Yes, this is the Side Hustlers Podcast and I am your host, Carla Marie from my Heart Radio. The whole point of this podcast is to talk to people who are following a passion outside of their day job, or people who have started as a side hustler and have now turned their side hustle into a full time job. And they're all small businesses that I would love for you to support. This week, we've got Karin and Garrison, doctor husband and wife on the podcast and they created Rep Your Water. Rep your Water dot Com, an apparel company that gives back to regional conservations and it was born out of their hobby, which is fly fishing. Now, even if you don't like fly fishing or have never been fly fishing, I promise you are going to love Karin and Garrison. You're gonna love their story and you're gonna love Wrap your Water. It's not just for fly fishers, for a lot of people. You know, why are you when you know what you want to do and this is something you want to do and do it. I'm a hustles sid hustle do it. I'm a hustle. Hut do it. I'm a hustle. Come on, ask about me, yo yo, It's the Side Hustless podcast we called at Root. Joining me this week our Karin and Garrison doctor. I think you guys are my first couple that has been on the podcast, so welcome. Thank you. Also about that you are a couple, right, I'm not you're talking about tell me that your brother and sister and I missed that. We just celebrated our tenure anniversary. God, well, congratulations. So this side hustle that you have rep your water. Let's go back to when it started. What year was that it was in? Basically like so kind of when you guys got married around the same time. Not yeah, we stacked a lot of stuff together. We I graduated from college in oh seven. We moved in together very shortly thereafter. Garrison's a year ahead of me in school and got that in there exactly. It is that I'm the younger woman. And then we moved in together, got married. That started this business. It's been like go go, go, go go, But it was truly a side hustle initially. I mean it it took a while to get off the ground, as you know, sometimes these things do. Absolutely. I talked to people who are in the like three years in and they are still side hustling. And I love that I have you guys ten years later to be able to give some of these people hope who do want to take it full time. I'm gonna let you guys explain this. What exactly is Wrap your Water. Rap Your Water is an apparel brand, So we make all sorts of hats and shirts, some more technical gear and some more lifestyle gear, mainly geared towards fly fishing, but also towards outdoor general, hunting, hiking, anything kind of outdoor. A lot of people ask us what is the REP. Yeah, so it means represent. It all started with basically local based designs. So because we're from Colorado, obviously most of the first designs were Colorado based. So you represent the water that you love to fish. And then the brand is REP Your Wild So that's where we encompass the hunting and the outdoor general and the camping and the all things wild and wildlife. And to date, you guys have actually given back is it more than two dollars to different nonprofits. Yeah. So built into our model is what we call our three percent for conservation, and it's just kind of we came up with it on our own based on one percent for the planet, but we realized we could fit in a little bit more over the years. It's actually an updated number because I ran the reports today just hours ago. We're over two thousand dollars to our conservation partners. That's incredible. What are some of your partners? Well, we wanted to because we have so much gear that regionally specific, give back regionally and not just to like a national amorphous nonprofit, but have it be a little bit more tangible. So, for example, in the Pacific Northwest, we work with the Wild Steelhead Coal Issue and they work towards wild steelhead returns and healthy rivers and clean water in the Pacific Northwest. In Colorado here where we're from, we work with Colorado Trout Unlimited. They work for cold, clean water and healthy fisheries here in Colorado Country. Hunters and Anglers is a big one of ours. They work towards public land and all the other good things clean water and all of these different nonprofits right now are united over the no Pebble Mine fight, which I encourage everyone to look more into that. In Alaska, you know, we work at the Bone Fish and Tarp and Trust down in Florida, So that's another really great one. They do a lot of work studying like the interconnectivity and of all those saltwater fish down there that people like to target with the fly rod National Fish Habitat. And yeah, you guys have really you've done your research, so you know this, But this is this was something you guys were passionate about before you started. Correct, like you've fly fit, I've never fly fish, but I'm assuming you cared about fly fishing and water or before you started your company. Yeah. Absolutely, the company was born basically my my background in terms of education is in art and design, but my passion has always been fly fishing and being outside. So that's where this was born. You know, I was working in a fly shop here in Colorado and doing some guiding um and bouncing around doing a few other jobs right after the recession, and there was kind of a hole in the market where there was either like a a big name brand. I say that in the flashing industry still the flashing industry, like a big name brand hat or logo wear item or something specific to that shop. And I thought, I would you really need if there was something that said, like, I love Colorado and I like to fish. I think people would connect with it. And being almost ten, well nine years ago, years ago, it was I would say like before the state pride kind of fervor. Is that's the thing, Like I did no one care about where they lived before then? Because I feel like it's now everyone's like my state got to represent. But I don't remember it being like that when I was. Wasn't It wasn't like that when we started, which is I mean, which is great to insider ourselves a tiny piece of that trend setting. We have a friend. We literally started the run with it. Yes, you did. No one can prove me wrong. I believe you. Harrison. You mentioned that you were working in a fly fishing shop and doing guides after the recession. What were you doing before the recession and how did you get into the fly fishing shop. I was doing actually architectural renderings for like high end developments, So I was self employed still but doing much more like marketing renderings for these large scale developments, and the recession just cut that right out. It was done. Yeah, So I was bouncing around doing all sorts of things. I was in software sales. I was working at the home. Yeah, I worked at the home depot for a while. I did all sorts of things. But like I said, my passion from very long ago. I mean I started. I got my first fly rod when I was I think ten, So it was kind of natural for me to gravitate to doing some things in the fly shop and doing some guide trips and helping out there because I've always wanted to be involved in that. And even though we've been married for ten years, we've been a couple for fifteen, and so early on in our relationship, he was like, all right, well I better test this girl and see if she likes what I like. So we went on like a just short little fly fishing date and I just had such a good time, and you know, like any new passion, it kind of like built over the years and now it's obviously huge part of my life because of work, but it's one of my favorite things to do in my past time as well. Well. In Karin, what was your day job when you first launched rep your water? So my day job also kind of flipped around, just like Garrison's. We both went to school actually in the Pacific Northwest at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, so well, Garrison studied fine art. I studied Hispanic studies, which is basically like Spanish language, culture, history, all of the things. And I graduated and I did basically bilingual school work. So I was in a secretary position. I was in a tutoring position, and I liked it so much that I then went back to school got my teaching degree. The very first year that I was teaching was the year that we started up your Water, So that had to be crazy, Like what it was like? Crazy being in school, teaching all day, dealing with whatever. How old were these kids? Schoolers? Okay, yeah, the worst, dealing with high schoolers and then coming home and starting a company, so you're doing that day job where all your energy gets sucked out and then now you have to put your energy into this thing that solely survives because of the two of you. Yeah, it was chaotic. I mean we would be packing orders until ten at night a lot of the time, and later although we did usually crack a bottle of wine just to keep us going, which is drinking wine right now, and I'm pretty jealous of it that you didn't bring any for me. We forgot this, you know, give you the memo next time. Yeah, and then working all day, I was able to like slowly reduce a little bit of the time that I was working in school because it's basically, however many classes you teach is how much you get paid for. So I was able to kind of reduce that. So I wasn't full time and do this little gradual thing that not every job. Are you able to do that with? Absolutely not, So I was pretty lucky in that sense. It was tough. I mean, for the first two years we both were working full time at other jobs, and then I was doing guide trips on the side and then trying to put some effort towards up your water. Did you bolt at the same time, leave the day job world and make up your water your full time job? What was that transition like for both of you. Garrison got to be full time first. Yeah. It was actually very fortuitous because it had gotten to the point where we could see a little bit of the potential. It was gaining some traction. There was more and more demand, there was more and more volume, and it was at that point where I was like, maybe I need to take the leap and just do this right it's hard to do. You know. I