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Today on The Rock Fight (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) we're once again breaking news!
Outdoor blanket maker Rumpl has announced a significant management change, with founder Wiley Robinson shifting from CEO to chairman of the board, while Josh Simpson steps in as general manager. And The Rock Fight has the scoop as both of them join Colin and outdoor industry insider Eoin Comerford on today's episode to break it all down.
This transition is aimed at enhancing Rumpl's focus on brand and product innovation, as Robinson seeks to balance personal responsibilities with the complexities of running a growing company.
During the show, Robinson and Simpson discuss the strategic implications of this leadership shift, including how it will affect Rumpl's approach to product development and market positioning. They also delve into the brands challenges, such as inventory management and pricing strategies in the wake of recent economic pressures.
Lastly they offer a look at what 2025 may hold as tariffs loom and sustainability remains a key demand from the outdoor consumer.
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Episode Transcript
Colin True
00:00:00.320 - 00:01:10.638
Welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin True and today we're once again breaking news here on the Rock Fight.
Outdoor blanket maker Rumple has announced a management change and you're hearing about it first here on the Rock Fight. Now before we get to that, some housekeeping and programming reminders for you. We want your emails, folks.
Send them to myrockfightmail.com also come back to the Rock Fight this Wednesday as I'm joined by outdoor journalist Justin Hausman to review headlines and stories to come out of the outdoor Store Adventure community on Friday. You can come back to hear my conversation this week with Andrea Kelly, who's the founder of make plus Equal.
On that episode, we'll talk about the business upside for brands who go about adding plus sizes to their product lines.
And hey, if you don't want to wait till Wednesday or Friday for more Rock Fight goodness, then head to Rockfight Co and click Join the mailing list to get news from the front, our weekly newsletter that drops tomorrow and drops on Tuesdays. And lastly, our podcast subscribers make this show what it is.
So if you're new around here, we would love it if you join the Rock Fight by hitting the follow button on whatever podcast app you are listening to us on. And also, you know, hey, come on, give us that five star rating. All right, let's start the show.
Chris DeMakes
00:01:10.694 - 00:01:14.650
Welcome to the Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Colin True
00:01:17.990 - 00:01:20.158
You're listening to Rock Fight Radio.
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Colin True
00:02:19.740 - 00:04:45.680
Welcome back to Rockflight Radio. I'm DJCT and that was Bold Sock, the newest track from Fit.
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First when Switchback announced Switchback Spring, that trade show, they announced it last summer. We broke that here on the Rock flight.
Also in backcountry.com, was acquired and most recently when YETI told retailers that they would be sunsetting Mystery Ranch's specialty business in 2026.
Well, add today to that list because this news is dropping this morning, Monday, January 13th, that Rumple founder and CEO Wiley Robinson is moving on from the CEO position of Rumple to be chairman of the board where he will be focusing on brand and product innovation. And Josh Simpson is going to be joining Rumpel as general manager to lead the day to day.
Now, management changes aren't as juicy as acquisitions or brand closures, but we're excited to bring you this news because for one, while we selfishly want to be the leading outlet for the business of the outdoors, but also it's because there's a lot to learn and dissect from this move by Rumple. So today we're going to unpack a bunch of those topics as we're joined by the two key players in this story, Wiley Robinson and Josh Simpson.
They're both here.
They joined me, an outdoor industry insider and consigliere to the Rock fight, Owen Comerford, for a conversation about why they're making this move, how they expect it will impact a midsize outdoor brand like Rumpel, and how some of their past missteps played into this decision. We also took a look ahead at 2025 as well as the topics of the moment like tariffs, sustainability and domestic manufacturing.
Welcome back to the Rock Fight where today breaking news, it's the Rumple Management shakeup with Wiley Robinson and Josh Simpson. All right, everyone. Well, news has just dropped on some leadership changes at outdoor blanket brand.
Rumpel founder Wiley Robinson is moving on from the CEO position to chairman of the board where he'll be focusing on brand product innovation. And Josh Simpson is going to be joining the brand as general manager and will lead the day to day operations.
And joining us today for an exclusive first interview to talk about these Changes are Wy and Josh from Rumple. Welcome to the show, guys.
Wiley Robinson
00:04:46.180 - 00:04:47.564
Thanks for having us.
Josh Simpson
00:04:47.732 - 00:04:49.164
Yeah, thanks so much.
Colin True
00:04:49.332 - 00:04:56.204
Like I mentioned the open, you know, Owen Comerford, he's with us as well are the the consigliery to the rock fight. So we brought up the big guns to chat with you guys.
Wiley Robinson
00:04:56.332 - 00:04:56.844
Hey, Owen.
Josh Simpson
00:04:56.892 - 00:04:58.220
Good to see you guys.
Colin True
00:04:58.380 - 00:05:00.732
I sense the trepidation. This is good. This is good.
Eoin Comerford
00:05:00.756 - 00:05:06.440
Oh, yeah. I'm mean, yeah, it's gonna be good cup, bad cup the whole way.
Wiley Robinson
00:05:07.380 - 00:05:08.268
Perfect.
Colin True
00:05:08.444 - 00:05:20.284
All right, all right, so let's start with the kind of the big picture, like why you guys are actually here. Wiley, let's start with you. I mean, you've been at the helm of this brand that you co founded for over a decade now.
You know, why is this the time for this move?
Wiley Robinson
00:05:20.372 - 00:07:20.176
Yeah, it's a good question and one I've asked myself obviously a bunch of times over the last 12, 18 months as I've been thinking about this. But there's really three things that I would point to and the first is pretty simple, just personal.
I have a very different life now than I did over a decade ago when I co founded Rumple. I've got two young kids, age three and five. They take a lot of time, a lot of responsibility.
I also have a partner that's got a really intense work schedule. She works in tech, she's down in the Bay Area every other week. And so I need to single dad it every other week.
I just think that bringing in a GM is going to really help me better balance those responsibilities, personal and professional.
