I feel honored to be able to interview Martin Zemitis in this episode of the Intrepid Entrepreneur podcast.
Martin is the founder of SlingFin, a technical tent and shelter company headquartered in the Bay Area.
For 33 amazing years, Martin has served the outdoor active lifestyle markets with the world’s best tent designs. He’s literally been part of every tent innovation over the past three decades and has designed for The North Face, Sierra Designs, and Mountain Hardware.
What a stellar career, you might be saying. You may even think I’m about to tell you that Martin decided to retire after leaving Mountain Hardware nearly 20 years after he helped found it.
Well, you’d be wrong.
When he left Mountain Hardware, Martin was dreaming and scheming about launching his own tent brand – the one that would enable him to finally design for the user, for the harshest environments.
In SlingFin, his upstart company, Martin wanted to truly innovate with his passion for tent and shelter design and not be walled in by the guardrails of the wholesale market. This is where things got interesting. Martin set up SlingFin in 2010 and set about protecting his trademarks. then, like all of us entrepreneurs, he needed funding.
Today, in this interview, you’ll hear about the six-year battle he fought staying true to his vision while working to find the right funding solution. You’ll also hear what happens when an entrepreneur hell-bent on doing it his way collides with equity crowdfunding.
That’s right – Martin and SlingFin were part of the 20 company launch of the Title III Wefunder portal that went live May 16, 2016.
This episode tells the story about one of the outdoor industry’s absolute legendary gear designers staying true to his vision and making it work with the Wefunder platform.
After listening to this podcast, you’ll be convinced that things will never be the same again for entrepreneurs in the outdoor active lifestyle markets – HERE WE GO!
PS - Turns out that Wefunder’s Operations Director, Dylan Enright, is a former river guide and ski instructor. He wants to see the Wefunder portal become the go-to location for outdoor brands to connect with outdoor enthusiasts. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Intrepid Entrepreneur as much as I enjoyed putting it together for you. This episode is a super important one – by going to ITunes and giving the Intrepid Entrepreneur podcast a positive rating and review, you’ll be giving Martin, SlingFIn and the WEfunder platform more visibility. And iTunes is a HUGE platform – let’s light it up for Martin!
Until next time, GO BIG!
“Time in the past doesn’t mean much to me, because it’s all about what’s going to be done in the future.” – Martin Zemitis
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GearJunkie: Title III Jobs Act Equity Crowdfunding
Forbes Article About Equity Crowdfunding