had good benefits, you got the steady paycheck, and so I was a little tentative to just pull the plug on the other job and just dive in. And the company that I worked for was a very strange company with a not so good corporate culture, I would say, But anyway, they downsized my department and basically said you can keep your job, but you have to relocate to Florida. And I was like, I think I'm gonna take the severance package and I'm out. So it was like the perfect kick for me to like get it going. We'll make the leap, will do it, because otherwise, like that could be a tough one to do. Well. You called me at like ten am and was like, hey, so um security just came in to escort me out because I didn't accept there you have to move to Florida. And I was like what He's like, yeah, my job doesn't exist anymore. I was like, all right, don't you go. He'll put some axes. Okay. I love that. So two years in, what how is the company different now than it was eight years ago? We were in our basement, so like in the very beginning, it was just like one design on two hats, and that was finally, I think in is when we were making sales. You know, there was a lot of things going on between actually having an idea to selling some hats. We had maybe two designs and three designs, four designs, and now we have like almost seven skis. That's a little while. Kri. What was it like for you to go full time and to wrap your water and life teaching. I was so excited to do it. I'm a little bit o c D and I really like things to be really organized, and I like things to be by the book. And it was really hard to be present at either job, especially once rep your Water was doing things, you know, we were actually making money, and it was taking more and more time. We weren't in our basement anymore. We have a little warehouse space, and so I kind of thought, we'll all make it one more and it was very clear that I was not going to be able to do both for one more year. Even though high schoolers are a lot, they are a really wonderful bunch, and when you teach Spanish you get kind of a different side of them. They're not getting standardized tests on Spanish it's all just a little bit more casual. So the day I told my students, I like burst into tears and they were like, oh my god, you're leaving. I had no idea you were doing this the whole time, right, so you told them what you were going to do. Yeah. I was like, hey, so I've been doing this for the last five years and now off I go. And they were like, oh my god, how did you like keep that from us? How did we never know? That's wild? But obviously you both are very happy now doing this full time. Do you guys have a brick and mortar store? Is that ever in the future. We distribute to retailers, so mainly independent fly shops, but also like outdoors stores, I mean, any number of retailers. There's a whole list of them on our website that you can check out, but are like warehouse office isn't really set up to be customer facing. We do have a tiny little show room so anybody wants to stop in can stop in, but it's not a like prime retail location. We're very happy to support our retail footprint without trying to have a designated like brick and mortar rep your water retail location, and it makes sense for what you guys are. I mean, you have something from almost every state? Is it every state? Is it all fifty states? All fifty states? There's fly fishing in New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey, by the way. That's why I say, well, that's why I'm picking on New Jersey. Yeah, it's an odd it's an odd crowd, but it's a great scene out there. For sure. They pick on us because they don't think we have enough stuff from you. I mean, funny enough, one of the largest like consumer facing fly fishing shows in the country is in New Jersey. Where please hear me in this. I mean, it doesn't even matter where. It's like, it's like New York's New Jersey. But that's wildeve people coming from all over. I mean, Pennsylvania is the second largest trout Nlimited council. All the Pennsylvanians come to the New Jersey show and it's this huge little mecca in Colorado. You know, we think we have this huge state and there's all this space around us, but as you know, the East Coast, they're all a little more connected. Out is a lot more people out there than for people a lot more squished together, and so they show up in Force Fishing Show. Which state do you sell the most products of? Not too I guess which state do you sell the most products of? I mean probably Colorado. Still it's our home state. It's a great retail footprint for us, and we have great fly fishing and it's a nice mix because it's it's both a destination location in terms of people coming in from all over to come fishing and and just buy a cool hat, but also there's a great full time local guide you know, resident population as well. But we do a nice clip out in or again in Washington as well. As Green mentioned, we met actually out there going to college. So we spent a lot of time fishing for steelhead in the Pacific Northwest, and we push a lot of gear out in there as well, and and the Southeast is good for us to sure. Yeah, what, I guess it's crazy to think ten years ago when he started and the social media world. Now, when you guys started, you weren't concerned about an Instagram account and having grand on Instagram and aesthetic and all of that. So how did you jump in on that where you skeptic at first? And what has that world been like for you guys. Well, I remember hearing about Instagram and I was like, Garrison, I feel like we could maybe post some pictures of when we go fishing on this and he was like, that's so weird. I don't give it. It is weird. Not a big social media guy historically, which is hilarious because I run all of our social media say aren't you, isn't that you? And a lot of the Instagram pictures. He likes it now, but grudgingly I love it now. I think it's really fun. Actually, I mean it was just sort of like, hey, we'll throw up a fish picture on the Instagram feed every once a while, and it became a really pivotal piece of our brand growth and recognition. Um, you know, that social media platform allowed us to expose the brand of so many people, and we were in early enough that like the Instagram metrics back then, we're very much like if you fall, yeah, if you followed that person, like you saw the feed, right, it wasn't as nuanced as it is now, right, So that was like a big piece for us. And our Instagram following has been organically grown and so it's still a really valuable piece for us in terms of our brand. Well. Instagram is a perfect place for anglers because people have been taking phish photos right forever. You know. We have friends that like will pull out their old photo album and they're like, and this is when I was in Montana and this is when I and it's the same stuff. It's if anything, Instagram has made people be more creative with their fishing photos because you know, everybody loves a grip and grin sort of. But being a little more creative with you know, keeping the fish wet or just showing a different side of angling and um, a little bit more of a conservation focus is a nice piece of Instagram as well, little educational piece. Is it just the two of you? Do you guys have anyone else who works for you or with you? We have one other full time employee, Tanner. He is awesome. Yeah, we love him. Check him out on Instagram at San Juan and Eggs great follow time. Yeah. So he's full time with us. And then we have a part time employee as well, who's mainly helps us with fulfillment and helps kind of manning the ship. If the three of us are on a photo shoot or doing something out of the office, and that's it. There's four of us. We're still a pretty lean and mean shop. It's great. So for the three of you, then, how are your roles different or do you all just kind of tackle things? You have individual things you work on that no one else works on out of the three of you. Yeah, at any given time, we all will have to do some of the same stuff, putting hats and boxes and restocking shelves. If a big shipment comes in, we all handle that, um. But Garrison does all of our design. So because his background is fine art, every single creative pieces, Garrison, Tanner and Garrison together do a lot of the marketing, and then I do all of the operations and accounting. Because you like being organized. I love it. Actually keeps the train on the track. Critical piece here. I completely got putting hats and boxes, and he's doing a little bit of grunt work. But there's a lot of that to go around as well. Garrison, when you were in school for art and design, did you one day think that you would be designing clothing? No, no idea. I was doing very like large scale, somewhat abstracted, like charcoal and pastel pieces. So I didn't have any training really in the more digital side of design, which is mostly what you know, what is applicable to the rep your water piece. Although I'm trying to incorporate a little bit more of the artist side of things into the line now. When we started, we we very much wanted to create a brand, not an artist who was making some hats. That's cool, that's a smart way to think about it, right, But now I think it's a really nice time, since we have been around for a little bit within our niche market, to kind of retell and reincorporate the story of the artist side of things as well. So we do, you know, some artist edition hats. We have some fine art prints for sale on the website as well, kind of telling that story a little bit. But I had no idea that we would be that I would be working in apparel at all. Part of bringing the artist story back to it is to remind people that this is not just like this COG. I love that learning things out. Authenticity has always been really important to us. So that is why we still manage our own Instagram. That is why the two of us show up on the Instagram a lot, and that is why we wanted to retell that artist story because in the beginning, people were like, oh, Garrison doctor designed that hat. But now, like I said, we have like six hundred different products, all of them have Garrison's art on them, so that's pretty cool. Absolutely want to remind people that there's a person behind that, and we do. We do get a chuckle sometimes and we like it. But we have had multiple people calling me, like, you know, other brands will tell the design department that we really like what they're doing, and I'm like, yeah, all pass that all. They're all going to be so happy to hear that. Thank you, that's hilarious, and that's that Really, you're right, it is a great compliment. I think the cool part of social media is that you guys can all that story because there are so many big companies that we follow and it's just the perfect picture that they probably doctored together in photoshop, but you guys are actually putting your faces out there, and as a consumer, we eat that crap up like we love that stuff seeing the people behind the company. So basically, I just want to tell you keep doing that because I think it's so smart. It really is, because it makes people latch onto a human and not just a product. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, to Current's point, like, especially in fly fishing, I really think authenticity is really important that we're out there doing it. We love it and it has such a great aesthetic. You know. That's the reason I love this sport is it's beautiful to watch. It's really fun to do. You know, it makes for a good photograph. The places usually where you're fly fishing are beautiful trout, steelhead, They're gorgeous to take a photo of, even if you're just going to let them go. So you know, we like that. I know the picture is our I looked at them, I was like, whoa, Like this is pretty. This is awesome, Like it really, it's awesome, So that's great. What is it like? This is the awkward question working with your significant other. I mean a lot of people think that's awkward to ask us. But we've been doing it for such a long time, and I think we each have such different strengths that we don't step on each other's toes. We get to spend all day together, which for some people they're like I could never spend all day with my partner, And I'm like, well, I mean, he's my favorite person, so I kind of do want to spend all day with him. While we each have our own strengths, we also are really good sounding boards and we've always had really open communication about life and then that translated perfectly into business. So we can have the harder conversations or we can have a light conversation about what email should we put out this week, But it's always really fun. Yeah, it's been great. It's been so much fun. We have definitely realized it's not for everyone, and I learned people people are like, oh, I wish that my wife would help me with this, and I'm like, for all I'm not just helping right, this is have these over here. Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes people don't realize what like Krin is a very passionate fly fisher in her own right, with her own what she brings to the sport, and that's a big piece of it and why it works. We obviously still have our challenges every once a while, and it's tough when you have all your eggs in one basket. It's not like she is working at this company and I'm working over here, because it's not a side does a little right and if something goes weird, you can fall back. But we take that any day. Do you guys separate work from like, if you're on a date night, are you like, okay, we're not talking about rep your water? Is it just like one big flow of whatever happens happens. We try not to have hard, like heavy hitting conversations if it's not at work. You know, we're not going to talk about budgets, and we're not going to talk about like how many hats should we order outside of the office. But I think talking about work and the exciting things is natural in all relationships, you know, Like I go out to brunch with my girlfriends and we're all talking about our jobs. So it's not that it's off limits, but it sort of became this natural thing where we're just going to talk about the exciting things. We're just gonna I will say, when the business was in the house and it was a true side hustle down in our basement, we looked at each other most nights at six or seven, ten eleven, depending on the day, and said, okay, I'm clocking out, yeah, because it was just so much to be thinking about all the time. So we had to say, I'm clogging out, let's go walk the dog or whatever it was. You have to do that otherwise you're gonna be miserable doing the thing that you once loved doing. So you kind of give yourself that break. But where are you guys now that you're not in the house. Is it that warehouse showroom? Is that where the office is as well? Yeah, we have Actually it's kind of a non traditional work workspace, but we love it. It's two airplane hangars, so they provide you know, nice warehouse, kind of midsized warehouse space for us, so we store all of our inventory there. We fulfill everything out of their in house and then we also have our office space out there as well and our showroom out there. So you know, when we have a nice day here in Colorado, which especially on the shoulder seasons, we do a lot. You know, their airplane hangars so they open up completely on one side, which makes for a really nice kind of indoor outdoor space and we look out on the field. We can see Long's Peak in the distance. It's pretty gorgeous. How did you get airplane hangers, Well, we were looking for a small warehouse space and something in that kind of smaller size range is a little bit hard to find, and this place was listed just as you know, like commercial real estate, listed as industrial. We had no idea it was an airplane hanger, and then we went and looked at it and we're like, this is weird. This is like an airplane hanger on a near an airport, hypothetically active taxi way, I'm not sure. And then we're like, actually, this is ideal because the whole door opens up, we can receive product easily. It's a great spot. So we've we've loved being out there and we really looked out because when we were looking for space, I think we've been there for like four and a half years now. When we were looking for space, it was right when medical marijuana got really hot, and you know, every little tiny brew pub got really hot, and they wanted the exact same footprint that we wanted. How long have you been there in the hangar? I think it's four and a half or five years. I can't even remember, because we were just in one and then we expanded into the one next door. I think it's probably gonna be five years at the end of this year, and it's great. We put our door through the two of them through the wall, so joined them together and then that kind of the two of them makes a perfect space for us. I'm coming to check it out. Check We got the ping pong table set up. There's always beer in the fridge down anything. You should come. In September, we hold an annual fundraiser for our local Trouten Limited chapter, the boulderfly Casters, And we have bluegrass, we have beer, we have barbecue. It's super fun, really cool. Do you guys do events like that in any other states or do you think you'll do that ever? Well, because we have a free space to do it and all the local connections you know, like, uh, Colorado has so much good craft beer. But Avery Brewing has always donated beer to this event. And it's our fifth annual and it's over a hundred people that come every time. So we've got great partners. We love events in general. We just don't have kind of the cool splane hangars in every state. We don't have airplane hangars in every state, you know. Speaking of what are the goals for rep your water, do you guys have like all right, in five years, we want to branch off into this like do you have big ideas or it's like, you know what, let's just do what we're doing now. I would say it's kind of a mixture, But we have moved beyond just doing like state themed fishing hats into a lot of really nice like we're on the water or just outdoor general versatile pieces like tribelend Son hoodies that are really lightweight and versatile. We have more like lifestyle shirts and midweight hoodies that are made from recycled products, etcetera. So the goal is to kind of diversify from just logo fishing hats, which we will still continue to develop and make a ton of new designs there, but grow beyond that into more technical, lightweight, upf rated gear. And then also we're really pushing towards new products that carry a sustainability story, so that not just pushing back to our conservation partners, to our three percent program, but also telling a story through the actual content base of our products. So, um, you know I mentioned our midweight hoodies, they're percent recycled and up cycled from recycled polyester and upcycled cotton. Um. We have some new flannels coming out shortly that are from Bioconton's organic based caught. You know, there's a whole series of products that we're working on that tell that sustainability story as well, so we want to continue to push in that direction well and operationally, we've also been making a lot of moves so we are a certified green business in the town where which it's a small town, but it still matters. We've diverted over of our ways from landfill over the last like twenty two months, so as long as long as we've been recording data, we compost. We obviously recycle everything, but we also have this great facility here and your Boulder called the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, so we can take plastic film and plastic bags there. The way, this is right up my alley, and I love this kind of stuff, so this makes me so happy. Yeah, so it's one severer time. We had been pushing back at our main hat factory for a really long time because it's the necessary evil in clothing manufacturing that you need things to be in a plastic bag because if it's not, it's exactly and then you're wasting the material for the product, which that's worse anyway. So we've been pushing back with our factory over the last like eighteen months, and just three months ago they switched all of their poly bags over to recycled content, which is awesome because this is material that's already out there. The very