And then on the very practical side, Rumble has grown a lot since it was started, both in complexity and impact and consequence of decisions that are made. And broadly speaking, I think scaling one's own skill set at the pace of business is just hard to do.
And as the business has become more complex, I try always to be as self aware as possible. And I acknowledge to our board about 18 months ago that I felt really over my skis and that I needed some help. So that was on a very practical side.
And then the third thing I think is just opportunity cost. At the end of the day, I care most about doing what's best for Rumple.
And my job over the last 10 years has been to think about how to allocate our resources to whatever's going to be most beneficial for the company. And my background and passion and biggest strength is in design. And I'm not doing that for the company right now.
And so I think that's a meaningful Opportunity cost for the business to not have me in that seat.
And so putting someone in a general management role that can run the day to day allows me to get back into that role and I think add the most value to Rumple that I can.
Colin True
00:07:20.248 - 00:07:29.232
I think the Internet aggregators are just going to pick up that, you know, CEO of Rumple says don't have kids, it'll ruin your career. I think that's no, I was actually.
Wiley Robinson
00:07:29.256 - 00:07:33.860
Going to ask man if they stay three years old forever, maybe that's true.
Colin True
00:07:34.600 - 00:07:38.540
If they stayed three years old forever, none of us would ever do it more than once.
Wiley Robinson
00:07:38.840 - 00:07:40.176
Totally. Yeah.
Eoin Comerford
00:07:40.288 - 00:08:01.196
Well you're about to get into the great years with kids coming up. But yeah, I would say a lot of founders are not that self aware too to realize what you have quite frankly.
And it goes from the self awareness comes only in an absolute crisis. So I think getting ahead of it is definitely a good move.
Colin True
00:08:01.268 - 00:08:23.070
Thanks. You kind of referenced it, but what is the thought of just you moving on to a new role? But it's not replacing the CEO position in general.
Why go with the general manager? Is it just truly you want more of a steward of the day to day, is it you're not really sure what you want to do long term with the CEO positions.
You want to just kind of keep that to yourself until you see if that is something you want to replace down the road.
Wiley Robinson
00:08:23.370 - 00:08:46.780
It's very much a steward of the day to day. And really it's just semantics. I mean Josh is the senior most operating member of our team. I'm chairman of the board.
So technically if things went sideways or something, there would be sort of like a rip cord I could pull there. But he's the senior most operator and it's largely semantics. CEO, president, managing director, etc.
Colin True
00:08:47.600 - 00:08:53.864
So you bring Josh up and Josh, we're going to get to you in a second. But why Josh? You know why. Why did you decide on Josh as, as the guy to take over that role?
Wiley Robinson
00:08:53.952 - 00:12:35.876
Yeah, so I went through a really, really extensive recruiting process and I should also mention my wife is a recruiter and so I have like kind of this, this template and rubric of how to, how to have robust recruiting processes. But I, I got the board super involved in this as well.
And as I mentioned, you know, I, I think I first brought this up to them in our Q4 23 board meeting.
So this is like November of 23 is when I said hey, I really think that I want to bring this person in, not Josh, but this role in and I spent 11 months talking to people. I talked to over 100 people about the role. And these are not like 15 minute get to know you.
These are like sometimes 60, 90 minute first introductory calls for a role of this magnitude. And so this took 2, 300 hours of time just on the initial assessments, let alone the subsequent follow up conversations that I had with people.
But there were really five things that I wanted to pay super close attention to in the process. And the first was just the interpersonal dynamic and vibe that I have with them.
I mean, key to this person's success is my ability and their ability to work together. Because I'm still involved in the day to day and I still care a lot about the decisions that are made at this company.
Like us, having a good dynamic is absolutely paramount.
So that was the first thing that I was screening for, and that was, you can usually tell that in the first minute or so when you're talking to someone. The second thing was just scale calibration.
You know, Rumple is in like an interesting tweener scale where we are, you know, we have, we have strong, durable revenue, you know, and we need to hire people that are ready for kind of that growth stage of business. And it's just like a lean cost structure.
You need to make sure that you're building your resources and cost structure in a way that the business can support. And that's really tough to do at our current kind of tweener scale.
So someone that's familiar at that scale, that doesn't have abundant resources at their disposal at all times is really hard to find. And then the third thing was the entrepreneurial kind of roll up your sleeves quality.
Most of the people that I spoke to that are in like, you know, C suite or senior management roles, they have been in positions for the last, you know, several years of their career where they've delegated a lot of the work. And Rumble is still very entrepreneurial. People still have to do a lot of work in addition to managing work.
And so I really wanted to find someone with an entrepreneurial background. And Josh has had some really interesting and impressive, you know, notes on his resume of entrepreneurial experience.
Fixed to design this wallet that I'm using right here. It's an awesome little product he launched on Kickstarter, which is kind of close to my heart because Rumple, the Kickstarter brand.
So I thought that was really cool. And then category experience and expertise was really important.
Josh knew Rumple deeply as formerly a competitor, frankly to Rumple, from Sea to Summit and then also his knowledge of adjacent categories that we may be looking to get into, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. And then the fifth thing is just recommendations.
You know, I went deep on recommendations, well beyond the references that Josh provided to me, and, you know, just tried to scour for good, bad, you know, left, right, center, all sorts of perspectives on these candidates. And so those are the five, the five things.
Vibe, scale calibration, roll up your sleeves, entrepreneurial capabilities, category experience and expertise, and then recommendations and how other peers and people that have worked with this person speak about them. So, yeah, it was over 100 people I talked to. Ultimately. Josh kind of checked all those boxes and I'm.
So far, we're a few days in, 60 days in here, but it's going great so far and I'm really pleased with the hire.
Colin True
00:12:35.988 - 00:12:41.360
Well, you didn't tell Josh that actually this podcast is the last step in the interview process, that you've got 99 of these.
Wiley Robinson
00:12:41.820 - 00:12:44.678
You got to nail this thing, Josh. No pressure.
