How One Engineer's Instinct Became a Cult Outdoor Brand

What does it take to build an outdoor brand the whole industry starts referencing? For Kyle Siegel, founder of Raide, it started with a problem, not a brand. In this episode we get into how an engineer with stops at SpaceX, Snap, and The North Face ended up building one of the most distinct product companies in the outdoor space, and why he did it product-first, with no logo or name until the month before launch.

We talk about the moment his thinking flipped from "I'd like to start something" to "I won't live with myself if I don't," the three products he saw white space for (a ski pack, a running belt, and ski touring bibs), and the discipline of building gear around a single purpose instead of chasing trends or personas. Kyle breaks down his design philosophy: why a product should be recognizable from across the room the way a car is, and why that distinct look has to fall out of the mission instead of being painted on top of it.

We also get into the non-linear career path and what SpaceX and The North Face each taught him, manufacturing in Vietnam and Indonesia, the thesis that the high-performance community is far bigger than the big brands think, the case for staying small on purpose, and where AI actually fits for a creative founder. Plus the line he now lives by: don't be too busy chopping wood to sharpen the axe.

Kyle Siegel is the founder of Raide, an outdoor brand building purpose-built equipment and apparel for skiing and running. An engineer by training, he worked at SpaceX and Snap before moving into product management at The North Face, then left to build Raide product-first, manufacturing in Vietnam and Indonesia and growing a fiercely specific brand for the high-performance, human-powered movement community.

Follow Kyle:

Raide Research  https://raideresearch.com

Outside Is Magic is a podcast about the intersection of creativity and the outdoors, hosted by Christopher San Agustin, founder of Broken and Coastal.

Website: https://www.brokenandcoastal.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenandcoastal/

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outside is Magic is hosted by Christopher San Agustin.
Produced by Broken and Coastal.
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