You are Losing 27 Years to this... - Robin Thurston

25:33But if you're just looking at your phone the whole time, that might not be your Zen activity, right? So it might make sense to like try some other things. And again, that could be something more social. Like if you look at the explosion with run clubs right now, maybe you need a run club to like keep you motivated and keep you focused while you're out there. Other people, it might just be as simple as walking out your back door and doing a two, you know, two mile walk. Right. And that might be a moment where you can disconnect from everything. So I think the big thing that I say to people is like, yeah, for me, it's cycling.

26:07It always has been since I was a little kid and I was lucky to find it early. but like try things and try to find that thing that's going to create what you just said which is that very zen moment for you that is sort of something that you can retain and i think when you're finding your zen moment one of the reasons i like swimming so much is you can't lie because if i'm walking i can turn i'm like i can i can half-ass it or if i'm cycling i can do especially on triathlons i mean as long as you can sneak the motorcycle in and the the officials don't think it's a bike you're fine but you can't do that with swimming swimming is one of those rare opportunities that if you try and have fast you drown it just if you're like oh i don't want to kick anymore you're going to drown or you better get you better figure this out really quickly that's why i love swimming and i'm not i'm not hauling butt i've one of those endless pools that just keep going it's like a treadmill basically in water and i love them but it keeps me focused and i have to be completely centered in my body of what's going on and i'm I'm very lucky.

27:06It's interesting. I'm not, I'm not a big climber, Charles. I'm not a big like rock climber, but people say exactly the same thing about rock climbing that you, because literally if you fall, you're in big trouble, right? You are so zeroed in and focused, right? Whereas like there are other activities like walking, running, and cycling. I agree with you there that you can sort of zone out of it right now. Now, hopefully you're not doing that in traffic and, you know, other places. But, you know, I mean, but I totally hear what you're saying about swimming, which is you will sink to the bottom or you will just literally put your feet down and you're done because otherwise you're not going anywhere.

27:48And the reason I added in, you know, waterproof headphones was because it gave my brain something to chew on sometimes. Because there are times where my brain's like, OK, I've been staring at water. Can we do something else, please? And I'll just feed an audio book. And I'm like, all right, whatever. buddy of mine, he carved out the bottom of his pool and he put a TV there. So he'll sit there and watch, you know, YouTube or whatever it is while he's swimming with it. And he just sitting there and watching it as he's going up like, that doesn't count, dude. That doesn't count. What are you doing?

28:16He's like, I got to do it for an hour every day. I got to do something. I was like, God bless you, man. God bless you. You've, you've also done something that a lot of people haven't done. You've acquired a bunch of assets or a bunch of companies that were, or marketing that were, that were failing. Can you walk me through that? That's something I didn't know prior to having this conversation, when you go in and you're acquiring things that are not as optimized as one would think, how do you evaluate those and how do you make sure that you then integrate them into your, your, um, folder of business?

28:45Well, I mean, to be clear, the, the many, I mean, there was two reasons why we ended up looking at, um, sort of things that were distressed. One is that, you know, I, I knew, I mean, we have five brands that are older than 50 years old, right? Like Ski Magazine is over 80. Warren Miller is almost 80. Climbing is over 50. Vela's over 50. Outsides over 50. But, you know, the media business, forget about more recently with AI, even more stress because of what's going on with AI. But the media business has been in sort of a secular decline really since, you know, I would say mobile and social came out, right?

29:26Like just, you know, new ways for people to get information. So, but the brands had a lot of equity in them and a lot of, you know, big libraries, great stories that were, you know, part of these platforms. And we had to make really hard decisions. There was one, one of the ideas of bringing multiple media businesses together was to create scale, which in turn allowed us to switch from, you know, being one primarily advertising, but advertising within what we would call an endemic category. People like North Face and REI and Specialized Bicycles used to be the advertisers of the outside, you know, sort of brands, right?

30:08Today, our largest advertisers are autos and they're travel companies and they're insurance companies. So we've diversified away from being really, really dependent on the core outdoor category. Those people, of course, are still advertisers. But the other big thing that we had to do was we had to switch from, you know, really being dependent on advertising to being more dependent on reoccurring revenue streams. And so we've gone from at one point, you know, more than 70 % of the business was in advertising. And I would argue more than 85 % of the business was in non-reoccurring businesses. Today of our revenue, 40 % is advertising, 60 % is in reoccurring either SaaS businesses or subscription businesses.