Eoin Comerford
00:12:44.764 - 00:13:18.564
The scale calibration comment I think is really good. And if we have any founders listening to the podcast today, I think that's a really great point.
And it's one that I've seen private equity mess up so many times because they want to bring in that the professional CEO, quote, unquote, to take over from the founder, and they want it to be a billion dollar business. So they bring in somebody who has run a multibillion dollar business who doesn't have the first clue how to run a $20 million business.
And it almost always goes horribly wrong. So I think that that's absolutely a key point.
Colin True
00:13:18.652 - 00:13:40.400
Well, Josh, thanks for being patient.
We waited to get to you, all about you, but your last two stops in the industry, like, whereas Wiley mentioned a sea to summit, and then you were recently working with Snow Peak's new campground in Long Beach, Washington, which I find to be an underrated surf destination, by the way. Maybe that's because I'm a bad surfer, but I think it's a great place to go surfing. What about Rumble? You know, from your point of view, why.
Why did you want to make this your next move?
Wiley Robinson
00:13:41.450 - 00:15:10.320
I want to applaud Wiley in this process because he certainly took his time and was very intentional about what he was looking for. And I was also, you know, this was a very slow role for me. I left see the summit in 2023.
And you know, as we were speaking about earlier, I did my, I did my round of consulting.
The opportunity arose to go out to Long beach and help my friends at Snow Peak, who I had, you know, also had a long relationship with, almost went to work for them a number of years ago, launched this Campfield thing that they had been working on for five years. And it's, it was just an incredibly exciting and ambitious project.
And I thought it would be, you know, as we all know, the last couple years in the outdoor industry have been rocky, to say the, to say the least. I thought it was a good time to kind of step back out of a role like this and really take my time and try and find the ideal brand and fit for me.
Which, you know, Wiley was doing in parallel for Rumpel. So, you know, we actually crossed paths at the very end of his search almost on accident. And at first I didn't quite see the opportunity.
I had known and admired Rumple for many years, as Wiley said. You know, we looked at Rumple and what Rumble was doing in several categories pretty closely while I was at sea to Summit.
But as I got to know Wiley better and really kind of understood where the business was at, I got really excited about the opportunity. And I think Rumple's just, yeah, really poised for a great next chapter.
Eoin Comerford
00:15:10.820 - 00:15:39.008
So, Wiley, you've been pretty open in the press recently about maybe some of the struggles over the last couple of years. And there were some pricing changes that went on at the msrp, pricing oversupply. You certainly weren't alone in the oversupply problem.
And then how it really drove your strategy for last fall with pricing and discounts and what have you. How did that or did that at all enter into this, this conversation or this decision?
Wiley Robinson
00:15:39.144 - 00:17:36.529
It had some effect.
I mean, if, if we kind of go back to the three topics that I mentioned at the start of the conversation, just, you know, the, the personal desire to free up some space to spend more time with my kids, the very practical, you know, experience, growth stage need for someone that's, that's had that experience, and then the opportunity cost piece. I would say that the, the things I've spoken about in the article you're referencing directly related to that practical need.
Obviously, there was tons of macro challenges facing Rumple and other outdoor brands throughout 23 and 24, but I do think that there were a couple of decisions that were made on my watch that very likely someone with more experience like Josh, would be able to have better vision against and maybe make a better decision with what they knew.
One thing I've observed in myself over the last decade in this seat is if a similar situation or decision needs to get made that I've already kind of dealt with in the past, I'm like so much faster to have this point of view about how we should make that decision.
And you know, I'm a first time founder and CEO and so every day for me is, is frankly new and every time Rumple grows to the next stage, you know, that's just new territory for me.
And as I mentioned also, like, the quality of decisions need to be really high and the impact and consequence of wrong decisions becomes really high as the business scales as well. And so again, I want to make sure Rumple is set up as best I can to be successful.
And I think that bringing someone in that has experience making some of the decisions that we're going to have to make over the next three, five, ten years is going to just greatly advantage the business.
And so, yeah, I think that, you know, call it maybe a third of my consideration was not specifically around what I referenced in that article, but just like wanting to make sure that the business, that the leadership of the business is making the right decisions for the business at that time.
Colin True
00:17:37.149 - 00:17:53.249
Why do you want to stick around a lot of founders, to Owen's point of saying earlier, like, it's kind of like, hey, time for you to punch out now. Thanks for, thanks for getting this whole thing going and you know, the labor of love and all that to make it happen.
But yeah, you clearly seem like you want to keep your hands in the brand. What is it that makes you want to stick around?
Wiley Robinson
00:17:53.860 - 00:18:37.254
I mean, big picture. I love design. I have a design background, actually started as an architect and I love designing stuff.
I love thinking about the story that you wrap a product up in and I'm really excited to do that for a business that I started. And so I want to stick around because if I wasn't at Rumple, I'd probably try to find a job doing something like that somewhere else.
That's what I was doing before Rumple and so might as well do it for a brand that I have tons of passion about and have been at and know intimately, you know, for 10 years and also have a lot of like, you know, financial outcome tied to. So yeah, that's why I want to stick around. I still really like what I do. Yeah.
Josh Simpson
00:18:37.382 - 00:19:03.542
Yeah.
I see this as a really powerful moment for Rumble to have a founder that has, has built a successful business and who remains as deeply engaged in the day to day as Wiley is, to have this opportunity for him to redeploy to areas of the business that he's most passionate about with his full focus is a really powerful thing and you don't see it happen often. So I think only good things can come from this.
Wiley Robinson
00:19:03.646 - 00:19:55.764
I should mention also that as I was thinking about bringing in a gm, I spoke to tons of founders that have done this. And I can say that it's like super binary. You know, it either works really well or it really doesn't work.
And the ones that, you know, I've been able to make it work really well.
I mean, there's all the basics, like they need to get along really well with the person, they need to have a good rapport with them, but more often than not, they move themselves back into the exact area that they're most passionate about and they just find this whole new level of fulfillment with their work. They add more value to the company.
