On a sunny morning at Alpine Meadows a few days ago I caught up with Dan Abrams, one of the owners and founders of Flylow, one of the hottest up and coming brands in the ski-clothing industry. Over hot laps, windy chairlift rides, and plenty of sunshine we talked about starting his own company, the difficulties of staying original in an ever-changing industry, and where he sees things going from here. Check out below for my full interview with Dan.

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You started Flylow 10 years ago, at the time, did you see it turning into what it is today?

No. I mean, I think ignorance is bliss, especially when I look back and I realize I was challenging Marmot, and The North Face, and these huge companies. I guess, I didn’t even know that this was possible, because it’s such a product-driven thing. I thought that, you know, worst-case scenario I could build my resume. Maybe I could be a sales rep or something, go to work for Patagonia. In the end, it worked out fantastic.

What was it specifically about the available ski clothing at the time, that made you want to build something different? And how has that changed your design philosophy over the years?

So, I’m 38 now, I graduated college in 2000 from the University of Puget Sound. Right at that point in time all the gates were starting to open at all the resorts. For all of us who were skiing the resorts, the backcountry started becoming accessible. It wasn’t illegal to go out of the gates and it wasn’t a scary thing. So we started to do it. Especially at Crystal Mountain, which has such a funky mix, including some avalanche-controlled terrain that’s technically backcountry. It was a great place to learn. We would go out the gates and very quickly learned that our gear was either too lightweight to withstand bootpacking and skiing down, or it was too loose or just not waterproof enough, because it was made basically to keep ski racers warm between runs. So we saw this niche, like peanut butter and chocolate making Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Can we get a mountaineering factory to make us some clothes that were high-tech, but actually tough enough? And so it all started with a pair of pants, the Cactus Pant. To this day we still do 2 to 1 jackets to pants, where most companies are doing more like 3 or 4 to 1, jackets to pants. So we’re a pant company. Over time, one of the big things is we are still independent and we’re homegrown. We’re 38 and we know that we’re not as cool as we think we are, or we’re not as cool as we were. Style evolves, and so style evolves in our brand. We hired another Granite Chief alumni, Brit White, who works with Greg at the base of Alpine Meadows Road. They design us great stuff. She’s making us cool, I make sure that it’s technical enough for the dorks, and Greg finds the middle ground. It’s working.

 

"We’re 38 and we know that we’re not as cool as we think we are, or we’re not as cool as we were. Style evolves, and so style evolves in our brand."

 

You started Flylow in Colorado, but obviously you’re out here in Tahoe. When did you come out here and what prompted that move?

When we started, the goal of the company was to make pants. Then we started to realize that it was a reality. The next idea was to move to Denver, and we got the business going. Then the goal was not to live in Denver. The goal was to get a job, find some women, and then move back to a ski town. We were in the service industry, Greg was waiting tables at a really nice restaurant and I was bartending. That’s how we financed and how we started Flylow. After 8 years of doing that, we finally got to a point where our accountant said we could start taking a salary. So we quit our night jobs and then we had the fun task of deciding where we wanted to live. There were a lot of fun mountain towns on that list, Jackson Hole, Aspen, Carbondale, Tahoe. In the end, there’s only one place you can live on a lake with world-class skiing within 30 minutes, and it’s Lake Tahoe. And my wife is from Nevada City, and we have family here. So that helped too.

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Following up a bit with what we were talking about as far as places of operation, what parts of the operation are still in Colorado, versus what have you moved out here?

In Colorado we have 4 people. We have Molly, our director of operations, Scott, my third business partner and our CFO, and Carly, who is the warehouse warden. She manages customer service and makes sure all our orders are going out. Then Austin, our newest add-on, took Ben’s job doing all fulfillment of orders. And we’re working to get him as much training in sales as we can. I’m the president so I do brand managing and make sure everyone is talking with each other and doing what they should be doing. Then Greg, who is my primary business partner, is production line manager. “Maker of things” is what it says on his card. At Alpine Meadows Road at the Mill, which is the little co-working space down there, we have an office and we call it the Design Lab. People show up sometimes trying to do an exchange, but we don’t have anything there except random samples with two left arms or something. So Greg and Brit work there, endlessly designing. And then I work from home in Tahoe City, because I talk on the phone so much. It’s a beautiful thing. We’re the modern small company. We now have 11 full-time people making a living off of us. Our sales manager is in San Rafael, our web manager is in Jackson, our graphic designer is in Park City. So we have this pool of amazing talent because we all identify with the same thing. It’s not about money, it’s about having security to do what you want to do. I may want to go to Japan or Verbier, but I need the time to do it, and the lifestyle. Living in a beautiful place is part of that.