30:54And we had to make that transition, but we knew that those businesses had great brand equity, great, you know, they had great teams, they had people that were part of them that, you know, knew how to storytell and knew these categories, whether it be climbing or running or whatever category one might be in the outdoor space. And by bringing that all together, to me, we've created an ecosystem that has much more sustainability into the future than maybe what it had before. So I was about to ask how you did that. How did you transfer into that? How did you pivot over into that SaaS model where you went away from it?

31:30Because again, Specialized, I rode on those for years. They saved my Tuchas many times. They're great bikes. Great bikes. And by the way, they're still advertisers. It's just different level of emphasis to what they used to do. You know, one is, again, scale, bringing the companies together, had a part of it. But then we rebuilt the tech platform and we started asking people to log in and we launched a digital subscription and we got rid, you know, we had to get rid of a lot of the print. We only have one print magazine left, which is outside magazine. We don't have Yoga Journal. We don't have Climbing.

32:02We don't have any of those anymore because those were really in distress. I mean, most of the media publication, the standalone subscription, like print magazines, were losing a million bucks a year each. I mean, it wasn't, it was like they were losing a lot of money. You know, and so we had to go through that. And it was a, you know, I would say a painful transition. I mean, we certainly had reductions in the team over the last three or four years. There were challenges with doing it, but ultimately to get us to this point where we have a very sustainable business that the business mix really can support these amazing brands and media that we have today as one of the divisions.

32:43As you've seen that transition from print physical copy into SaaS as an option, and now that we're heading into an AI-first model, and when I try to explain this to people, Amazon was an internet-first business, period. And everybody else tried to catch up. And then they tried to do a mixed model, and they just got crushed. We're heading to now an AI-first organizations, and that's where we're going. Where do you see outside heading towards? How do you handle that next onslaught? How do you handle that tidal wave that's coming? I mean, I think what we've tried to do internally as we've tried to educate the team, we've tried to give them the tools.

33:18You know, again, in the idea that hopefully we have very curious people on our team that are inspired to get people outdoors, you want to put the right tools in their hand. And hopefully then they'll start to really learn and figure out ways to, you know, leverage that into our own business. And so, you know, what we're seeing is that, you know, whether it's from engineering to marketing to, you know, even our, you know, GNA categories, things like legal is that there's a lot of experimentation in the use of it. You know, there's a lot of people thinking about ways to maybe accelerate certain parts of things that they did so they can spend more time on other areas that are of, you know, potentially higher value.

34:02But I think for what I'd call non-AI first organizations, which by the way, I mean, there aren't many, right? I mean, there are only so many organizations that quote started within the last three years that are really AI first. Every other business is going through a transformation about how do you use these tools and how do you integrate them, right? And I think that we're, you know, where do I think we are? It's a, you know, certainly it's a bit messy. I wouldn't say it's easy. You know, I think that it's, you know, again, I think you try to educate and put the right tools in people's hands and hopefully good things come out.

34:37And then I think on the hiring front, you try to find people that are thinking about AI first. But as an example, there are places where it has amazing use for us. Like one example is something like text to audio. Now all of our articles have audio because of AI, right? That's leverage from our perspective. Or text to text in every language. If I had tried to do that a decade ago, Charles, it would have cost me millions to do translation, right? Now, essentially, it's close to free. The tokenization and cost to convert a 3 ,000-word article just isn't very expensive to do that in every language on the planet.

35:17So, but on the flip side, we also have been very, very clear. We don't want, as an example, our written content to be written with AI, right? We want storytelling to be real storytelling. And so, again, there are places in our business, you know, it's quite an accelerant and there's other places where we want to, you know, sort of cautiously go into some of the uses and really, you know, understand the tools before we implement them, you know, at a broader and broader level, right? So I just think, again, it goes back to that curious thing. Like if you, if you have people that are curious, they will start to use the new tools.