And their peers and their colleagues around them are grateful for them for doing that because they see it in how they behave and how they show up at work. And I had some really good conversations with a bunch of founders that were able to do this successfully.
And that's kind of what I aspired to when I was going through the process.
Eoin Comerford
00:19:55.932 - 00:20:15.952
Yeah.
What I would say is, I mean, as a quote unquote, professional executive type person that people would look to in similar situations, I actually usually would shy away from situations where the founder stuck around just because a lot of founders have really hard time letting go. And Josh is writing something down right now.
Colin True
00:20:15.976 - 00:20:16.752
I don't know what.
Eoin Comerford
00:20:16.856 - 00:20:51.030
No, so. So, you know, it can work really well. Like, I had. I had an excellent relationship with Robert Wolf, who was the founder of Moose Jaw.
He and I are still friends and go out to dinner. But that could have also gone horribly wrong. And it typically does rest on the founder to, To. To.
To put it in the right perspective and in the right light and, you know, to.
To give enough leeway to where this new person coming in can actually implement stuff, but also make sure that you're not being totally hands off and not providing the wisdom that you've gained over the many years that you founded the company.
Wiley Robinson
00:20:52.130 - 00:21:36.794
Yeah.
One of the other steps in this process was I spent a lot of time thinking about where my role stops and where Josh's role starts or where the GM's role starts. And we have a pretty clear delineation right now, I would say, between what Josh is responsible for and what I'm responsible for.
And I think that that's the key piece.
The last thing I wanted to do, especially for the team at Rumple here is create this like mom and dad situation where it's like, oh, I just asked Wiley about this thing and he said this, but then Josh said this other thing that's totally different. So like, who do I listen to here?
And I've made it very clear to the team that like Josh is the senior most authority on day to day business operations.
And I have this little pocket that I sit in which is design and innovation and product marketing a little bit, but it's not a lot of these other things that I was doing before.
Josh Simpson
00:21:36.962 - 00:22:01.560
I was just going to comment to Owen's point there. You know, I think one of the things that I bring to this situation is I have worked closely with more than one founder over the years.
I've been a founder myself and I think I have a unique take on what this feels like for Rumple as an organization and most importantly, what it feels like for Wiley personally. And I think that sensitivity and that familiarity with this dynamic is really important in moments like this.
Colin True
00:22:01.690 - 00:22:07.080
So we're not going to check in with you guys in a year and find you in couples therapy where we feel like you might.
Josh Simpson
00:22:07.620 - 00:22:09.532
It's a honeymoon phase though.
Colin True
00:22:09.716 - 00:22:11.320
Everything's great right now.
Eoin Comerford
00:22:13.060 - 00:22:45.870
So guys, I know it's early, but I got an email from you as a customer yesterday that basically said, hey, we're not doing any more. We're only having two big sales a year, we're not doing any more discounting and you're coming off of a pretty discount heavy Q4.
That's a pretty big decision to go out to your customers with that message. Take me through that decision process.
Was that a, hey, this is Josh and we're going to do this thing and oh hey, by the way, Riley, this is what we're going to do. How did that happen?
Josh Simpson
00:22:46.970 - 00:24:54.560
I'll take that one first and not to pull a chapter out of our political landscape right now, but nobody wants to be a dictator on day one, right? Well, maybe some people do, but this was my first and hopefully only mandate to the team to put the brakes on this. And look, I get it.
Every brand has gotten caught up to some extent over the last couple seasons in this cycle of discounting. And you know, was it the only way to deal with the inventory issues and the landscape out there? Maybe. For many brands, obviously it was.
Was our situation self inflicted? Partially, yes. But at some point you just have to say stop and look for different ways to skin this cat.
The team here is doing a lot of great work behind the scenes right now to rework our map calendar to rethink our seasonal and sort of end of life strategies and to build in more creative ways to engage our retail partners. So this isn't going to be the last you hear from us on this.
And I believe as we roll out more of this realignment, our partners are going to recognize what we're trying to do and they're going to appreciate it even more.
There's going to obviously be some short term pain, but that's pain that we need to deal with internally, not just, you know, flood the market with more discounts. And you know, it's going to require some recalibration in certain aspects of our buying behavior in our supply chain.
But the end goal is to create a model that relies more on scarcity and seasonal moments that all of our partners can participate in without having to rely on discounts. And secondarily to that, we're looking at how we're going to sunset our different artwork and designs and colors.
So again, that discounting doesn't have to be the solution to that. So this is probably going to take a year or so to fully implement sort of within our business processes.
And again, there will be some short term pain that the team has to navigate here.
But yeah, the discounting ending on January 1st was definitely something that, that we were all holding hands and agreeing was the right thing for the brand.
Colin True
00:24:56.460 - 00:25:32.610
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Eoin Comerford
00:25:33.390 - 00:26:14.618
Actually, a lot of independent retailers do listen to this show and one of the things that has been getting some buzz within the industry recently is this fact that brands are doing exclusives either only available through their D2C site or only available through big Box. Other big box retailers that we won't name on the show.
How would you say, what would you say to retailers who are saying, hey, it seems like one of Rumpel's big strategies is bringing out a lot of exclusive blanket designs that are only available on their site. And so I'M just kind of getting the, the general assortment, not something special or truly specialty.
Josh Simpson
00:26:14.714 - 00:27:07.940
Yeah, I mean, I'll let Wiley comment to past strategies. I'll just, I'll just make this comment.
In terms of our go forward thinking, I don't think there's, I don't really think there's any sort of one size fits all approach here that works for retailers and brands. I think some retailers are better equipped and have the appetite to chase trends and freshness and sort of be on beyond that leading edge.
And there's others that are more conservative and they want to buy into what know what they know works and what's proven. I think being a good brand partner means that we're creating products and programs that serve both and we're behaving in an inclusive manner.
We're giving them the chance to opt in into whatever we're promoting and putting our energy behind.
