Portfolio Feature: GoWild

In this portfolio feature, we sat down with the founder of GoWild, a social commerce platform built for the outdoors community, to hear the company’s story, its pivot, and what’s ahead.

Tell us a little bit about GoWild. Why do you exist? What is your story?

GoWild was founded out of necessity. In 2016, I saw how mainstream social media was ignoring the harassment of outdoors enthusiasts. The combination of that experience and the desire to have a platform where I could easily connect with the local outdoors community created the idea of GoWild, a social platform for outdoorsmen and women. Me and three other guys took $500 and an idea, and bootstrapped our way to a beta launch in 2017. Since then, we’ve raised some money, quit our 9-to-5s, and built a great team to scale the model we eventually landed on: social commerce. Today, my number one focus as CEO is to craft the product vision and curate a culture that makes chasing that vision possible.

How has GoWild grown over the past two years?

When COVID hit, our revenue was advertising-based, and it absolutely plummeted. Our member growth took off, though. We spent much of that year trying to find a way to make advertising work, but with the supply chain woes, it was clear we had to pivot. We moved into social commerce, empowering our members to tag the gear they were using in the field, and allowing people to see that content when shopping. When we launched in November 2020, we did five orders for the month. It was rough going at first, but I am proud to say we’ve seen a 62,320% increase in our monthly order volume, and through the first half of 2022, we grew at 30% month over month.

What is something you learned through the funding process?

More than anything, I’ve learned to keep momentum with my narrative. Momentum is the most powerful tool in fundraising, and too many founders stumble into rounds, announcing they’re raising and then starting to lay groundwork. It’s too late. I continue to build my narrative through investor updates, LinkedIn, media stories, and more, always building the story I want told. With this tactic, we launched a round in 2019 and raised $875,000 in just two weeks.

What advice would you give to someone looking to grow their startup?

Prepare yourself for mental swings. I had my best and worst day for GoWild on the same day in 2018. I had a panic attack that morning, I was about to attend my first trade show, and it all hit me that once I closed a deal, it would be real with no turning back. I pushed through, with support from my wife, pitched six companies, and closed our first ad deal that day for $10,000. I was over the moon just hours after wanting to quit. This is natural, and all founders go through it, but you have to mentally prepare to ride these waves.

How has your business had to pivot or adjust over the past few years?

Our entire business model was to get the audience, understand them better than anyone, and target advertisements to them. But the pandemic completely flattened the market, advertising is the first thing to go in a recession, and the supply chain piled on top of that. It was in August of 2020 when we realized we knew what people liked to do and what gear they used. We should just become a retailer and use our own ad platform to sell gear.

What trends are you seeing in the social commerce space?

A lot of mainstream social platforms are dabbling in social commerce, Instagram is an easy one to see, with its shop tab. But what is inherently social about seeing content, clicking it, and buying it in a vacuum? That is all Phase I of social commerce: transactional, impersonal, siloed. GoWild is focused on the later phases, which truly focus on community. We aggregate content at the product level, so when you’re shopping for a new watch, fishing rod, or backpack, you can see how people are using that product in the field, and dialogue with them. It’s 100% authentic, word of mouth on steroids. Overall, the United States is a solid 10 years behind the leaders in China.

What obstacle did you have to overcome to get where you are today?

Hundreds of nos from investors. Hiring top-notch talent. A recession. A pandemic. A pivot. But that’s any founder’s story. The most unique challenge we’ve faced is the bias from big tech when it comes to marketing our product, we have struggled against ambiguous, unfair rules applied to the outdoors industry.

What kind of impact are you hoping to make through GoWild?

Our team is very focused on shepherding in the new generation of outdoors enthusiasts. We donate 1% of our profits to a nonprofit that teaches kids and their parents about the outdoors. Our platform has curated some of the largest communities in the world around niche topics that mainstream social media misunderstands. I truly hope that through our legacy, we can give those communities a home and share with the world the good that the outdoors community does for conservation.

How do you define success in your work?

Continued progress. We are hitting revenue goals consistently for the first time, and that puts us one step closer to profitability. That gives us the most important thing a startup can get, time. With more time, we control our own destiny.

What are you excited about for the future of GoWild?

In the short term, GoWild will be rolling out several new partnerships with manufacturers, a really exciting next step. Over the next few years, I think you’ll see an interesting concept of what it means to be a retailer come forward. We are looking at ways to combine our community’s collective power and knowledge into a shopping experience that is the ultimate answer to your outdoor questions.