Osprey Packs: Mike Pfotenhauer

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With a passion for design and a skill for sewing, Mike Pfotenhauer grew a bespoke backpack business into one of the world’s most popular outdoor brands. He got his start in the 1970’s, when it was hard to find a pack that wasn’t clunky and uncomfortable. Operating out of a little shop in Santa Cruz, California, Mike started making better-fitting packs for hikers, and—with no advertising except for a sign out front—began to get noticed. As demand for the packs grew, Mike was forced to shift production twice: first to a tiny town in Colorado, where Navajo craftsmen helped with the sewing; then, to a sprawling city in South East Asia, where Mike moved his family so he could stay close to the design process. It took more than 25 years, but Osprey eventually grew into a massive global brand, which was sold in 2021 for over 400 million dollars.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.4	This is Chip Rantley, co-host of the NPR Podcast White Lives.
0:13.4	Before we found the man in Vancouver, before we sued the State Department, before we snuck
0:18.1	into the graveyard of a federal penitentiary, all we had were the photographs.
0:23.4	Photographs of a group of Cuban men standing on the roof of a prison in rural Alabama.
0:27.5	That's the season on the NPR Podcast White Lives.
0:33.2	We just simply could not deliver enough product on time.
0:38.6	We just could not grow the manufacturing enough, simply because there were not enough skilled
0:44.5	sours.
0:46.1	We've found it very difficult to find people to do that kind of work in Santa Cruz.
0:50.5	It's pretty much a retirement or university town.
0:54.6	You just never knew when your employees were going to show up.
0:58.6	If the Grateful Dead came through town, they would be there, not at Osprey.
1:10.3	Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories
1:16.2	behind the movements they built.
1:21.9	I'm Guy Ross, and on the show today, how Mike Foughtenhauer's love of art, design, and
1:26.8	the outdoors led him to launch a bespoke backpack brand, Osprey, which grew into one of the
1:32.6	most popular backpacks in the world.
1:42.2	We live at a time when people feel a sense of urgency to succeed quickly.
1:47.8	Just look at my inbox.
1:49.6	Every single day.
	...

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