And we absolutely, again, sort of following on to the discounting conversation, we intend to sort of rework our go to market strategies to be more inclusive in this way.
Wiley Robinson
00:27:08.020 - 00:29:45.434
Yeah, I mean, one thing I would also add to this is like obviously I hear a lot of commentary around retailers not loving brands doing DTC exclusives and driving energy to their website and stuff like that. I do think part of that is slightly misunderstood though.
I mean, a lot of the products that we release exclusively on our website are tests and we don't know that they're actually going to be really commercial. They might be like really abstract designs with graphic artists that have nothing to do with the outdoor industry.
And the average consumer walking into a core outdoor shop may have no idea who that artist is and may be completely uncompelled by that.
And it may be an opportunity for us to reach a new audience on our website through really targeted marketing tactics that does resonate with that artist or with that design. And so of course there are certain prints that we put on our website and do things, particularly around holiday, to drive energy to that site.
But a lot of it is also testing and in many ways I see it as mitigating some of the risk from the retailer. One of our board members, Kyle Hencey, is the founder of Chubby Shorts, which is like a notorious DTC first company.
They sold to solo brands two years ago and that was a very successful outcome. I don't want to misquote this, but I think something like 50 to 60% of their revenue now comes from retail, third party retail.
And the reason why they're so successful there is because they waited so long to go into, into third party retail that when they finally did, they were able to go to these accounts and say, hey, we've been running this test on our website for two years on these shorts or shirts or whatever it is. We know that this blue works well. You want to like your bell curve sits in the middle of medium and large size. This is the assortment you want.
This is the color you want. This is exactly what you want to take in to ensure high velocity sell through. And they learned all that information on their website.
And so that's a lot of what we're trying to do here is learn what works, what sells really well and then present an assortment to wholesalers maybe the next season that includes the winners and doesn't include the losers. A really good example of this playing out in real time is we launched a camp pillow like five, six months ago.
We weren't sure if this was the category that people would like from Rumple. Turns out it did really well.
We've repackaged the whole thing up and, and we didn't even launch it with retail packaging, by the way, because it was just on our website. And we wanted to just test and see if the product category worked for us. That thing's ready for primetime. It's going into wholesale next season.
I don't think that hurts the retailer in that case. It sets it up and it optimizes the product so that it's going to be better received by retail.
Colin True
00:29:45.562 - 00:30:31.160
So is this like almost a communication issue in a way where it's like, if it's going to, is that if that message being communicated to your wholesale partners? Right.
So if I'm a specialty retailer and I support Rumble and I sell your products in my store and then I just happen to log on your website, I see all this shit that I can't get for whatever reason, but nobody's told me like, oh no, no, this is all going to pay forward for you. My natural response is going to be kind of fudge these guys. Right? You know, how come I didn't get that?
You know, and maybe I'm not going to be proactive in reaching out.
So is that, I mean, and I'm not saying that this has been the case, but is that, is that, is that, is that a communication issue or is it truly like, no, no, no. We overly communicate and some of these guys just aren't really listening to what we have to say.
I understand that's an age old problem, but I also can understand how wholesalers these days can probably be maybe A little more sensitive given the way things have gone down over the last 10 years, too. You know what I mean?
Wiley Robinson
00:30:31.540 - 00:30:54.080
Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's a fine line. Like in. So we definitely try to communicate a lot of these things as. As best we can.
And to your point, some of them want to listen and some of them don't. Sure. And I think that, you know, there's a fine line you walk about communicating things that you're testing that may go wrong.
You know, we don't necessarily want to communicate everything we're doing at the brand that doesn't actually make it to prime time for wholesale.
Colin True
00:30:54.530 - 00:30:57.514
And so trust us, guys, you don't want that thing. It didn't work.
Wiley Robinson
00:30:57.602 - 00:31:16.682
Yeah, yeah. And you don't want to look like you're making a lot of mistakes and you're trying products on your site that don't work.
And so, yeah, for the things that we do have high confidence in, we do share that. We're running a test for one season on our website, and if it goes well, then you'll see it in the catalog next selling cycle.
Colin True
00:31:16.826 - 00:32:15.602
I do think this is where, I mean, to think of you guys, this is almost where you're uniquely positioned. Right. Because even back to the design piece with Wiley, what you want to focus on, and I want to get to something that's going to.
It's in the pressure. Lisa came out the day. This episode is dropping as well. Of. It's the simplicity of the product.
It's like, it's almost like, you know, I think this is something where I'm like, wow, you guys have really positioned yourself almost in a big way and like a big footprint. But then when you see the assortment, it's like, it's, it's, it's blankets. Right. It's very. It's very simple.
At the same time, you know, it says in the press release that you guys can be kind of doubling down on being a brand in the outdoor industry. I mean, I, I got. I got two part two questions for that. I mean, is that. Does it matter?
I mean, I think you're almost uniquely positioned where you can go outside the industry. And, yeah, you'll get a little blowback from, like, the inside baseball people like Owen and me. But also, you know, I think that doesn't mean.
I don't. I don't know how much that would hurt you to, like, be. Go beyond the industry in a meaningful way and also, I guess.
Or does it mean that there's product line expansions coming down the pike with this, with everything that's happening over there with, with this change, I was just.
Josh Simpson
00:32:15.626 - 00:32:27.272
Gonna say, I think it's a bit of both.
You know, we talk a lot internally at Rumple around the brand being kind of activity agnostic, meaning we're as much for the climber as we are for the casual jogger or the family.
Colin True
00:32:27.376 - 00:32:27.784
Right.
Josh Simpson
00:32:27.872 - 00:34:37.232
You know, having a campfire in the backyard. You know, one of the things Wiley shared with me through the.
Through the onboarding process, which I found really resonated with me, is Rumple makes these products for these moments around the activity or in between the activities. And I think that gives us a lot of permission to show up authentically outside of core outdoor channels. You know, for example, we know our.
