Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Julie Singh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Julie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

My husband Reet and I spent 15 years in Corporate America and traveled in our free time. We love exploring the outdoors and are avid bikers, paddlers and snowboarders. We took vacations to spend time doing what we loved outside but yearned to be able to get outdoors more. While on an outdoor vacation, we saw an opportunity to make it easier for people to book outdoor adventures. Many people don’t know where to start to get outdoors, and it’s difficult to find information, compare adventures and book them online. We left our Corporate jobs in 2017 and moved into our RV with our cat Juke to travel the country and discover the best outdooor adventures to share on our new platform TripOutside.com. We spent 5 years meeting with outfitters and guides, finding the best outdoor destinations and adventures, and adding them to our platform. We have hand-curated all of the adventures on our platform, and have visited many of the destinations and taken a lot of the adventures. We are thrilled to be using our corporate experience to build our own outdoor company and at the same time focusing on our passion- outdoor adventures and helping to get more people outdoors.

Julie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce your business to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

TripOutside makes it easy to plan and book verified epic outdoor adventures. We strive to get more people outside to connect with and love the outdoors, and as a result, work to protect it. We believe strongly in:

Human Powered: We feature only sustainable, human powered outdoor adventures. We believe in minimizing our impact on the environment through silent sports and non-motorized outdoor recreation. Let’s burn calories, not fossil fuels!

Conservation: Our vision is to bring more people outdoors so that we can work together to take action on protecting our natural places. We are a proud member of the Conservation Alliance, Leave No Trace and 1% for the Planet.

Leave No Trace: We wholeheartedly embrace, support and educate on Leave No Trace principles. We are passionate about leaving our natural places better than we found them – whether on a trail, at a trailhead, crag, campsite, river, lake or beach. Leave no trace principles are more than just litter, check out the 7 principles by the Leave No Trace organization.

Inclusion in the Outdoors: Nature does not discriminate on gender, race, age, physical ability, or the amount of experience outdoors. We welcome and encourage newcomers to the outdoors and work to ensure that there are activities offered for all activity levels. We strive to make outdoor recreation less intimidating for all, and make booking epic outdoor adventures EASY.

Be Kind: We encourage a deep respect for nature, wildlife, our environment, fellow adventurers on the trails, the citizens of the places that we visit, and for the people that work to help us all get outside.

Support Local: We cherish the local communities we feature, and we partner with local outdoor businesses in these communities to put money back into the community and support the people who call it home.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We actually pivoted early on as we were building TripOutside. We initially had the idea to build a booking software, but as we spent the first year traveling and talking to outfitters and guides we discovered that there are already many existing options for booking software. What customers really needed was a place to discover, compare and book outdoor adventures all on one site. We also discovered that we could integrate with most of the booking software options, and provide a platform that included all adventures – whether the adventure provider used a booking software or not. So we did just that – TripOutside now features 800 outfitters and guides across 350 destinations, and integrates with many software options to make the experience seamless for both customer and adventure provider.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We had saved up what we thought was enough money before we left our Corporate jobs, and exhausted that in less than 2 years. We’ve been getting creative and bootstrapping TripOutside ever since. We’ve taken a loan against our investment account, taken on some part-time Consulting work, and raised some money from family and friends. We are extremely frugal with our living expenses and that really helps. We are really proud of what we’ve built with TripOutside, and thrilled about the growth of the platform since we launched in mid-2018.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tripoutside.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/trip.outside
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/tripoutside
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieesingh/