The Outerly Investment Thesis
I am thrilled to share my second angel investment into Outerly, a community app aimed at making the outdoor recreation industry safer and more social. Not only is this something that I’m personally passionate about, it’s also a company founded by my good friend and fellow DC resident Kay, and I couldn’t be more happy to support both the DC startup ecosystem and the DC outdoor ecosystem with my investment dollars.
Outerly is raising via a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) on Wefunder, an equity crowdfunding platform where anyone (including non-accredited investors) can support startups and get access to equity. Depending on when you read this, their raise might still be open for investment if you want to join in on the deal!
The Problem with the Outdoor Industry
Humans were designed to commune with nature, and getting outdoors is incredibly important to our physical and mental health. For some this is a no brainer, and it can feel easy to develop hobbies like hiking, camping, swimming, and other outdoor sports and recreational activities. But for many, the outdoors are gate kept. Because be honest, when I mentioned all of those activities, who were you picturing in your mind? If you’re anything like the US outdoor recreation marketing industry, it was probably a bunch of very fit, very white, dudes (see research here, here, here, here, and here for more info). If you don’t fall into any one of those three categories, getting outside might be intimidating at best, or potentially dangerous at worst.
Kay, a woman of color with a passion for the outdoors, is using technology as a gateway to the outdoors for anyone who doesn’t quite see themselves as belong there in the first place, whether because you are a woman who is nervous about hiking alone, an older person who wants to try a new sport for the first time, or a city kid who now thinks she might be into sleeping outside for a change. One shocking statistic I learned from Kay? Less than 1 in 5 people in the US participate in outdoor activities weekly, and only half of the population participates in outdoor activities once per year. That is fucking nuts! Kay is laser focused on the loneliness epidemic that’s racing across the US and how to combat that using outdoor activity and connection.
How Outerly Encourages Connection with Nature and with Others
Outerly is sort of like if All Trails didn’t suck, and had curated ideas for things to do outside like the Nudge, and had a way to meet people like Meetup.com or Bumble. It solves two problems: not knowing where to go to get outside (which is especially hard if you live in an urban area, the spaces Outerly is launching in first) and who to go outside with (especially if you just moved to a new city and don’t have any friends yet. Can you tell I’m speaking from experience here?).
When you join Outerly you’re prompted to highlight the different activities you’d like to do, and then can see others in your area who are similarly interested. You get a curated activities dashboard where you can see ideas for places to go, other friends and friends of friends who might be interested in joining you, and an alert for any activities going on at certain locations you could take advantage of. Outerly has an event page where they, their business partners, and individual “Outerliers” (yes I’m making that a thing) can host events and manage sign ups, tickets, and attendees.
Outerly’s DC beta currently has 400+ users and one business partner that will use the Outerly platform for all of its event postings and sign ups (oh, and that business partner operations nationally, so Outerly has the potential to scale with it, which is a great way to solve the market-to-market launch problem).
Why I Decided to Invest
I am proud to have been quite possibly the first paid subscriber for Outerly because this is a community I have been desperately wanting to find in DC! I’m often told that DC doesn’t have any great outdoor spots, which is a complete fallacy that I’d like to rebut. There are so many great nature spots within day-trip driving distance of the city, but when I first moved here I didn’t know that, and I didn’t know anyone to ask. It took me almost two years to discover beautiful places I now love to visit like Little Seneca Lake, Big Meadows in Shenandoah, and Burke Lake campgrounds.
While I’ve always loved being outside I would never have described myself as an “outdoors-y” person because I didn’t feel like I fit the bill of those super adventurous, granola-y people that I secretly wanted to be more like but also am not quite coordinated enough to ever be. It wasn’t until I met my now husband, a Marine who could easily live in nature forever and not even break a sweat, that I started to become way more comfortable with myself outside, and was able to expand my outdoor hobbies to more than the occasional hike or beach trip. But not everyone wants a Marine husband in their lives, and not everyone should need that to enjoy the outdoors.
It’s been really cool to see Kay’s journey building and scaling Outerly, and I’ll continue to be a big fan as the app moves from beta testing to official launch this month, continuing to make the outdoor industry a little less male-dominated and a lot more inviting!