6:31 p.m. on January 23, 2006 (EST)
Ed is about as far from an "ultra" backpacker as you can get and still backpack. Hmmm, wellll, sometimes he has been known to use mechanized off-trail or over-water transportation devices to get to where he can hang his hammock. Say! I know! you could come up with something that would make it easier for Ed to hang his hammock further out of reach of the 'gators during the next hurricane.
I will have to say, I agree in large measure with Ed's comments. When I saw your first post (and reinforced by your response to Ed), I was torn between pointing out the Trailspace header which says "no commercials" (which your original post is very close to) and simply ignoring the whole thing. But maybe you could use a little help if you are ever going to get off the ground. Who knows? Maybe you could be another Dick Kelty, Yvon Chouinard, Dana Gleason, or one of the other greats in the field of outdoor gear (on second thought, naaaahhhh, not with the approach you took at the start).
One serious piece of advice I would give you is to go to the Outdoor Retailer Show and other trade shows and see what is out there on the market and what new ideas are being pushed and shown for reaction. As a "non-exhibiting manufacturer", I think you can register for free for the OR (not for next week's Winter version, since the deadline for free registration is past, but for the August Summer version). Check their website for details. I have been going to the ORShow for a few years now, and I'll tell you - there ain't much new that hasn't been floated, including lots of excellent ideas that have sunk out of sight. Mostly refinements and variations. Oh, yeah, there have been huge changes in fabrics for clothing, tents, sleeping bags, and such. And there have been many variations on the pack theme - internal, external, large and small capacity, lots of loops and straps to attach things, adjust load distributions and positions, and cinch things down, clean designs with no straps (and everything in between), lots of compartments and pockets, cut weight by eliminating compartments and pockets. Same kind of thing with tents - large, small, freestanding, pegged, ultralight, reinforced for hurricane-force winds, and on and on. Same thing with outerwear - pockets all over, no pockets, zippers with flaps, waterproof zippers, hoods sized to fit over the helmet, hoods with a tight fit for weatherproofness, pitzips and ventral zips for ventilation, very breathable fabrics (if you are thinking outerwear, you better be familiar with materials like eVent and Epic, as well as the variations on microfiber and the whole Goretex and Goretex-knockoff world). I think this next week's show has something like 2500 exhibitors, ranging from 1 and 2 person operations to the megacompanies, materials people (fabrics, fasteners, etc) and finished goods companies.
That is not to say that there is no room, but rather that trade shows like the OR are a good place to get an overview of what's already out there and to figure out where the niches are that your ideas could cover.
You really should take Ed's comment about "guys" to heart. As you would see at the trade shows, the female part of the market is huge and grossly underserved. Don't get fooled into thinking that it's just the "fashion" side of things. There are lots of "hard women" who are harder than the vast majority of "hard men". There is still room for innovation in woman-friendly pack design, sleeping bag design, boot design, climbing tool design, you name it, everything in the outdoor world.
As for Ed's comments on your username and the "bro" thing - are you going into a serious business or trying to play the "in" game (to borrow an even older "out of fashion" term)? If you are seriously trying to develop gear for the outdoor market, you need to get serious. Keep in mind the hard statistics - half of all startups die in the first year. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent vanish within 5 years. Go to several of the major trade shows and do a lot of listening and observing. And yes, as Ed said, change your approach.
One of the other things about going to the trade shows is to find out what ideas might already be patented and trademarked. Check your ideas out against what is already there. Because, intrude or appear to intrude on an existing patent or design and a lot of big companies have lawyers who will eat you for a mid-afternoon snack.
And, yeah, Ed is right in wishing you "good luck". Far too much of it is just that, luck. Oh, and if you are alert, you will find a wealth of ideas to investigate in what I wrote here.