We know our customers love using Rumple blankets at sporting events, whether that's a football game or watching the kids play soccer on the weekend. And that's definitely a demographic and a strategy that we're going to lean more into going forward.
But I think we see it all the time with, with large and small brands.
Large brands like Yeti and Hydro Flask, you manage to talk to demographics well outside of core outdoor and remain authentic and keep momentum in outdoor and spread their wings. And we see it with lots of small brands as well, and a plethora of, you know, apparel and footwear brands obviously do the same.
So, you know, I think.
I think one of the interesting things to think about as an industry is, you know, we're seeing this kind of once in a generation level of outdoor participation. Obviously, the pandemic kicked that off, but we're. We're not seeing that. We're seeing a lot of stickiness there.
Like, people are getting outside and doing these activities for the first time and they're enjoying them and they're coming back for more.
So I think we have to figure out collectively, if we're not speaking to that family who is having a campfire in the backyard with the same intention that we're speaking to the person climbing the mountain, then we're missing a huge opportunity to kind of welcome that next generation into our world. You just have to show up where the customer is. And that means increasingly less traditional strategies and channels.
And, you know, I think the consumers are retail consumers and our end users. They have pretty good bullshit sensors. They know when a brand's not being authentic.
You know, I think Rumpel's customers expect us to bring quality, functional, fun products that help them be comfortable. And I think if we. I think that's pretty straightforward. If we, if we remain Authentic to that.
I think we can show up in a lot of places outside of traditional outdoor.
Colin True
00:34:37.346 - 00:34:53.460
Yeah, I just, I think you guys are fortunate. Right?
I mean, like, Owen and I were texting the other day because, you know, we saw some coat epoxy jackets being sold at Costco, you know, and I know Costco is, you know, of the big kind of box marketplaces or whatever. Like, that's the premium one. But there's just something you're like, ah, I don't know. It just doesn't sit right now.
Josh Simpson
00:34:53.500 - 00:34:53.652
I.
Colin True
00:34:53.676 - 00:35:23.410
And I'll. If I saw a Rumple blanket at a Costco, I'd probably like, yeah, all right. I don't know. It just, it wouldn't. I don't know.
It's almost like, how do you identify porn? You know it when you see it. Like, but for whatever reason, like, that wouldn't bother me. And this one does.
So, you know, how do you, when you look at. And maybe this is a question for Wiley.
If you're focusing, you said your, your, your passion for innovation and design, like, what are some product line expansions are the things you guys have talked about in the past that, like, now you're going to kind of work on how do you kind of grow the Rumple line, maybe even beyond blankets, if that's even part of. In the cards for you guys.
Wiley Robinson
00:35:23.830 - 00:37:48.130
Yeah.
So real quick, before I answer that, I just want to go back really quickly to, like, remaining authentic to outdoor while also expanding into some new categories. Sure.
And most of the response that Josh said there, I completely agree with. And it's coming really more from a brand standpoint, from a pure product standpoint.
We still want our products to be able to perform in the outdoor environments that they were originally intended to perform in. And if we're talking to the soccer mom on the sideline of the soccer game, we still want that performance to hold up.
And so as a pure byproduct of wanting to be able to have the best performing product, I think we'll still be able to maintain authentic or continue to be authentic to outdoor purely because of the performance aspirations we'll still have for our product. So anyway, that's just on the product side or on the positioning side of it.
But, like, with regard to new expansion opportunities, Josh touched on this.
But what we found through a lot of conversations with our consumers and also a lot of the DNA that the brand was founded on is that Rumple is really designed for these, like, in between moments of the activity. You know, we don't design gear for the thing, we don't design ski boots or backpacks or tents or anything like that.
We design a product that you'd use in between those moments of activity. And I think that there's a whole ecosystem of products you can build around that use case and that kind of vibe and moment.
Everybody knows this experience, right? Like, you kick your hiking boots off, your feet are sore, you're just like, sitting down, you're cracking your first beer at the campsite.
And right now, we really just make a blanket to accompany that moment. But there's all sorts of other stuff that we can create that allows us to own that in between moment of the outdoor experience.
And frankly, I think this is what a lot of major outdoor brands are trying to speak to and trying to create products for.
But because they've had 20, 30 years of people swinging ice axes, like, their position is gear and hardcore, and it may be more difficult for them to actually create things for that in between downtime in the outdoor experience, I think Rumpel is really uniquely positioned to capitalize on that. Let's be real. That's what most of most people's outdoor experience is.
You know, like, very few people are doing, like, really hardcore stuff in the outdoors. And so, yeah, I just, I think there's a lot of opportunity. We need to be really careful about how we do this because we have limited resources.
We want. We don't want to get too broad, we don't want to blow up our assortment, but there is a lot of opportunity there for us.
Colin True
00:37:48.460 - 00:38:02.100
Oh, no, I'm the problem.
What you just said, I mean, like, you know, probably first time I saw Rumple, I'm like, okay, cool blankets, whatever, you know, because it's like, oh, that's not like I'm the, you know, middle aged, outdoorsy white guy. The gen X white guy. My daughter, who's 19 in a college.
Josh Simpson
00:38:02.180 - 00:38:02.996
Is like, oh, that's awesome.
Colin True
00:38:03.028 - 00:38:17.828
And outdoorsy blanket. You know, I mean, it's like the younger generations get it way more.
Those of us been conditioned to be that, like, hanging on the ice axe kind of core customer.
You need us to kind of age out, you know, we need to go away a little bit and like, let, you know, let these kind of younger, more fresher ideas kind of take over for sure.
Wiley Robinson
00:38:17.884 - 00:38:53.580
So, you know, to your point, I mean, like, we. We still need to make sure that our. That we make a product that serves your use case.
I mean, a lot of people use our motion because we have the money. That's very true. But I mean, the Most technical blanket, we make the backcountry puffy. A lot of people use that in lieu of a sleeping bag.