first plastic bag that was ever made is still on this earth. And so when we use the recycled content for either our sweatshirts or for our polly bags or you know, whatever it is, you're giving a second life to that and then when you recycle it again. I mean, Walmart has plastic film recycling bins in front of the store, so everybody should be gathering their plastic bags and putting them in. Oh absolutely, at Walmart or Kroger, wherever you go. And I know it's hard for companies because I had on this podcast earlier this year Toasty Swimwear and she was just one person running her own company and tried to make it completely sustainable and realize it those numbers weren't going to make sense for her at that point, so she did have to close up shop. So it's it's not easy to be sustainable as a company. So I commend you guys for that, because that's all those things you just said are unbelievably hard for a business to do. Yeah, it takes a little bit more work. But we've seen the return on our investment, which our investment is mostly just time. We've seen the return on being able to tell that story and inspire others to do good, both through our retailers. We've had multiple retailers reach out and say, oh my gosh, I had no idea that you were doing X, Y, and Z. Now I'm going to one of our One of our retailers put solar panels on the roof, like he was already really inspired to do better. But we put out our animal sustainability reports saying we don't own the building, so we can't put solar panels on, but we buy green energy certificates basically to make a carbon neutral situation. And he was partially inspired by us and his own passions. And you know, it's like, if we are not spreading the word, um we in this industry, in this world, I don't think we're doing our job. Especially if you have the ability in the platform to do it, just do it because you will inspire other people to do it. And I know people listening right now are gonna be like, oh my god, I really want to buy from them and support them because you're doing these amazing things. And Garrison, you were talking about how it's not just a you know, a fishing logo on a hat anymore. It's great because I don't fly fish at the moment, but I still want to buy your products, and I love that you guys have branched off and and have Obviously you're still great within the fly fishing community, but there's no reason why everyone shouldn't want to buy from REP your Water, especially with the holidays coming up. So I want you to do a little explain a little bit about the kind of products you guys have recently added or what you're adding to REP your Water dot com. Yeah, so I touched on a couple of them. I would say the midweight recycled hoodies are something that we're really excited about. We of course have a number of new hats out. We have a line of eco tell hats out which we're excited about. There's not a whole lot of people in the you know, just kind of brimmed hat arena that are telling sustainability story. So they're made from recycled polyester or in organic cotton blend. And the plastic um support that makes the brim of the hat is also recycled plastic. So that's something we're very excited about. I mentioned the new bio cotton flannels that are coming out. We also have for the fly Fisherman or not the Fly Fisherman, a great line of marino wool socks. They're made in a mill in Tennessee. Really high quality marino, so great moisture wicking, they're antimicrobial, they're really temperature very real. Yeah, so they're great when it's kind of hot or cold or whatever. They're very good in all different kinds of temperatures. We have a couple of different weights of those, so there's those are something that we're very excited, especially going into the holidays. Yeah. I like to think that socks are a stereotypical holiday gift, but I'm like an extreme sock geek. Yes, and our socks look really cool and then they're really high qualities, So those are my favorite. We have a lot of fun trout prints on the aso the elevation socks that are like topo lines. We have the blue ridges that are just like really pretty you know, atmospheric perspective of some mountains and hills and so kind of that. More outdoors that you don't have to fish to wear. Those love it. I think it's pretty. I mean, there's no reason why, like I said, people shouldn't want to support you guys. It's incredible what you're doing. Um, But I love talking about connections on this podcast and how we come in contact with one another because I obviously didn't meet you guys fly fishing. So Josh Mills works for I Heart Radio in Spokane, Washington, which is about three or four hours away from me here in Seattle. But he was in Seattle for an event and he heard me talking about always needing guests for my side Hustlers podcast. So that's when he pitched you guys to me and was like, they're great people. They're my friends. They've done all these amazing things, like they are the best people. So he had the nicest things to say about you guys. But how do you know, Josh, Well, first off, I would say you should go fly fishing something like it. Well, I'm telling you I'm coming to Colorado and you're taking me, yeah, or like probably Josh would take you outcase to where you are too. It's just a great way to get out on the water. It has such a like amazing meditative aspect to it, that contemplative aspect to it. But you don't have to be like a super patient zen person to do it. You know, I would definitely not qualify myself as a patient person. I would not qualify him that way, Like I want things now and a person and I really like it. That's your fishing fishing in terms of the Josh connection, Josh also, besides his actual job, helps out at the Wild Steelhead Coalition, which is a nonprofit that I mentioned earlier dedicated to supporting wild steelhead returns in Pacific Northwest. So we met him through there. I think, yeah, they were I think our third conservation partner and their run I think one by a volunteer board. There may be somebody who gets a little bit of money to keep track of their money, but he's just a volunteer board member. And so we met him via email and then met him in person for the first time in the backcountry Hunters and England's Rendezvous, which is another conservation partner of ours. I mean, we all play nice, we all need to fight the same fight, and he just he've met him, so he's like one of those instant friends. He's one of the happiest, most out going, genuine person which we love. Also, he is a spectacular fly tire. So when you're fly fishing, you're using you know, flies made primarily of natural materials that you tie around a hook, and steelhead flies especially are sort of a beautiful, sometimes abstract fly. It's not necessarily a very like anatomical representation of something the fish would be eating, like a sor an insect. It's more of a gesture like an our tractor, if you will. Yeah, And Josh is a spectacular fly tire, so he has that going for him. He actually ties a lot of flies for a great friend of mine who I met in Montana, and there's a whole connection over there. And and like I was telling you earlier, I mean, Josh is six eight, he's very tall, and I'm five h and so I just love like giving that guy a hug. You know, You've never felt more involved in my life. And then one of the back country hunters and englers, Rendev who's Garrison, doesn't like to dance, so he'll pawn me off on anything and I'll be over in the corner with a beer, thank you. And Josh loves to dance, and so the two of us, I mean, I feared for my life a little bit because he I mean he could like pick me up and it was it was fun to watch. We cut a rug. I can't wait to hang out with you guys. If I'm definitely coming back to Colorado, I'm mad I didn't meet you a few months ago before. I let you guys go to enjoy your Friday because that's when we're recording this and drink your wine. I want you to give a one last wrap your water pitch as to why people listening fly fishers or not need to know about you guys and buy you from you guys or buy for their family and friends. Look like this is going to be on the stage, is mind. I mean, we've hit on it, but if we're gonna put it in bullet points, it's that we're a mom and pop shop. I mean, this is our family business. It's just the two of us from the beginning, and then we've been able to provide like a job and a half to some other passionate outdoors people. We support conservation and sustainability in a really transparent way. We have a sustainability report that we've put out the last two years on our website, so we actually do the things that we say we're doing. Basically, everyone should wanna love being outdoors and protect our wild places, protect our public lands, clean water, all of those things, and we're giving those things a voice. We're of being money to the people who actually have a little more power than we do. And all those things have to stand behind a great product. So the product has to be great as well, and like a really high quality, buttery soft recycled hoodie that you want to wear every day, or a really nice pair of made in USA Marino wool socks that you want to wear every day that I have on my feet right now. Okay, tell us, Well, guys, thank you so much for sharing your story. I appreciate this. I know you guys are crazy busy, so thank you for taking the time to be on side hustlers. I appreciate you. Guys. Well, thank you so much for having us. It was really fun to chat and we can't wait to see you in Colorado. Come stop by the hangar and we'll crack a bottle of wine. Okay, you heard them, you heard Karin, you heard Garrison. No matter what it is, do your part, even if you're not a company. Do your part in the smallest way, and obviously support them because they do give back their incredible people. You heard their or you heard their hustle. It's Wrap your Water dot com. Check them out and thank you so much for being here listening to Side Hustlers. I'm Carla Marie. Please rate and review this podcast and you can always reach out to me. It's Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail dot com or at the Carla Murie on Instagram. Until next week, keep hustling.

