Peter Dering, CEO of Peak Design, shares insights on conscious capitalism, climate neutrality, PFAS, and the future of Peak Design. He discusses innovative employee compensation plans and the power of branding in building a successful and ethical brand.

Peter Dering, Founder and CEO of Peak Design, discusses his innovative journey in the photography accessory market. He shares the company's evolution from Kickstarter to a leader in outdoor gear, highlighting the launch of the new Outdoor series backpacks. The conversation touches on the design principles of comfort and functionality, parallel branding strategies with Red Bull, and the impact of creative camera filters on photography. Dering’s insights reveal how past experiences shape product development and foster community engagement.

Shaan sits down with Peter Dering (@peterdering), Founder & CEO of Peak Design, maker of beautiful, highly functional redesigns of photography equipment. He quit his construction job and traveled the world with $25K in savings. After awhile, he found it to be a pain in the ass carrying his camera around with him. So he thought of a camera holder clip that’d go onto your bag strap. Next thing you know, he filmed a kickstarter video to accompany his simple yet revolutionary product and within 90 seconds of launching he had his first sale. Bags, tripods, straps. Almost every year Peak Design releases some sort of iteration of an outdated piece of equipment and it SELLS. Last year they employed 38 people and did $70m in revenue. He owns 100% of it. Like I said, you want to be this guy. He talks about the process of how you actually create a physical product from scratch, how to work with international distributors, why and how he structured a public benefit entity, how to offset business carbon footprint and how much it ACTUALLY costs (it's tiny!). Have a listen to learn how to kickstart your own carbon-neutral Kickstarter empire. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.