35:54I don't care if it's mobile. I don't care if it's things like social, all of them, they'll start to use them. And that's what essentially I would say that our organization is trying to do and go through that transition right now. people who are curious to get outside and to really start doing this and start changing it because they're seeing things changing what are some of the statistics because we know this all the time if i if i put a million dollars in a room and make it really hard to get to the million dollars you're probably not going to go after it if i release a bunch of lions to chase you to go get in there you're going to go get in that room it doesn't matter about the million dollars anymore so sometimes we need to take that that hammer versus the hug in order to get people where they want to go you're you're the king of telling me some of these things and before we started recording you gave me more what are some of the things that if someone's on the cusp of you know yeah maybe i don't want to go outside or all of that that you get to him in and hawing what are some of the things that you're like hey this is this is what we're seeing because you know this better than god almost anybody i know what are some of the things that are going on yeah i mean i think we're in like i believe 2026 is like the year of the digital detox like whether you look at something like touch grass as a, you know, hashtag on, on TikTok or Instagram, you know, there's like articles and not, I'm not saying our publications writing about how unplugging is, is like the new luxury, right?

37:13Like getting that unplug time. And I do think there is a bit of AI backlash in terms of like, you know, just technology. But when I think about the real benefits that people need to think about is this like outdoors is medicine, you know, and I do think, look at Gen Z, they're not drinking, Charles, and they're not drinking because they understand the data better than they ever have, right? What's happening to them, you know, whether it's sleep and these types of things. And so, you know, when I think about like, you know, this, like when I think about what's happened, I think we have hit sort of peak screen time and people are thinking about ways and specifically escapes.

37:51Like if I, if I look at like the outside ecosystem, the average person in our ecosystem is, is going like on 14 days of trips a year, like they're going somewhere and they are trying to find places to detox, right? They're trying to find places where they might be offline, they might be disconnected, you know? And, and I, I, again, from my perspective, that's what's so important is like, it doesn't, again, it doesn't matter that you're doing an Ironman, right charles or like a marathon like if you want to go do that that's a great way to really have a disconnected type of experience but you know i'm using example like if you decide to go on a trip you know pick somewhere that is close to nature pick pick a place where you can easily just get out for a little mini walk or a hike or go down into the local town where you're you know might do some sightseeing and some souvenir buying but like make it far enough away that like you have to like, you know, pick yourself up and get out of the bed and get away from the hotel to go do that.

38:52Right. Yeah. It's the conversation of blue zones where we talk about some of the things that are in blue zones that make people so healthy. And one of the ones they found was getting outside, but there was a certain incline. If your environment forces you to walk up a certain incline in order to get food, you're going to be healthier than if you have to go downhill. It just, it is what it is. And having those and forcing it, it's, it's really, really simple. In that book, there's a really good example of, I believe it's Sicily, where there's a ton of stairs in town, right? It's the exact time I was thinking about.

39:26And everybody has to walk up and down the stairs. And, you know, again, to your point, like, just putting yourself in that situation is, you know, your blood's going to start pumping. You're going to start, you know, using muscles that maybe you don't use when you're just sitting around on the couch typing away on the laptop. I think you said it earlier really well. we live in a society right now where we are spending more time inside than we ever have in humanity and our bodies haven't evolved for this so it's unbelievably unhealthy for us and it's it it really became a challenge for a bunch of us we sat down and we're like okay let's all commit and be an accountability partners 20 minutes a day of what's known as a navy seal burpee which is a little different than a regular burpee we're like we're gonna do this and we were all slacking off on it we just we just weren't doing it i'm just being honest we're guys we just weren't doing And I was like, that's it enough.

40:12So we have a zoom call every morning and everyone gets on their stupid thing. And we're like, all right, let's bang them out. And we're just ripping on each other. Cause we're just having fun. We're just going through the 20 minutes and it's a bonding exercise. And I remember when we first started this, I am so glad those calls were not being recorded. Cause it's some of the most embarrassing things I've seen with my dear friends, you know, falling all over the floor, trying to do these burpees in our boxers. And just like, this is, this is embarrassing. But it became this bonding exercise. But it's that social accountability I go back to.