Yes, this is the Side Hustlers Podcast and I am your host, Carla Marie from my Heart Radio. The whole point of this podcast is to talk to people who are following a passion outside of their day job, or people who have started as a side hustler and have now turned their side hustle into a full time job. And they're all small businesses that I would love for you to support. This week, we've got Karin and Garrison, doctor husband and wife on the podcast and they created Rep Your Water. Rep your Water dot Com, an apparel company that gives back to regional conservations and it was born out of their hobby, which is fly fishing. Now, even if you don't like fly fishing or have never been fly fishing, I promise you are going to love Karin and Garrison. You're gonna love their story and you're gonna love Wrap your Water. It's not just for fly fishers, for a lot of people. You know, why are you when you know what you want to do and this is something you want to do and do it. I'm a hustles sid hustle do it. I'm a hustle. Hut do it. I'm a hustle. Come on, ask about me, yo yo, It's the Side Hustless podcast we called at Root. Joining me this week our Karin and Garrison doctor. I think you guys are my first couple that has been on the podcast, so welcome. Thank you. Also about that you are a couple, right, I'm not you're talking about tell me that your brother and sister and I missed that. We just celebrated our tenure anniversary. God, well, congratulations. So this side hustle that you have rep your water. Let's go back to when it started. What year was that it was in? Basically like so kind of when you guys got married around the same time. Not yeah, we stacked a lot of stuff together. We I graduated from college in oh seven. We moved in together very shortly thereafter. Garrison's a year ahead of me in school and got that in there exactly. It is that I'm the younger woman. And then we moved in together, got married. That started this business. It's been like go go, go, go go, But it was truly a side hustle initially. I mean it it took a while to get off the ground, as you know, sometimes these things do. Absolutely. I talked to people who are in the like three years in and they are still side hustling. And I love that I have you guys ten years later to be able to give some of these people hope who do want to take it full time. I'm gonna let you guys explain this. What exactly is Wrap your Water. Rap Your Water is an apparel brand, So we make all sorts of hats and shirts, some more technical gear and some more lifestyle gear, mainly geared towards fly fishing, but also towards outdoor general, hunting, hiking, anything kind of outdoor. A lot of people ask us what is the REP. Yeah, so it means represent. It all started with basically local based designs. So because we're from Colorado, obviously most of the first designs were Colorado based. So you represent the water that you love to fish. And then the brand is REP Your Wild So that's where we encompass the hunting and the outdoor general and the camping and the all things wild and wildlife. And to date, you guys have actually given back is it more than two dollars to different nonprofits. Yeah. So built into our model is what we call our three percent for conservation, and it's just kind of we came up with it on our own based on one percent for the planet, but we realized we could fit in a little bit more over the years. It's actually an updated number because I ran the reports today just hours ago. We're over two thousand dollars to our conservation partners. That's incredible. What are some of your partners? Well, we wanted to because we have so much gear that regionally specific, give back regionally and not just to like a national amorphous nonprofit, but have it be a little bit more tangible. So, for example, in the Pacific Northwest, we work with the Wild Steelhead Coal Issue and they work towards wild steelhead returns and healthy rivers and clean water in the Pacific Northwest. In Colorado here where we're from, we work with Colorado Trout Unlimited. They work for cold, clean water and healthy fisheries here in Colorado Country. Hunters and Anglers is a big one of ours. They work towards public land and all the other good things clean water and all of these different nonprofits right now are united over the no Pebble Mine fight, which I encourage everyone to look more into that. In Alaska, you know, we work at the Bone Fish and Tarp and Trust down in Florida, So that's another really great one. They do a lot of work studying like the interconnectivity and of all those saltwater fish down there that people like to target with the fly rod National Fish Habitat. And yeah, you guys have really you've done your research, so you know this, But this is this was something you guys were passionate about before you started. Correct, like you've fly fit, I've never fly fish, but I'm assuming you cared about fly fishing and water or before you started your company. Yeah. Absolutely, the company was born basically my my background in terms of education is in art and design, but my passion has always been fly fishing and being outside. So that's where this was born. You know, I was working in a fly shop here in Colorado and doing some guiding um and bouncing around doing a few other jobs right after the recession, and there was kind of a hole in the market where there was either like a a big name brand. I say that in the flashing industry still the flashing industry, like a big name brand hat or logo wear item or something specific to that shop. And I thought, I would you really need if there was something that said, like, I love Colorado and I like to fish. I think people would connect with it. And being almost ten, well nine years ago, years ago, it was I would say like before the state pride kind of fervor. Is that's the thing, Like I did no one care about where they lived before then? Because I feel like it's now everyone's like my state got to represent. But I don't remember it being like that when I was. Wasn't It wasn't like that when we started, which is I mean, which is great to insider ourselves a tiny piece of that trend setting. We have a friend. We literally started the run with it. Yes, you did. No one can prove me wrong. I believe you. Harrison. You mentioned that you were working in a fly fishing shop and doing guides after the recession. What were you doing before the recession and how did you get into the fly fishing shop. I was doing actually architectural renderings for like high end developments, So I was self employed still but doing much more like marketing renderings for these large scale developments, and the recession just cut that right out. It was done. Yeah, So I was bouncing around doing all sorts of things. I was in software sales. I was working at the home. Yeah, I worked at the home depot for a while. I did all sorts of things. But like I said, my passion from very long ago. I mean I started. I got my first fly rod when I was I think ten, So it was kind of natural for me to gravitate to doing some things in the fly shop and doing some guide trips and helping out there because I've always wanted to be involved in that. And even though we've been married for ten years, we've been a couple for fifteen, and so early on in our relationship, he was like, all right, well I better test this girl and see if she likes what I like. So we went on like a just short little fly fishing date and I just had such a good time, and you know, like any new passion, it kind of like built over the years and now it's obviously huge part of my life because of work, but it's one of my favorite things to do in my past time as well. Well. In Karin, what was your day job when you first launched rep your water? So my day job also kind of flipped around, just like Garrison's. We both went to school actually in the Pacific Northwest at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, so well, Garrison studied fine art. I studied Hispanic studies, which is basically like Spanish language, culture, history, all of the things. And I graduated and I did basically bilingual school work. So I was in a secretary position. I was in a tutoring position, and I liked it so much that I then went back to school got my teaching degree. The very first year that I was teaching was the year that we started up your Water, So that had to be crazy, Like what it was like? Crazy being in school, teaching all day, dealing with whatever. How old were these kids? Schoolers? Okay, yeah, the worst, dealing with high schoolers and then coming home and starting a company, so you're doing that day job where all your energy gets sucked out and then now you have to put your energy into this thing that solely survives because of the two of you. Yeah, it was chaotic. I mean we would be packing orders until ten at night a lot of the time, and later although we did usually crack a bottle of wine just to keep us going, which is drinking wine right now, and I'm pretty jealous of it that you didn't bring any for me. We forgot this, you know, give you the memo next time. Yeah, and then working all day, I was able to like slowly reduce a little bit of the time that I was working in school because it's basically, however many classes you teach is how much you get paid for. So I was able to kind of reduce that. So I wasn't full time and do this little gradual thing that not every job. Are you able to do that with? Absolutely not, So I was pretty lucky in that sense. It was tough. I mean, for the first two years we both were working full time at other jobs, and then I was doing guide trips on the side and then trying to put some effort towards up your water. Did you bolt at the same time, leave the day job world and make up your water your full time job? What was that transition like for both of you. Garrison got to be full time first. Yeah. It was actually very fortuitous because it had gotten to the point where we could see a little bit of the potential. It was gaining some traction. There was more and more demand, there was more and more volume, and it was at that point where I was like, maybe I need to take the leap and just do this right it's hard to do. You know. I