 

"The goal was to get a job, find some women, and then move back to a ski town... In the end, there’s only one place you can live on a lake with world-class skiing within 30 minutes, and it’s Lake Tahoe."

 

Where would you like to see Flylow go as a brand from here?

I really prescribe to this idea of good business and sustainability, not just from the environmental side of things, but from a business side of things. I’d like to see Flylow self-finance growth anywhere from 10-20%, indefinitely. And like we were saying earlier, I’d love to continue to build a solid company that evolves with the style, so that we always remain relevant. I know that it’s easier said than done. What we’re seeing with large companies is that they’re struggling to make the bottom line and keep their shareholders happy. I just read this article in Bombsnow, it was an article on Jason Levinthal, the guy who founded Line Skis. In the beer industry, 10 years ago, you couldn’t imagine life without Budweiser or Coors. And in the ski industry it would be hard to imagine life without Rossignol or Dynastar. But in 10 years, with all these craft breweries coming up now, I can get a light pilsner at my local micro-brewery. Micro-brews are the sustainable business of that culture. And I think that our industry is going to survive like that as well. And independent stores like Granite Chief are the backbone of that. Our goal is to be independent, homegrown and mountain-raised. Which is also our tagline. But it’s true. Someone had to point it out to us actually, but that’s what we are. We’ve established a great culture that reinforces that. 10 years, we’ll be right here riding the lift, laughing about it.

The 40 under 40 thing, it’s a pretty high accolade. How do you take something like that? Does that sort of recognition validate what you’ve been doing?

I’m a generalist, I’m not particularly excellent at any one thing. I think it validates the crew that I work with and that we’ve put together. That’s something that people are noticing. From the design team, to our rock star sales team, to customer service that was built on the bartender philosophy of “just let us know what to do to fix a situation.” We’ll figure out what went wrong later. All those things play into the recognition. So it’s super flattering, but if anything I’ll take credit for being able to wrangle people. There’s so much that goes into it. It’s still a huge honor.

 

"Micro-brews are the sustainable business of that culture [beer]. And I think that our industry is going to survive like that as well. And independent stores like Granite Chief are the backbone of that."

 

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There’s been a ton of high-profile accidents and death in the action sports industry. And certainly plenty around the Tahoe area specifically. Do you think about that when deciding how to portray your company and athletes in social media, and the industry in general? And what type of responsibility do you think companies who cater to the extreme sports crowd hold?

I think about it all the time. I myself was unfortunately involved in the Tunnel Creek avalanche in Stevens Pass, and lost 3 friends that day. For a little while, I couldn’t even say backcountry in our marketing. It just turned into big mountain, and freeride. But the reality is, it is backcountry. And backcountry is a special thing and it needs to be protected. We need to educate people. So, for Flylow, how can we be responsible for it? We never portray people doing crazy things in the backcountry. We’re not about telling our athletes to huck their meat. I always tell them to have fun. And reinforcing the idea that if you pull it back a few notches, you’ll probably do better in that comp. Not just to hit the nail right on the head, but we try to figure out what we can do to support the community with whatever voice we have. We teamed up with the Jackson Hole Outdoor Leadership Institute. Jacob Irvin is a great guy and now a friend of ours now that we’ve been hooking up with gear. ‘Cause those guys, and guides, are exactly the people you want connecting with customers. This year we did a huge raffle. We raffled off two free trips to Jackson Hole to get free Avy 1 or Avy 2 courses. The idea was in one respect, hey, let’s do something cool for our customers that is ethical. And in another respect, it’s all about the people who didn’t win. That wanted to win. Hopefully it got them thinking, screw it, I’m going to take that Avy course regardless. And if I win, I’ll just take Avy 2 the next time. Greg grew up backcountry skiing with his family, never even had a lift ticket until he was 13. I spent so much time going around with experienced people and got mentored in the backcountry, I had never taken Avy 1. Last year we flew to Jackson and we did the trip. We studied with Jake and just ate it up. It was so awesome. There’s all those decision making processes, and studying snow, and route-finding, and it’s so useful. Getting on the same page with backcountry skiers is so critical.