Stephen is one of the most prolific journalists and publishers working in the outdoor markets today. No one can question the strength of the publishing empire he’s built in Gearjunkie.com. Hilariously enough, I met him back in the day, literally, when he was first trolling Outdoor Retailer as a college student. Stephen was at the show, pushing his printed magazine called Vertical Jones (no longer in publication), which was a climbing publication that he launched from Minnesota.

Everything has changed since then, and continues to, in publishing and in Stephen’s life. He’s now a father and husband, and runs a full-fledged publishing empire in GearJunkie.com. Today’s podcast uncovers what it was like for Stephen to scale Gearjunkie.com while navigating the many changes of media and publishing in the past decade plus. You’ll hear how Stephen has studied his readership and audiences, and stayed nimble to their needs in GearJunkie. You’ll also get the connection between the success Stephen’s had in publishing and adventure racing.

One of the best parts about this episode? Stephen shares with us his top trends in gear evolution in the outdoor active lifestyle markets.

What is it really like to run a company? Entrepreneurship can be portrayed as glamorous in the media, which can create a magnetic pull for many people. What’s often not portrayed is the hustle, the endless to-do list and pressures of a launch. Today, you get to see the inside line to the nitty-gritty details of actually walking this road, day in and day out.

Meet Patrick Latcham, founder of ProEditors.com. Here’s a guy who has come to understand the hustle on a very intimate level. Patrick shares with us today the highs and lows, the joys and pains, the long hours and hard decisions that go into turning an idea into a successful venture. As Patrick says, “Ideas are a dime a dozen.” It seems like everyone has good ideas, but the sad truth is that most of those ideas will never turn into anything, because the idea is just the first step. What comes after the idea (read: the work, hustle and iron will) is what separates those who succeed in entrepreneurship from those who don’t.

ProEditors was Patrick’s idea. It’s a platform that takes raw video footage from fledgling videographers (read iPhone and point-of-view camera users) and turns back a pro-quality video. But his journey from that fantastic idea to the reality of a viable business has been a roller coaster ride that any entrepreneur can relate to. He’s gone through The Telluride Venture Accelerator (which has made an appearance on Intrepid Entrepreneur before) - which is an intense boot-camp for entrepreneurs, through the process of taking on funding and learning about the details of the venture capital world, and through the long hours and sleepless nights of turning an idea into reality.

This episode of Intrepid Entrepreneur gets into the details of what this journey looks like, from the eyes of the individual going through it. As an adventurous, intrepid entrepreneur, Patrick has worked to find a balance between the long, grueling hours required to launch a successful venture, and his first love, the passion that started this venture in the first place: a love for the outdoors. Patrick calls his time living an adventurous life in Telluride, Colorado,  ‘outdoor-market research,’ - but also talks about the ways that it revitalizes him, and how this time doing what he loves gives him added productivity and inspiration in the office.

So get ready for an inspiring story about how one man was able to take his passion, formulate a needed product around it, work extremely long and hard hours to eventually turn it into a reality, and finally develop the ability to attain a balanced lifestyle in all of this, finding time to do all of the things he loves and to develop the venture that has become his main focus. Get ready to learn and be inspired by Patrick Latcham on this episode of Intrepid Entrepreneur!

Why would you choose to do away with the practicality of modern technology and go backwards in time? Who would purposefully take something dynamic and current like Adventure-Journal.com, and seemingly turn the clock back to launch a quarterly print magazine? And who would be gutsy enough to suggest such an idea?

Steve Casimiro would and did! It’s because he understands his customers on a deeper level than most. He has spent the last seven years creating a dialogue with his customers, listening to all they’ve got to say, and digesting it. What did he come back with? Kind of what you’d expect. … The reader of Adventure-Journal.com wants An experience.

But the Deeper You Go, the Deeper You Go. That’s actually AJ’s tagline.

So, Steve went for it, despite the fact that the move seems so opposite of current trends in publishing. For anyone who knows Steve, that’s exactly why it was the right move. In a lot of ways, this kind of a big move is his unique selling proposition: He leads with his heart, and this is an incredibly unique, rare, and valuable attribute.

But it’s SO not the easy road. The AJ print quarterly debuts in April 2016, at which time we’ll all see if the experiment works. Steve’s well aware of the risk, and he shares a lot of insights about managing it and going for it despite the fact that it’s, well, just a little scary!

Steve’s goal with the quarterly print magazine isn’t about click-bait titles that rack up website visitor numbers. Rather, AJ’s print quarterly will be about telling a heartfelt and true story about what it means to be an adventurous human being. 

Seeing this as the end goal, Steve was able to analyze the mediums available, and going the print route shows his deep insight into how the medium affects the way it is consumed. Old-fashioned print aligns perfectly with Steve’s goal to give consumers aquieter, deeper, and more thoughtful experience through the stories he tells.

Hear Steve’s insightful story about how he came to the decision to launch a print publication — a dream of his. You’ll hear him talk about facing risk, battling demons and a host of other challenges we as outdoor founders encounter on a regular basis. This is an important episode of Intrepid Entrepreneur, one you won’t want to miss!