Like we get tons of photos from people on bivvy ledges and stuff that are bringing it up, you know, like multi pitch, multi day climbs because they don't want to lug a sleeping bag up. And so there's still the use case for that really hardcore user. It's just like a very small sliver of our consumer base.
Eoin Comerford
00:38:53.660 - 00:39:24.708
Well, I think the interesting thing is you mentioned Colin, about how it's a blanket. Right.
It's a pretty straightforward product and I would say I've talked to a number of brands that have looked at Rumple and this category and said, well, shit, we can make it blanket. I mean, that's pretty straightforward. And I think a number of them have tried above and below from a price point perspective.
But Rumple has kind of held on to like being the defining brand of this niche. Why do you think that is? How have you been able to kind of navigate the competitive seas?
Josh Simpson
00:39:24.884 - 00:40:18.980
I'll take this one. I think there's two main reasons. Number one is focus.
You know, I think that consumers really appreciate brands that do one thing really fucking well and they want to buy, if they want to buy that thing, they want to buy it from that brand that's focusing on that thing. And Rumple is that for outdoor blankets. 100%.
The second piece is because we're so focused on that, we're able to allocate all of our resources into that category. And as a byproduct of that, we have the broadest assortment in terms of print and color and design. And that's a big focus of us, focus of ours.
You know, like we, we refresh our graphics and spend tons of time on graphics every single season. And so you're going to get freshness, you're going to get newness. They come in and out of cycle. So sometimes if you don't get it, it's gone.
And there's a scarcity element to Rumple too that I don't think a lot of other brands have been able to replicate because they can't allocate so much time and resource into that one category.
Colin True
00:40:19.140 - 00:40:44.566
It's.
Well, there's always that emotional response to a brand that you kind of that test of like, you know, when you see a brand, what do you think of, right. If it's like, oh, it's Apple, you think tech or innovation, right.
And your, your answer might be different than mine, but if you can kind of have that like this word encapsulates what they do. You got something. I mean, you guys are fortunate. Like your product is probably the worst, right?
It's like blankets, you know, and it's like, and, and like, you know, and that's. Isn't that kind of what you want? Like there's no more connecting the dots. Like, oh yeah, they make blankets. Make really, really good blankets.
Josh Simpson
00:40:44.598 - 00:41:06.188
Totally. Yeah. It's, it's straightforward, it's simple. One of our, one of our core values is make things simple.
And that is like smeared across the whole business. I mean, the product, the story, the pitch, everything. Like literally the, the tech stack. We use the processes.
Like we don't reinvent things if we don't have to. If there's a really good solution, that's the good solution. There's a reason that's the good solution.
Colin True
00:41:06.284 - 00:41:08.760
Is that why there's no E at the end of the name?
Wiley Robinson
00:41:09.380 - 00:41:11.004
Yeah. If you can eliminate a vowel, you.
Colin True
00:41:11.012 - 00:41:13.080
Got the L. Cut it off.
Eoin Comerford
00:41:13.620 - 00:41:23.720
So, I mean, here we are, January of 2025. Just at a macro level. You're in the industry. How are you seeing things shaping out for this year?
Colin True
00:41:24.660 - 00:41:28.330
Sorry, Wiley, it's a day to day question. Go ahead. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.
Wiley Robinson
00:41:29.910 - 00:42:48.574
I'll do my version of this and then, Josh, I'd love to hear yours as well, but you know, Rumble's in a good place. We've largely done what we've needed to do to get through the inventory glut and we're in a really good inventory position right now internally.
From everything we can tell, all of our retail partners are also in a good inventory position. I do think that, and you know, we just sent this email about, about being full price and, and maintaining full margin.
I think that for that strategy to work, it is sort of dependent on the rest of the industry being there.
You know, if somebody's got 100 bucks to spend and they're deciding between a rumple or this great jacket that's normally 150, but it's marked down to 100, maybe they're going to choose that hundred dollar jacket. But I think we are doing our part.
We are in a healthy inventory place and I'm optimistic that we can get back to this full price place as an industry this year. And we're obviously going to be very cautious about how we buy inventory this year and in the future.
I think everybody learned their lesson through the COVID wave and I'm generally pretty optimistic about the participation rates in outdoor continuing to Stay where they are or increase and brands returning back to full price and margin profiles being restored and all this stuff. So I think the best is ahead of us is the short answer there.
Eoin Comerford
00:42:48.662 - 00:42:49.970
Hopefully it's not worse.
Josh Simpson
00:42:50.870 - 00:43:54.600
Yeah, I think we've all been waiting for this thing to end for two years now, thinking that we were at the tail end of it and realizing we're not. You know, I think for the broader industry, it feels like 25 is maybe the first time we're seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
I think Rumpel, to echo what Wiley said, is in a great place, inventory wise, price wise, supply chain wise. And you know, we are in a unique position where we have lots of growth levers we can pull to, to keep the business healthy.
There's a lot of low hanging fruit for us to chase. So we're not, we're not maybe as dependent as other brands are to the whims of, of, of only one or two retailers for our growth.
We can, we can, we can find it a lot of places, which is a good place for a brand to be in. And yeah, you know, I mean, hopefully we're seeing some things, you know, we're excited about the Switchback show. We're going to be attending that.
Hopefully you're seeing some opportunities for the, for the industry to gather together again and just, you know, find some of that magic that's been lost over the last three or four years.
Colin True
00:43:54.720 - 00:44:13.012
Well, not to drop a, you know, a giant rock on you, but we are, as this episode comes out, we're a week away from a new presidential administration, one that has been talking a lot about tariffs. So how does that play into some of the optimism or even the plans? Are we in wait and see mode?
Like, you know, what are you guys, how are you guys approaching that if that comes to fruition?
Wiley Robinson
00:44:13.096 - 00:44:48.564
We did a ton of supply, we've done a ton of supply chain work over the last 24 months, completely independent of Trump and the presidential, presidential election, everything.
