NEMO Equipment's Cam Brensinger on Building a Company With $0 Ad Spend

Cam Brensinger is the founder and CEO of NEMO Equipment, the outdoor equipment company renowned for its innovative tents, sleeping pads and sleeping bags.

In this episode, Cam shares some of his mountaineering adventures that led him to start NEMO. He also tells the story of spending 12 years and $10 million before reaching profitability and how he's continued to buy out investors on his way to building a family-owned brand that will last for decades. Other topics in this episode include:

* The bravery that comes from ignorance 

* How adventure brings out the best of us

* The benefits of being a privately-owned company

* Patiently growing NEMO with close to zero ad spend

* Why ‘how we do things’ is more important than ‘how much’

* Vision and values as guardrails 

* The importance of having people who will challenge you
* Lateral and linear design processes