40:45Like if you are not good at getting yourself outdoors or doing some type of activity, like the social thing will have an impact. So again, find a run group, find a walk group, a hike group, a swim group, like find a group that is going to allow you to get some of that social connectivity, but also social pressure to help you go do those things because it does make a big difference, right? Like that's why, to me, I think we're seeing booms in these social running clubs and hike clubs and pickleball clubs and all of these things is because the social, you know, sort of, I don't know, pressure, anxiety, whatever you want to call it, is real and will help you, right?

41:30It's just longing to connect. And just because you join a group, just for everybody listening, doesn't mean you have to stay. I remember I joined a climbing group and we were working on something and the guy put his hand in a crack and then turned it and made a fist. And then he locked himself in there and he was working on something else. I was like, uh-uh, absolutely not. I'm doing that. I'm like, you're out of your mind. I was like, wait, if you let go of your... I'm like, I'm not doing that. I was like, ah, no. So finding what works and what doesn't work. I love swimming because it allows me to zen out.

41:57And I used to tell people this all the time. The reason I became a scuba diver was because my cell phone didn't work underwater, which the truth was my pager didn't work underwater. If that works to get you off the phone, I'm all for it. Get you outside. Are there any things, are there any beneficial things that are on the phone that you could sit there when you are on a screen? Be it wearables or some of the scientific data that you're seeing? I mean, look, you look at some of even our core applications like Gaia GPS or Trailforks. Like having a map to help you discover where the trailhead is, how far it is, where is that hike from your house.

42:32Like, you know, yes, there are, you know, nutrition trackers and other things on the phone that certainly, you know, I mean, if you're wearing a wearable like an Aura or Whoop, like you go get the data on the phone. So I'm not suggesting that there is no use for this technology and you should give it up altogether. But I'm just saying that we are out of balance, Charles. We are not connecting and spending as much time as we should be on, you know, away from our phones. you know again even socially families with you know the outdoors all of these things are just so important and you know i just think it goes back to how do you create more balance and how do you create that accountability how is outside making the balance between tech and outside you mentioned a couple pieces of software there what are the things that you have found like hey we're very intentional i know this about your org you're very intentional about what you deliver and how you get created as you're trying to you know not only does it have your company thrive but also have your customers thrive.

43:34What are some of those balanced integration that you guys are doing? Yeah, I mean, I'll use something really, really simple. You know, look, I mean, obviously, we write a lot of content, we create shows around the outdoors, you know, we have we license films, and, you know, obviously, you know, want people to be inspired through, you know, big adventure storytelling and things of that nature that people might, you know, watch or read on, you know, one of the publications. But I think what's more important for us now is that we create the connection to somebody actually going to do that thing. So as an example, like if you see us write an article about the top 10 hikes, right, we will embed the maps directly in it so that you can download those maps.

44:16And then we can see, did the inspiration of that story actually drive you to go do that activity, right? Like go out because you've now you've discovered it on one of the mapping tools and then you've gone out and logged it, you know, whether that's in Gaia, Trail Forks, or Map My Fitness, that you're out there experiencing it, that connection is super important. Or another example is like with our travel software, like we built it so that we could, if we write an article about the top 10 ski resorts, that we're directly getting you to book that trip right out of the article so that that experience is really seamless because there's nothing more than we want to take you from that moment of inspiration, like, oh, I really want to go to Steamboat and ski to actually booking it and going to do it, Charles.

45:02Like, that's what's most important to creating that connection between, you know, the use of technology and then actually, you know, separating yourself and going to do that actual activity. So I selfishly want to know, when you say, hey, these are the top 10 this or the top 10 that, because I've scoped it out for a very long time, because like, oh, these are the top 10 places. I'm like, no, those are not the top 10. I'm like, who wrote this? And I get authentically angry at this. When you guys are creating these lists, how do you guys narrow this down? Because I'm authentically curious. How do you decide these are the top 10 hikes or the top 10 this or top 10 that?

45:35Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, you can, I think you can debate. I could, I could debate with other cyclists about the top 10 rides in the world. Right. And, and it's based on my experience, right? Like, you know, I happen to believe that places like Switzerland and Northern Italy have some of the best cycling in the world, right? But I will tell you, like, I just got back from, you know, Maine, from the Maine Tourism and Outdoor Conference, and I can tell you that there are amazing places to ride in Maine, right? But to me, a lot of this is, if you're talking about, you know, us riding and curating these things, some of it's based on data.

