales or at least some of them so they didn't love the idea of just stocking a boat in a backpack that needed nothing else but that's okay because Pete realized he could sell direct once he figured that out Pete set up a website using Squarespace he took professional photos and videos to really show off the boat and also began to narrow down their potential markets by doing some focus groups he was initially thinking about other outdoorsman like himself but he was surprised to see that some of his best response came from women who live in cities but like to head to the outdoors on the weekend since the boat is lightweight easy to assemble and can also fit in a closet it's a perfect fit he also started approaching potential ambassadors or influencers who would be able to expose a whole new group to the folding boat Pete now has a handful of ambassadors and his boats have been around the world in terms of startup costs full disclosure this is not a cheap side hustle Pete calls it a labor of love a product that he wanted to create for himself and for others and he's passionate about getting it out there to other like-minded folks total cost for the first production run were about a hundred thousand dollars not a small investment but one that Pete was able to make over time because he was sustained by his full-time job speaking of sustainable his side hustle is now beginning to sustain itself but Pete knows that in order for it to grow he needs to start selling more boats and he wants to get folding boats out to the public despite working on this project for a decade he is still inventing and tinkering he's already come up with a new butterfly design that will shave a minute off the already quick four-minute setup and then the rest of his limited spare time Pete has been hitting up the outdoor shows trying to find partners so he can sell his boat via as many channels as possible but first he has another adventure coming up he's heading off to Norway with his wife to celebrate 30 years of marriage and naturally he's bringing a folding boat on the trip as I said a side hustle can take on a lot of different forms and in this story you can see this guy had a long-term focus he wanted to build something that was not necessarily easy or cheap or quick and he wanted to do it in a way that was different from perhaps a traditional entrepreneurial path which would be quitting your job borrowing against your savings or getting some kind of investment trying to make things work quickly and to scale which can be exciting but also comes with a lot of pressure and the way that Pete chose to do it he was able to relieve some of that pressure he still wanted his project to succeed it was still a lot of money he was going to invest in it but he did it in a way that was a lot less stressful now also just a comment on the direct sales direct sales versus selling through retailers actually think going direct makes much more sense for this project for many reasons it's not just about retail stores being skeptical if he was selling through retail he would also have to sell them the stores the boats for about half the price so he would be giving away a lot of profit to do that and in fact the boats might actually have to cost more in the end so by selling direct he's able to keep all the profit and not only that but I think going direct allows him to build much more brand loyalty by having direct contact with his customers so it may be harder to get off the ground because Walmart isn't buying a thousand boats or whatever but I actually think it has the potential at least to be much more sustainable I really like this company in Seattle that makes bags named after the founder Tom Ben I've been carrying the Tom Ben empire builder bag for I think something like five years and I'm not sponsored by them I'm a paying customer but a few years ago I was able to visit their factory in Seattle take a tour and meet with Tom and his partner Darcy and he had an interesting story of his bags becoming really popular building this big customer base and then a couple of big box stores I don't know if it was Walmart or something similar approached him and wanted to place a really large order and he went back and forth on it but actually decided no I'm not going to do that and continued building this business direct and now his company Tom Ben has a lot of brand loyalty there are a lot of people like me who admire his vision think his products are great and are happy to talk about them and I don't know if that would be the case if you could get those products anywhere anyway something to think about wherever you are in the world whatever you're up to I hope you enjoy this episode remember that inspiration is good but inspiration with action so much better today's show notes including a link to Pete's boats where you can see some cool video of them being assembled and disassembled along with links to Tom Ben and anything else I talked about are at sidehustleschool.com slash 257 I'm Chris Guillebeau for side hustle school I'll be back tomorrow.