had good benefits, you got the steady paycheck, and so I was a little tentative to just pull the plug on the other job and just dive in. And the company that I worked for was a very strange company with a not so good corporate culture, I would say, But anyway, they downsized my department and basically said you can keep your job, but you have to relocate to Florida. And I was like, I think I'm gonna take the severance package and I'm out. So it was like the perfect kick for me to like get it going. We'll make the leap, will do it, because otherwise, like that could be a tough one to do. Well. You called me at like ten am and was like, hey, so um security just came in to escort me out because I didn't accept there you have to move to Florida. And I was like what He's like, yeah, my job doesn't exist anymore. I was like, all right, don't you go. He'll put some axes. Okay. I love that. So two years in, what how is the company different now than it was eight years ago? We were in our basement, so like in the very beginning, it was just like one design on two hats, and that was finally, I think in is when we were making sales. You know, there was a lot of things going on between actually having an idea to selling some hats. We had maybe two designs and three designs, four designs, and now we have like almost seven skis. That's a little while. Kri. What was it like for you to go full time and to wrap your water and life teaching. I was so excited to do it. I'm a little bit o c D and I really like things to be really organized, and I like things to be by the book. And it was really hard to be present at either job, especially once rep your Water was doing things, you know, we were actually making money, and it was taking more and more time. We weren't in our basement anymore. We have a little warehouse space, and so I kind of thought, we'll all make it one more and it was very clear that I was not going to be able to do both for one more year. Even though high schoolers are a lot, they are a really wonderful bunch, and when you teach Spanish you get kind of a different side of them. They're not getting standardized tests on Spanish it's all just a little bit more casual. So the day I told my students, I like burst into tears and they were like, oh my god, you're leaving. I had no idea you were doing this the whole time, right, so you told them what you were going to do. Yeah. I was like, hey, so I've been doing this for the last five years and now off I go. And they were like, oh my god, how did you like keep that from us? How did we never know? That's wild? But obviously you both are very happy now doing this full time. Do you guys have a brick and mortar store? Is that ever in the future. We distribute to retailers, so mainly independent fly shops, but also like outdoors stores, I mean, any number of retailers. There's a whole list of them on our website that you can check out, but are like warehouse office isn't really set up to be customer facing. We do have a tiny little show room so anybody wants to stop in can stop in, but it's not a like prime retail location. We're very happy to support our retail footprint without trying to have a designated like brick and mortar rep your water retail location, and it makes sense for what you guys are. I mean, you have something from almost every state? Is it every state? Is it all fifty states? All fifty states? There's fly fishing in New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey, by the way. That's why I say, well, that's why I'm picking on New Jersey. Yeah, it's an odd it's an odd crowd, but it's a great scene out there. For sure. They pick on us because they don't think we have enough stuff from you. I mean, funny enough, one of the largest like consumer facing fly fishing shows in the country is in New Jersey. Where please hear me in this. I mean, it doesn't even matter where. It's like, it's like New York's New Jersey. But that's wildeve people coming from all over. I mean, Pennsylvania is the second largest trout Nlimited council. All the Pennsylvanians come to the New Jersey show and it's this huge little mecca in Colorado. You know, we think we have this huge state and there's all this space around us, but as you know, the East Coast, they're all a little more connected. Out is a lot more people out there than for people a lot more squished together, and so they show up in Force Fishing Show. Which state do you sell the most products of? Not too I guess which state do you sell the most products of? I mean probably Colorado. Still it's our home state. It's a great retail footprint for us, and we have great fly fishing and it's a nice mix because it's it's both a destination location in terms of people coming in from all over to come fishing and and just buy a cool hat, but also there's a great full time local guide you know, resident population as well. But we do a nice clip out in or again in Washington as well. As Green mentioned, we met actually out there going to college. So we spent a lot of time fishing for steelhead in the Pacific Northwest, and we push a lot of gear out in there as well, and and the Southeast is good for us to sure. Yeah, what, I guess it's crazy to think ten years ago when he started and the social media world. Now, when you guys started, you weren't concerned about an Instagram account and having grand on Instagram and aesthetic and all of that. So how did you jump in on that where you skeptic at first? And what has that world been like for you guys. Well, I remember hearing about Instagram and I was like, Garrison, I feel like we could maybe post some pictures of when we go fishing on this and he was like, that's so weird. I don't give it. It is weird. Not a big social media guy historically, which is hilarious because I run all of our social media say aren't you, isn't that you? And a lot of the Instagram pictures. He likes it now, but grudgingly I love it now. I think it's really fun. Actually, I mean it was just sort of like, hey, we'll throw up a fish picture on the Instagram feed every once a while, and it became a really pivotal piece of our brand growth and recognition. Um, you know, that social media platform allowed us to expose the brand of so many people, and we were in early enough that like the Instagram metrics back then, we're very much like if you fall, yeah, if you followed that person, like you saw the feed, right, it wasn't as nuanced as it is now, right, So that was like a big piece for us. And our Instagram following has been organically grown and so it's still a really valuable piece for us in terms of our brand. Well. Instagram is a perfect place for anglers because people have been taking phish photos right forever. You know. We have friends that like will pull out their old photo album and they're like, and this is when I was in Montana and this is when I and it's the same stuff. It's if anything, Instagram has made people be more creative with their fishing photos because you know, everybody loves a grip and grin sort of. But being a little more creative with you know, keeping the fish wet or just showing a different side of angling and um, a little bit more of a conservation focus is a nice piece of Instagram as well, little educational piece. Is it just the two of you? Do you guys have anyone else who works for you or with you? We have one other full time employee, Tanner. He is awesome. Yeah, we love him. Check him out on Instagram at San Juan and Eggs great follow time. Yeah. So he's full time with us. And then we have a part time employee as well, who's mainly helps us with fulfillment and helps kind of manning the ship. If the three of us are on a photo shoot or doing something out of the office, and that's it. There's four of us. We're still a pretty lean and mean shop. It's great. So for the three of you, then, how are your roles different or do you all just kind of tackle things? You have individual things you work on that no one else works on out of the three of you. Yeah, at any given time, we all will have to do some of the same stuff, putting hats and boxes and restocking shelves. If a big shipment comes in, we all handle that, um. But Garrison does all of our design. So because his background is fine art, every single creative pieces, Garrison, Tanner and Garrison together do a lot of the marketing, and then I do all of the operations and accounting. Because you like being organized. I love it. Actually keeps the train on the track. Critical piece here. I completely got putting hats and boxes, and he's doing a little bit of grunt work. But there's a lot of that to go around as well. Garrison, when you were in school for art and design, did you one day think that you would be designing clothing? No, no idea. I was doing very like large scale, somewhat abstracted, like charcoal and pastel pieces. So I didn't have any training really in the more digital side of design, which is mostly what you know, what is applicable to the rep your water piece. Although I'm trying to incorporate a little bit more of the artist side of things into the line now. When we started, we we very much wanted to create a brand, not an artist who was making some hats. That's cool, that's a smart way to think about it, right, But now I think it's a really nice time, since we have been around for a little bit within our niche market, to kind of retell and reincorporate the story of the artist side of things as well. So we do, you know, some artist edition hats. We have some fine art prints for sale on the website as well, kind of telling that story a little bit. But I had no idea that we would be that I would be working in apparel at all. Part of bringing the artist story back to it is to remind people that this is not just like this COG. I love that learning things out. Authenticity has always been really important to us. So that is why we still manage our own Instagram. That is why the two of us show up on the Instagram a lot, and that is why we wanted to retell that artist story because in the beginning, people were like, oh, Garrison doctor designed that hat. But now, like I said, we have like six hundred different products, all of them have Garrison's art on them, so that's pretty cool. Absolutely want to remind people that there's a person behind that, and we do. We do get a chuckle sometimes and we like it. But we have had multiple people calling me, like, you know, other brands will tell the design department that we really like what they're doing, and I'm like, yeah, all pass that all. They're all going to be so happy to hear that. Thank you, that's hilarious, and that's that Really, you're right, it is a great compliment. I think the cool part of social media is that you guys can all that story because there are so many big companies that we follow and it's just the perfect picture that they probably doctored together in photoshop, but you guys are actually putting your faces out there, and as a consumer, we eat that crap up like we love that stuff seeing the people behind the company. So basically, I just want to tell you keep doing that because I think it's so smart. It really is, because it makes people latch onto a human and not just a product. