December 19th, 2022; the last time Ryan Jenks and I sat down for TCM episode 29. Now nearly four years and almost 100 episodes later, we sit down again; evolved humans with new projects, new lives, and the same sense of obsession over what we're building. I flew out to Ryan's hometown in Washington with all my studio equipment to record this conversation in person at the HowNOT2 headquarters.

Since we last spoke, Ryan has built HowNOT2 into a real business — an online retail store with a physical storefront and roughly a dozen employees to make it all run. HowNOT2 has now become a full media, testing, and retail operation. Ryan sees his store as a direct response to the frustrations climbers experience when ordering gear from the big online retailers: shipping delays, poor customer service, wrong items, less than ideal communication. Every internal system he's building exists to solve one of those problems from the inside so the customer never has to deal with it. And he's done it without compromising the mission that started it: putting hard data behind climbing gear that has always relied on assumption and tradition. His long term vision? The retail store is here to fund the continued expansion of his Youtube channel and the science behind testing gear.

In this conversation we go deep on the business behind HowNOT2 — how he thinks about scaling, hiring, and building the systems that make his retail store thrive. We talk about product development, from the drill-powered ascender he’s partnered with in China to his ambitions for making his own line of gear. We get into the philosophy that drives everything he does and talk honestly about the cost — the burnout, the personal money still going in, and the 1,000 decisions that got him here.

#rockclimbing #climbing #climbinggear

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HowNOT2 Store (The Best Climbing Store Online)