Trippy Outdoor
What: Portable outdoor chairs made from maplewood.
Company founded: Jan. 27, 2022, by Kyle Rose and Dony Dawson.
Number of employees: 7
Where: Production in North Richland Hills
Website: https://trippyoutdoor.com
Fort Worth Report spoke with Kyle Rose about the business. This interview has been edited for content, grammar and clarity.
Seth Bodine: How did you come up with the idea for your chairs?
Kyle Rose: One of my business partners, he is the product designer, lived in South Africa and saw some form factors like this over there and really liked it. This was probably 30 years ago. He kind of always was thinking about it, and then when it was in COVID, when we were just kind of slow and sitting around thinking about what we wanted to do. And we thought it’d be really fun to create an outdoor brand. And he threw out this idea. We really liked it. We started running with it, and that was kind of the genesis. When he threw it out. It was kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ And then he brought in the one that he brought home from South Africa. It was very cool. Like super like homemade, and hand carved.
Bodine: Like a small wooden chair?
Rose: Exactly. So he showed it to us and I was like, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool. But like, I don’t know, could we make a business out of that? I don’t know.’ So we started thinking about OK, well, how would we innovate on that? How will we modernize? Putting that aluminum bracket on the back was a key because then it could be lightweight and portable, whereas the original models are not, and then we could make it out of maplewood and so it just started to sort of roll from there on.
Bodine: How long did it take to figure out how to actually make the chairs?
Rose: We had this idea in July 2021. We were selling chairs in January of this year.
Bodine: What’s your background?
Rose: I came from financial consulting and business strategy. My role was not so much on the product side, but on the marketing and sales side. It’s my first time being in a manufacturing business, my first time kind of actually making things and seeing things being made and it’s a different experience.
Bodine: Tell me about the origin of the name of the business.
Rose: I was talking to my partner on the phone one day and we were trying to figure out a name and we were throwing a bunch of things back and forth. And I threw out “trippy” and we both kind of just stopped for a second. We thought about it for a few days. And we’re like how do you feel good? And we both said yes and just kind of what we liked was it’s fun, it’s approachable. It opens up this sort of artistic element that we always wanted to have. We liked that and we liked that it gives us a little bit of leeway to do fun stuff.
Bodine: Are you an outdoorsman?
Rose: I grew up in Oregon, lived for some time in Utah. And then now I’ve been here in Texas for like seven years. That’s just kind of what I grew up doing. We go skiing, hiking, camping. And so when this opportunity came up, and we were kind of like, we could create this really fun outdoor brand.
It’s kind of funny, it’s almost like selfishly thinking like, well, this is going to be a fun lifestyle, right? By starting an outdoor business, we’re going to get to go to outdoor events and live and do these things outdoors. So I love that.
Bodine: Any advice for entrepreneurs that want to start a business or make something here specifically in Tarrant County?
Rose: If you’re passionate about it, you should go for it. I think this has been one of the most fun, professional things I’ve ever done and it’s very stressful, but it’s very rewarding. And so one piece of blanket advice would be like, go for it if you have a good idea. More tactical advice, I would say: Be very strategic about how you start and how you allocate your funds in the beginning because you know, it can be harder than you think, to get your brand out there.
Don’t get discouraged. Spend your money on sort of what you think are going to be the very most fruitful things whether that’s going to trade shows or you know, having a nice looking website. It’s going to be different for every business depending on who you’re trying to reach. Spend frugally and just keep at it until you find something that’s working.
Seth Bodine is a business and economic development reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at seth.bodine@fortworthreport.org and follow on Twitter at @sbodine120.
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