A Family I’ve Never Met: Cottage Industry Community

Prior to our trip to Minneapolis for Outdoor Retailer, my conception of the outdoor industry was… not accurate, to say the least. For years, I designed, crafted, and sold equipment alongside hundreds of other small manufacturers through various sales platforms and networks, but I hadn’t actually met any of these people. And the thought that had existed in my head for all these years about who these people were and what they would be like in person truly shows how little I knew about the cottage outdoor industry and how much I can still learn.

Jereko Gear got its big break several years ago on Garage Grown Gear: arguably the best website for aspiring brands to see if they’ve got what it takes in the outdoor industry. That isn’t to say that one can’t make it without GGG, but it definitely helps. The founder, Lloyd, is someone I met for the first time at the 2025 Boston Outdoor Gear Expo. If I could pick one word to describe Lloyd, it would be heartwarming. He is full of energy yet totally down to earth. A really chill kinda guy who probably has a heart that is way too big for someone his size. It was the most memorable part of the entire event, if for no other reason than that I got to meet the man who helped make Jereko Gear a successful brand.

Outdoor Retailer is a big deal when it comes to trade shows in the outdoor industry, and GGG offered downsized, cheap spaces for its small brands, so they could have a chance to attend and network with others. In the span of a happy hour and a couple of painful days spent standing on bare concrete, my entire notion of what it would be like to meet many of these brands in person had completely changed. There was no cold shoulder, no rivalry, no malice. Individuals I had only ever known through the gear they made were now chatting with me over a beer as if we were catching up from summer break.

Words like “family” and “community” are used so frequently that they seem to have lost all meaning, but I couldn’t describe my experience any other way. An overwhelming sense of shared, collective passion for the outdoors was the only thing that mattered, and not who could out-design, out-produce, or out-patent the guy next to them. I know there are more individuals out there who likely tossed the idea of starting their own brand around in their head, only to stop short simply out of fear of competition, but if there is one thing I could say, it would be this…

All are welcome in our little corner of the woods.