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, to Current's point, like, especially in fly fishing, I really think authenticity is really important that we're out there doing it. We love it and it has such a great aesthetic. You know. That's the reason I love this sport is it's beautiful to watch. It's really fun to do. You know, it makes for a good photograph. The places usually where you're fly fishing are beautiful trout, steelhead, They're gorgeous to take a photo of, even if you're just going to let them go. So you know, we like that. I know the picture is our I looked at them, I was like, whoa, Like this is pretty. This is awesome, Like it really, it's awesome, So that's great. What is it like? This is the awkward question working with your significant other. I mean a lot of people think that's awkward to ask us. But we've been doing it for such a long time, and I think we each have such different strengths that we don't step on each other's toes. We get to spend all day together, which for some people they're like I could never spend all day with my partner, And I'm like, well, I mean, he's my favorite person, so I kind of do want to spend all day with him. While we each have our own strengths, we also are really good sounding boards and we've always had really open communication about life and then that translated perfectly into business. So we can have the harder conversations or we can have a light conversation about what email should we put out this week, But it's always really fun. Yeah, it's been great. It's been so much fun. We have definitely realized it's not for everyone, and I learned people people are like, oh, I wish that my wife would help me with this, and I'm like, for all I'm not just helping right, this is have these over here. Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes people don't realize what like Krin is a very passionate fly fisher in her own right, with her own what she brings to the sport, and that's a big piece of it and why it works. We obviously still have our challenges every once a while, and it's tough when you have all your eggs in one basket. It's not like she is working at this company and I'm working over here, because it's not a side does a little right and if something goes weird, you can fall back. But we take that any day. Do you guys separate work from like, if you're on a date night, are you like, okay, we're not talking about rep your water? Is it just like one big flow of whatever happens happens. We try not to have hard, like heavy hitting conversations if it's not at work. You know, we're not going to talk about budgets, and we're not going to talk about like how many hats should we order outside of the office. But I think talking about work and the exciting things is natural in all relationships, you know, Like I go out to brunch with my girlfriends and we're all talking about our jobs. So it's not that it's off limits, but it sort of became this natural thing where we're just going to talk about the exciting things. We're just gonna I will say, when the business was in the house and it was a true side hustle down in our basement, we looked at each other most nights at six or seven, ten eleven, depending on the day, and said, okay, I'm clocking out, yeah, because it was just so much to be thinking about all the time. So we had to say, I'm clogging out, let's go walk the dog or whatever it was. You have to do that otherwise you're gonna be miserable doing the thing that you once loved doing. So you kind of give yourself that break. But where are you guys now that you're not in the house. Is it that warehouse showroom? Is that where the office is as well? Yeah, we have Actually it's kind of a non traditional work workspace, but we love it. It's two airplane hangars, so they provide you know, nice warehouse, kind of midsized warehouse space for us, so we store all of our inventory there. We fulfill everything out of their in house and then we also have our office space out there as well and our showroom out there. So you know, when we have a nice day here in Colorado, which especially on the shoulder seasons, we do a lot. You know, their airplane hangars so they open up completely on one side, which makes for a really nice kind of indoor outdoor space and we look out on the field. We can see Long's Peak in the distance. It's pretty gorgeous. How did you get airplane hangers, Well, we were looking for a small warehouse space and something in that kind of smaller size range is a little bit hard to find, and this place was listed just as you know, like commercial real estate, listed as industrial. We had no idea it was an airplane hanger, and then we went and looked at it and we're like, this is weird. This is like an airplane hanger on a near an airport, hypothetically active taxi way, I'm not sure. And then we're like, actually, this is ideal because the whole door opens up, we can receive product easily. It's a great spot. So we've we've loved being out there and we really looked out because when we were looking for space, I think we've been there for like four and a half years now. When we were looking for space, it was right when medical marijuana got really hot, and you know, every little tiny brew pub got really hot, and they wanted the exact same footprint that we wanted. How long have you been there in the hangar? I think it's four and a half or five years. I can't even remember, because we were just in one and then we expanded into the one next door. I think it's probably gonna be five years at the end of this year, and it's great. We put our door through the two of them through the wall, so joined them together and then that kind of the two of them makes a perfect space for us. I'm coming to check it out. Check We got the ping pong table set up. There's always beer in the fridge down anything. You should come. In September, we hold an annual fundraiser for our local Trouten Limited chapter, the boulderfly Casters, And we have bluegrass, we have beer, we have barbecue. It's super fun, really cool. Do you guys do events like that in any other states or do you think you'll do that ever? Well, because we have a free space to do it and all the local connections you know, like, uh, Colorado has so much good craft beer. But Avery Brewing has always donated beer to this event. And it's our fifth annual and it's over a hundred people that come every time. So we've got great partners. We love events in general. We just don't have kind of the cool splane hangars in every state. We don't have airplane hangars in every state, you know. Speaking of what are the goals for rep your water, do you guys have like all right, in five years, we want to branch off into this like do you have big ideas or it's like, you know what, let's just do what we're doing now. I would say it's kind of a mixture, But we have moved beyond just doing like state themed fishing hats into a lot of really nice like we're on the water or just outdoor general versatile pieces like tribelend Son hoodies that are really lightweight and versatile. We have more like lifestyle shirts and midweight hoodies that are made from recycled products, etcetera. So the goal is to kind of diversify from just logo fishing hats, which we will still continue to develop and make a ton of new designs there, but grow beyond that into more technical, lightweight, upf rated gear. And then also we're really pushing towards new products that carry a sustainability story, so that not just pushing back to our conservation partners, to our three percent program, but also telling a story through the actual content base of our products. So, um, you know I mentioned our midweight hoodies, they're percent recycled and up cycled from recycled polyester and upcycled cotton. Um. We have some new flannels coming out shortly that are from Bioconton's organic based caught. You know, there's a whole series of products that we're working on that tell that sustainability story as well, so we want to continue to push in that direction well and operationally, we've also been making a lot of moves so we are a certified green business in the town where which it's a small town, but it still matters. We've diverted over of our ways from landfill over the last like twenty two months, so as long as long as we've been recording data, we compost. We obviously recycle everything, but we also have this great facility here and your Boulder called the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, so we can take plastic film and plastic bags there. The way, this is right up my alley, and I love this kind of stuff, so this makes me so happy. Yeah, so it's one severer time. We had been pushing back at our main hat factory for a really long time because it's the necessary evil in clothing manufacturing that you need things to be in a plastic bag because if it's not, it's exactly and then you're wasting the material for the product, which that's worse anyway. So we've been pushing back with our factory over the last like eighteen months, and just three months ago they switched all of their poly bags over to recycled content, which is awesome because this is material that's already out there. The very