Deep Dive into Peak Design and early vibes from Outdoor Retailer 2024

Peak Design - the Crowdfunding powerhouse

The first time I met Peter Dering at Peak Design’s HQ in San Francisco, I was taken aback. Firstly, I didn’t expect him to be so tall! You know, when you have a preconceived idea of someone and they turn out to be very different? We had spoken a few times via link and phone, but this was in person. He was stressed by a work issue when I arrived, but relaxed after a little bit.

Anyone who has ever even stumbled across Kickstarter probably knows the Peak Design story. They started with a simple camera clip that made it easy to clip an SLR camera to a strap or belt initially, and then to a bike or car. Why? He was solving his own problem. A solution didn’t exist. Or at least a suitable one didn’t.

That was in 2011. Thirteen years later, Peak Design has become a very trusted brand in the camera accessory sector and can be bought worldwide. In fact, our colleague Loke in the office next door to mine uses a Peak Design backpack and ‘raves’ about it. In that time PD (I never asked if Peter’s and the company’s initials being the same was a coincidence..) has launched ten more Kickstarter campaigns - raising $36m in revenues in the process - and ran the eighth most funded campaign ever with their Travel Tripod gathering over $12m in pre-orders.

Suffice it to say that they know a thing or two about crowdfunding. But it doesn’t stop there. While a lot of new companies have a lot of success with crowdfunding campaigns, they are rarely able to match that in the real eCommerce world. Not so with Peak Design. Their growth has continued, especially through their own peakdesign.com, which of course is ideal as they ‘own’ the customer and customer data for re-selling.

So, what makes them so special? I expected to meet a polished marketing guy at the helm. Not so. In fact when I described what we do pre launch of our Kickstarter campaigns, he said that I ‘probably expected their approach to be much more sophisticated, but it isn’t.’ Peter did say that the marketing was run by someone else on the team by then, but one feels that Peter has his hand in every aspect of that business. No - not a fancy marketer. Rather, he is obviously a pure product guy. Through and through. He is obsessive about it. It wouldn’t be unusual for products to be years in the making. At that time they were developing their range of bags and backpacks, and the detail was extraordinary. Different materials were being shipped from different countries to a final assembler, which sounds OTT in this day and age. But it’s that ‘OTT’ that continuously marks these kinds of brands. Over and above expectations. Remember - ‘over engineered’ Yeti Coolers? Exceeding expectations in a sure way of winning repeat customers. And this engineer come entrepreneur is perfectly positioned to take advantage. As much as he loves to focus on the product, he get sales and marketing too.

What’s the future for Peak? Well, they continue to use Kickstarter, even when you’d think they don’t need to. And while wholesale was a big part of the business, I think this company is made for D2C. It’s in their DNA, so to speak. And Dering has since co-founded ‘The Change Climate Project’ which describes itself as ‘the independent nonprofit working with consumers and brands to eliminate carbon emissions.’

So I get the feeling that Peter realizes he can only eat one dinner in the day. And that’s enough. I would expect him to try and give back. I don’t think a big exit is of interest to a guy more interested in riding his motorcycle through Yosemite. Of course, I may be wrong. But I doubt it. It’s refreshing that they’ve stayed true to their roots by still embracing crowdfunding. But Peter maintains that “Kickstarter has been masquerading as something other than a sales channel for a long time, but it is a sales channel–and a great one,”. So the fondness goes beyond nostalgia. He makes an interesting point on Retail Brew:

“…while the margin is higher on the website, twice as many people who visit a product’s Kickstarter page purchase it than those who visit its page on Peak Design’s e-commerce site. That means, in retail-trade parlance, that the conversion rate is twice as good on Kickstarter.”

Interesting, very interesting… I know not everyone is Peak Design, but I’ve heard similar stats thrown around by others…

Outdoors search trends - summer 2024

Interesting to see some trends emerging this summer.

Firstly, power banks are certainly still being searched for. Interesting to compare with sleeping bags, traditionally one of the most searched terms, as their paths diverge. The breakout suggestions show Anker is a brand in demand.

However, it’s still amazing to see how cooler search dwarfs them all:

I’ve also been looking at hiking and camping apps. While it’s becoming a little more fractured, it’s safe to say that AllTrails is still the absolute king, with Gaia GPS making little inroads.

A look at their revenue history is also interesting - it was 2023 before the revenues hockey-sticked. Also eye opening how much funding they’ve received. The two graphs would suggest that monetization of an existing audience has been the only show in town since its most recent round of funding.

It’ll be interesting to see where these tech advances go. Apps haven’t broken through with the ferocity I expected. It fact, I wonder if the notion is regressing? We know how difficult it is to keep a consumer engaging with App, or even to get them to keep Apps on their phone…