46:12We'll look in our database, and actually, because we know where people are hiking, like whether that be in national parks or other places, we'll pull from that data and then use that data to disseminate into storytelling. Hey, here are places that are popular or here are places that are not popular, but beautiful because we have great photos and things like that from them. But ultimately, it does come down to some personal experience. So I think you can always debate whether or not your top 10 scuba diving places are the same top 10 that I would have. But I think more important than anything is putting that out there for people that maybe have never experienced it and don't know where to go that they can find places right i think the one exception to the rule is switzerland just switzerland just wins across the board yeah i lived there for four years it's beautiful where in switzerland were you i lived two years in new chattel uh and then two years in lugano oh my god all right yeah switzerland wins just for everybody's paying attention uh we could create outside online Switzerland and we just wait just just go to Switzerland it is what it is when we're going through this you're a cyclist some of the things that are proven for you and some of the things that rank out for you if you're like these are the top 10 tools because everyone will kill me if I don't ask you this it's the one thing when I when I told everyone that I was interviewing all right get his stuff on cycling we want to know what are his top 10 tools that he loves more than anything else when it comes to like like your favorite bike or your favorite this what are the 10 things with cycling that you're like you gotta do this this is your Well, I'll start with the broader health and wellness things.

47:45Like I love eight sleep, um, the product for your mattress, like, and how it helps you sleep. Um, I've been an aura user or ring user since the very beginning. Like I have over six years of data, daily data and aura. And I use it. I use it. The, the, the, the, the score that you get every day I use specifically to think about my cycling, like how I, how hard I'm doing. do I ride on a specific day? You know, there are certainly other, you know, like I use, I've used Garmin forever, you know, I use, you know, whether that be on the bike or even from a watch perspective. The nice thing about the new Apple watch, like one thing I love, I don't, I don't love things on my wrist.

48:31That's why I prefer something like the Oura Ring. But one thing I do love about the new Apple watch is that it has a UV sensor on it. So it can tell you how much time you're outdoors. It literally can measure how much time you're in sunlight. So like, I love that just from a ability to give you insights on, are you spending time indoors or outdoors? And, you know, that the impact that's potentially having on your health and wellness, you know, there's a lot of, I mean, look, I could go into detail about things like continuous glucose monitors and, you know, some of the devices that are coming in the future, like, you know core body temperature matters a lot when you're training and doing certain types of activities but you know the tools and equipment you have are really essential so like what bike do i ride i i ride like i i'm more i ride road mostly and gravel so but i ride specialized like i ride a crux for gravel and i ride a tarmac on the road um you know so the tools are super important to me about having that great experience when you're out there, no matter what it is that you're doing.

49:38Same thing in running. Like I would say that, you know, like I, as an example, I just got, um, this new pair of, uh, Brooks glycerin flex. It's like their brand new shoe. It's like an amazing shoe, right? So like having the right tools, no matter what you're doing, whether you're hiking, you know, climbing, riding, walking, whatever it is, is really critical so that you keep coming back because if you have a poor experience because of the equipment, then you probably won't do it again, right? So like, you know, that's what it just matters a lot no matter which activity you're in that you have the right equipment.

50:14You know, and by the way, doesn't mean you can't buy used equipment because there's a lot of good used equipment out on the market too. So like, if you're thinking about it from a sustainability or cost perspective, there's lots of places like we have this big marketplace called Pink Bike Marketplace, which is the largest mountain bike sort of transaction marketplace, kind of like eBay for, you know, bikes. And I think right now we have 60 ,000 used bikes listed on pink bike marketplace globally, right? So there's lots of places to find great used equipment, no matter which category or discipline you're in.

50:46I think there's also two things that was subtle. And what you just said was you've got six years of data on your aura ring. That's going to have a better idea. So if I got an aura ring right now, it's not going to have the same tenacity or same data in there because You're basing off yours, which is an alga based off six years versus I'm basing off what would be a couple months. So there's that. But I also think there's the concept of, you know, there isn't one versus the other. For example, when I scuba dive, I use zeagle. I like them because I prefer my secondary on my chest. I use a zeagle ranger because I know that what's going to probably kill me down there is not going to be a fish.