And actually over the last 24 months, we've worked with, with four different supply chains to countersource our product, optimize the quality, optimize the costs. And we've, we also reduced our price, by the way, from 23 to 24. We brought it back down to what our original pricing was.
We feel like we're in a really good place even if tariffs are enacted to be able to hold that price for the consumer. And so, yeah, it wasn't reactive to the election. It was just work that was happening.
Colin True
00:44:48.612 - 00:44:51.684
In the background by our ops team, US Manufacturing possibility.
Wiley Robinson
00:44:51.812 - 00:45:36.110
It's not something we're looking to do, frankly. I mean, it is. It is possible. You know, there are.
We would need to get a couple of machines brought over to specific, specifically a Robo quilter machine that's 110 inches wide. That's like a. It's like a mattress pad quilting machine that they typically quilt up mattresses with. But you could do it in the U.S.
frankly, it would not benefit the consumer, and that's what we care the most about. The quality of the product is extremely good from our supply chains in Asia. The costs are extremely good. We don't want to increase those costs.
We don't want to diminish quality by making a move to the US and we're very happy with our partners that we work with overseas and intend to stay there.
Eoin Comerford
00:45:36.720 - 00:46:07.820
I think that makes sense.
One of the issues that I see with a lot of companies from a tariff perspective is actually when they look at importing the raw materials that they would have to import to manufacture in the US it actually is worse.
In fact, I had one company where, because of tariffs on aluminum extrusions, they stopped importing to assemble in the US and then they had it assembled overseas because there was lower tariffs to import the assembled goods. So it's a whole mess of worms we're about to get into with this whole tariff thing.
Wiley Robinson
00:46:07.920 - 00:46:35.146
Yeah, I mean, pricing aside, like, again, we really care a lot about the quality of the product, and the quality of the product coming out of Asia for our category is really good. And the places where we source product from, they have both an absolute and a comparative economic advantage in creating this category of product.
And for that reason, they should be making these products. We shouldn't try to bring a supply chain like this into the United States, in my opinion.
Colin True
00:46:35.228 - 00:46:48.446
I guess the last question for me, because we got to touch on the sustainability initiatives because, you know, it's an important part of what we talk about in the industry.
You know, any, you know, plans to participate in secondhand initiatives or like through a partner like Geartrade or in your own recommerce efforts in the near future.
Wiley Robinson
00:46:48.518 - 00:47:29.354
Yeah, this is something we've talked about a lot before. And you know, if you go on ebay right now, there's like several hundred rumble listings.
There's like a pretty robust quitters trading and reselling market that's happening on. On other sites.
And you know, again, for the benefit of the consumer, I think it would be much better to own that experience on Our, our website so they can have trust and feel like they're getting verified products and all this stuff. So, yeah, it's something we're definitely looking at. It's just like, how do you rank this thing on the priority list?
And it's kind of edging closer to the top, but it's still not the absolute top two or three or five things that we need to get after. So it's on the roadmap, but to be determined if It'll be in 25 or shortly thereafter.
Colin True
00:47:29.532 - 00:47:45.246
Yeah, I gotta imagine the complexity on that topic's a little different than if you're making like, you know, three layer waterproof, you know, laminate jackets or something like that in the waist and whatever.
It's a little more predictable, I guess, what you guys do on a day to day basis versus some of the apparel brands who have to take this, you know, go a little more in depth on that topic.
Wiley Robinson
00:47:45.358 - 00:47:58.780
Yeah, we have, we have almost no waste in the creation of our products right now. We mill the fabric to width, you know, so there's really no scrap. We have less than a 1% return rate.
Like generally, we make the product and sell it and there it is.
Colin True
00:47:58.910 - 00:48:09.472
All right, guys, we can wrap it up there. Thanks for coming on the show to talk to us about it. It's really interesting to learn more about.
I think it's exciting to see how this is going to unfold in the future. Good luck, Josh.
Josh Simpson
00:48:09.616 - 00:48:10.128
Thank you.
Colin True
00:48:10.184 - 00:48:11.440
And good luck, Wiley.
Wiley Robinson
00:48:11.600 - 00:48:12.080
Thank you.
Colin True
00:48:12.120 - 00:48:19.424
Hopefully the couple's counseling is not in the cards and we have a new paradigm for how this works in the outdoor industry.
Wiley Robinson
00:48:19.512 - 00:48:36.908
Yeah. And thank you guys for having us.
I'm really grateful to be able to go through this experience and I'm super excited about the future, both for the company and my role within the company, and want to thank Josh publicly for taking the role. And, you know, I think that the best is to come for Rumple. Yeah.
Josh Simpson
00:48:36.924 - 00:48:47.932
Thank you guys for having us and kudos to you for putting this show together. It's a great moment to be part of. And yeah, it's an awesome show. We listen to it all the time over here.
Colin True
00:48:48.036 - 00:48:58.388
Oh, thanks, man. God, no. I got to feel bad. How many bad things have I said? I've said a lot of bad things probably. Well, thanks guys for coming on. Sure.
We'll have you on again sometime soon.
Wiley Robinson
00:48:58.564 - 00:48:59.700
All right, good luck.
Josh Simpson
00:48:59.740 - 00:49:01.076
Happy New Year. Thank you.
Colin True
00:49:01.228 - 00:49:39.570
All right, that's the show for today. Do you have any confirmed outdoor industry news that you want to break here on the Rock Fight.
Email us your story@myrockfightmail.com or hey, do you want to feature your company or brand on the show? The Rock Fight is open for business.
Send your advertising business inquiries also to myarockfightmail.com the Rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight LLC. For Owen Comerford and our guests today, Wiley Robinson and Josh Simpson, I'm Colin Troup. Thanks for listening.
And back to take us out and start off your week just right, it's Chris Demaicz. He's gonna perform for you right now and he's gonna perform the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock Fighters.
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00:49:49.680 - 00:50:35.150
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Josh Simpson
00:50:37.290 - 00:50:39.074
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Eoin Comerford
00:50:39.122 - 00:50:39.890
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