first plastic bag that was ever made is still on this earth. And so when we use the recycled content for either our sweatshirts or for our polly bags or you know, whatever it is, you're giving a second life to that and then when you recycle it again. I mean, Walmart has plastic film recycling bins in front of the store, so everybody should be gathering their plastic bags and putting them in. Oh absolutely, at Walmart or Kroger, wherever you go. And I know it's hard for companies because I had on this podcast earlier this year Toasty Swimwear and she was just one person running her own company and tried to make it completely sustainable and realize it those numbers weren't going to make sense for her at that point, so she did have to close up shop. So it's it's not easy to be sustainable as a company. So I commend you guys for that, because that's all those things you just said are unbelievably hard for a business to do. Yeah, it takes a little bit more work. But we've seen the return on our investment, which our investment is mostly just time. We've seen the return on being able to tell that story and inspire others to do good, both through our retailers. We've had multiple retailers reach out and say, oh my gosh, I had no idea that you were doing X, Y, and Z. Now I'm going to one of our One of our retailers put solar panels on the roof, like he was already really inspired to do better. But we put out our animal sustainability reports saying we don't own the building, so we can't put solar panels on, but we buy green energy certificates basically to make a carbon neutral situation. And he was partially inspired by us and his own passions. And you know, it's like, if we are not spreading the word, um we in this industry, in this world, I don't think we're doing our job. Especially if you have the ability in the platform to do it, just do it because you will inspire other people to do it. And I know people listening right now are gonna be like, oh my god, I really want to buy from them and support them because you're doing these amazing things. And Garrison, you were talking about how it's not just a you know, a fishing logo on a hat anymore. It's great because I don't fly fish at the moment, but I still want to buy your products, and I love that you guys have branched off and and have Obviously you're still great within the fly fishing community, but there's no reason why everyone shouldn't want to buy from REP your Water, especially with the holidays coming up. So I want you to do a little explain a little bit about the kind of products you guys have recently added or what you're adding to REP your Water dot com. Yeah, so I touched on a couple of them. I would say the midweight recycled hoodies are something that we're really excited about. We of course have a number of new hats out. We have a line of eco tell hats out which we're excited about. There's not a whole lot of people in the you know, just kind of brimmed hat arena that are telling sustainability story. So they're made from recycled polyester or in organic cotton blend. And the plastic um support that makes the brim of the hat is also recycled plastic. So that's something we're very excited about. I mentioned the new bio cotton flannels that are coming out. We also have for the fly Fisherman or not the Fly Fisherman, a great line of marino wool socks. They're made in a mill in Tennessee. Really high quality marino, so great moisture wicking, they're antimicrobial, they're really temperature very real. Yeah, so they're great when it's kind of hot or cold or whatever. They're very good in all different kinds of temperatures. We have a couple of different weights of those, so there's those are something that we're very excited, especially going into the holidays. Yeah. I like to think that socks are a stereotypical holiday gift, but I'm like an extreme sock geek. Yes, and our socks look really cool and then they're really high qualities, So those are my favorite. We have a lot of fun trout prints on the aso the elevation socks that are like topo lines. We have the blue ridges that are just like really pretty you know, atmospheric perspective of some mountains and hills and so kind of that. More outdoors that you don't have to fish to wear. Those love it. I think it's pretty. I mean, there's no reason why, like I said, people shouldn't want to support you guys. It's incredible what you're doing. Um, But I love talking about connections on this podcast and how we come in contact with one another because I obviously didn't meet you guys fly fishing. So Josh Mills works for I Heart Radio in Spokane, Washington, which is about three or four hours away from me here in Seattle. But he was in Seattle for an event and he heard me talking about always needing guests for my side Hustlers podcast. So that's when he pitched you guys to me and was like, they're great people. They're my friends. They've done all these amazing things, like they are the best people. So he had the nicest things to say about you guys. But how do you know, Josh, Well, first off, I would say you should go fly fishing something like it. Well, I'm telling you I'm coming to Colorado and you're taking me, yeah, or like probably Josh would take you outcase to where you are too. It's just a great way to get out on the water. It has such a like amazing meditative aspect to it, that contemplative aspect to it. But you don't have to be like a super patient zen person to do it. You know, I would definitely not qualify myself as a patient person. I would not qualify him that way, Like I want things now and a person and I really like it. That's your fishing fishing in terms of the Josh connection, Josh also, besides his actual job, helps out at the Wild Steelhead Coalition, which is a nonprofit that I mentioned earlier dedicated to supporting wild steelhead returns in Pacific Northwest. So we met him through there. I think, yeah, they were I think our third conservation partner and their run I think one by a volunteer board. There may be somebody who gets a little bit of money to keep track of their money, but he's just a volunteer board member. And so we met him via email and then met him in person for the first time in the backcountry Hunters and England's Rendezvous, which is another conservation partner of ours. I mean, we all play nice, we all need to fight the same fight, and he just he've met him, so he's like one of those instant friends. He's one of the happiest, most out going, genuine person which we love. Also, he is a spectacular fly tire. So when you're fly fishing, you're using you know, flies made primarily of natural materials that you tie around a hook, and steelhead flies especially are sort of a beautiful, sometimes abstract fly. It's not necessarily a very like anatomical representation of something the fish would be eating, like a sor an insect. It's more of a gesture like an our tractor, if you will. Yeah, And Josh is a spectacular fly tire, so he has that going for him. He actually ties a lot of flies for a great friend of mine who I met in Montana, and there's a whole connection over there. And and like I was telling you earlier, I mean, Josh is six eight, he's very tall, and I'm five h and so I just love like giving that guy a hug. You know, You've never felt more involved in my life. And then one of the back country hunters and englers, Rendev who's Garrison, doesn't like to dance, so he'll pawn me off on anything and I'll be over in the corner with a beer, thank you. And Josh loves to dance, and so the two of us, I mean, I feared for my life a little bit because he I mean he could like pick me up and it was it was fun to watch. We cut a rug. I can't wait to hang out with you guys. If I'm definitely coming back to Colorado, I'm mad I didn't meet you a few months ago before. I let you guys go to enjoy your Friday because that's when we're recording this and drink your wine. I want you to give a one last wrap your water pitch as to why people listening fly fishers or not need to know about you guys and buy you from you guys or buy for their family and friends. Look like this is going to be on the stage, is mind. I mean, we've hit on it, but if we're gonna put it in bullet points, it's that we're a mom and pop shop. I mean, this is our family business. It's just the two of us from the beginning, and then we've been able to provide like a job and a half to some other passionate outdoors people. We support conservation and sustainability in a really transparent way. We have a sustainability report that we've put out the last two years on our website, so we actually do the things that we say we're doing. Basically, everyone should wanna love being outdoors and protect our wild places, protect our public lands, clean water, all of those things, and we're giving those things a voice. We're of being money to the people who actually have a little more power than we do. And all those things have to stand behind a great product. So the product has to be great as well, and like a really high quality, buttery soft recycled hoodie that you want to wear every day, or a really nice pair of made in USA Marino wool socks that you want to wear every day that I have on my feet right now. Okay, tell us, Well, guys, thank you so much for sharing your story. I appreciate this. I know you guys are crazy busy, so thank you for taking the time to be on side hustlers. I appreciate you. Guys. Well, thank you so much for having us. It was really fun to chat and we can't wait to see you in Colorado. Come stop by the hangar and we'll crack a bottle of wine. Okay, you heard them, you heard Karin, you heard Garrison. No matter what it is, do your part, even if you're not a company. Do your part in the smallest way, and obviously support them because they do give back their incredible people. You heard their or you heard their hustle. It's Wrap your Water dot com. Check them out and thank you so much for being here listening to Side Hustlers. I'm Carla Marie. Please rate and review this podcast and you can always reach out to me. It's Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail dot com or at the Carla Murie on Instagram. Until next week, keep hustling.