51:18It's going to be the other diver ripping my first stage out of my mouth. I'm expecting that. So normally when someone runs into it, we'll spit the rag, which means I literally, and then it'll fly to the other person. and then I could take my secondary, which is a foot away. I mean, it's eight inches away from my mouth. You're not going to take it away from me. So it's a matter of what comfortable. And the first one I ever had was a gift. It was a used one, which was wonderful. So it doesn't have to be brand new. It's just the gear you're using that makes you feel safe and makes you want to go outside and makes you want to execute.

51:47That I think is going to be really important. Some of the last type of things, you know, you have access to stuff that most people don't. When you're talking about core temperature and you're talking about, you know, maybe glasses that we're using, maybe blue light glasses. Are there other tools that, God, I wish people would use this or things that you're like, I use these every day and I can't imagine my life without them. Um, you know, I don't like, I I'm, I'm a huge advocate for things like, uh, saunas, even red light saunas. I know there's a lot of debate about real saunas versus red light.

52:16And, you know, but I, I, we have a red light one and I use it, you know, I'd say regularly. I mean, I wish I used it more cold pundling is another thing I think is really like If you think about, let's say you're doing a fairly intense workout, there's a lot of inflammation. So something like cold plunging really can help that. If you're out riding two, three, four, five hours and you get back, it's really good to do. So there are things like that that certainly I would say not only do we write about and certainly I advocate on a personal level, but I also think there's a there's you know and there you know there are many many apps that people can download whether it's for meditation like I said whether it's for food tracking whether it's for different performance and training things you know but there's also a case to be made for like really listening to your body like like almost disconnecting from the wearables at times to understand like what is what is just you know if you listen closely enough what is your core saying to you?

53:20Like, are you tired? Are you, like, even if your ring is saying, hey, Robin, you're ready to go get it today. Like your, you know, your recovery score is awesome, but I just feel crappy, right? Like you got to listen too, because there is, you know, oftentimes your body will tell you things that maybe the devices don't have a hundred percent perspective into. Yeah. I think for me, when I found out that I could just do blood working to my biomarkers back. That was huge because I was ice plunging like crazy. And they were like, Hey, you've got, you know, you grew up in South Florida. Therefore there's an immense amount of mold in your system.

53:55And I was like, whoa, whoa. And we said, okay, stop ice plunging. I was like, why am I stopped? They're like, go get an IR sauna, sit it every single day, twice a day. You've got to detox this stuff out. You've got to open your body up so you can get this. Well, it takes time. So getting those other data sets, getting those numbers that you can only figure out, you know, figuring out where your DNA is and your SNPs based off your DNA and figuring out how your body reacts to certain things and gluten and histamines and all of these things across the board that data is above and beyond and i think to your point the best way to do this and i know this is going to sound get outside my body i can hear my body better when i'm outside i'm hiking in switzerland than i can anywhere else so this just became a promotion for switzerland go to Switzerland.

54:40My tourism, Switzerland. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is for now. Go to Lucerne and just walk up and down. You'll be fine. You'll feel much better. Yeah, you'll feel much better. Yeah. So if people want to feel better and they want to learn more about this and they want to track you down and get more information about you, Robin, how do they track you down? What's the best way to get a hold of you? I mean, we have so many sites and so many products. I always tell people to just go like our one of our largest ones is outside online. and if you go into the nav, you can see everything that we kind of have to offer.

55:09But, you know, create accounts, sign up for a membership, you know, start engaging with the content and the services that we have, sign up for an event. That's a big way to sort of, you know, get you through the learning curve. And that could be everything from a, you know, a 5K to a 10K to, you know, whatever, whatever endeavor you might want to, you know, sign up for, but sign up for something because it will motivate you to do that. So, but you can find all that at outsideonline.com. Robin, I really appreciate it. It's always fun talking to you. Thank you so much. You too. Thanks for having me.

55:38That's a wrap on another episode of The Proven Podcast. Community builds momentum. Data builds direction. Execution builds results. Stop watching trends. Start building ecosystems. While others chase attention, you could be creating platforms that last. Remember, if your strategy doesn't create real value, it was never proven to scale.