We've Donated Over $2.5M To Conserve Parks Through Our Social Project

Keith Eshelman

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Published: June 2nd, 2023

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Keith Eshelman

Founder, Parks Project

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Before starting Parks Project, I was one of TOMS' earliest employees. I was initially struck by discovering the overwhelming backlog of much-needed funding to complete projects in parks and uncovered a need to educate the next generation of advocates.

With that in mind and taking key learnings from my previous ventures, I started Parks Project to show consumers that conservation can be cool and stylish. In only 8 years, what started as one t-shirt has grown to dozens of apparel and home goods and more than $2.5 million in donations to more than 50 conservatories that ensure the projects they’re committing to making the biggest impact.

Parks Project's mission is to protect and preserve our parklands for generations to come by educating, advocating, volunteering, and activating park supporters to get involved in conservation.

You have to have the passion for the idea to let go of many other things in life, dedicate 110% to the startup, and jump off the cliff head first.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

It started in 2013 with my good buddy Sevag. He and I were doing a post-fire habitat restoration volunteer day, and there weren’t many folks around. That spurred the idea of getting more of our generation connected to the parks and volunteering to help support all the ongoing projects we had learned about.

The original vision of the 'Parks Project' was to get friends to volunteer in our parks so we could make a difference and support our favorite open spaces. We got out as a group, did work, felt good about it, and planned to celebrate with a cold one or two after a day's hard work.

Then from our experience in apparel and understanding how social enterprise worked after a combined 11 years working at TOMS, we thought it would be cool if people could wear this cause too.

So the idea evolved into creating products that interpreted various projects in the parks and helped fund them, too. We started reaching out to park conservancies and learned how much support was needed and how we could contribute via funding and advocacy. We identified projects, created clothing collections, and used the sales proceeds to fund projects.

It only took about $40k of savings to start up the business and build the company out of a back house! Now, it has come full circle because we are still driving volunteer events but using apparel to tell stories that need support across all our favorite national parks.

The big moment to kick start the business came via wholesale in 2015 when both REI and Urban Outfitters bought into Parks Project, which gave us a lot of exposure through retail, and we were able to do quick turn cut to order apparel so it wouldn't tie up too much cash and put us out of business. We are proud to say that both those retailers are still partnering with us to this day, and we have grown into many more product categories that help diversify the business.

Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.

Right out the gate, we were a graphics company doing our best to make poster-worthy art that we could put on a t-shirt that could communicate the project the product was funding. So for a park like Muir Woods where we were funding habitat restoration and the nursery, we put big images of redwoods to tell that story. We tried to make the park brand more radical and fashionable putting the graphics on modern and contemporary cut tops.

This meant lots of time in the screen printing facility, and we were hands-on in printing, packing, and shipping the goods. Long days! One of our early hits included our modo bold front and center on the tee calling all to “Leave it Better than you found it.” As soon as the sales of the tops found their rhythm, we quickly hopped into doing home goods, accessories, and some camp goods too.

During the growth years, we were sprinting, meaning we had to approve samples and prototypes sometimes on the fly while selling them at a tradeshow to a major retailer. When you are trying to get a proof of concept, you find yourself sometimes selling things before they even existed in the early days.

Promise it now and figure out how to deliver and execute later. Fortunately, we are past those days and have a more formal seasonal development and go-to-market process.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Inspiration struck me in 2013 when planning a Big Sur hike with my daughter, Everly. Seeking to take time in nature during my paternity leave, we traveled to Big Sur to nest in one of the world’s most beautiful places. During that trip, we went on a hike that I had taken many times, but this day was different because the trail I usually hiked was closed.

The moment hit me when I realized this outdoor space might not be available for my daughter, something generational kicked in like never before, so this quickly had me volunteering and doing trail work. This spawned a whole educational deep dive and an effort to bring in people with this passion and physically support them for volunteer work.

This birthed projects across California and soon across the United States. My co-founder Sevag Kazanci and I took an entrepreneurial approach to Parks Project. This began with birthing an idea, connecting with state and National Parks on specific projects and assistance they were looking for, and then getting onto the ground to physically help and seek aid with an indefatigable spirit.

Unless you go into the trenches, you don’t know how you will get it done. That’s one of the advantages of bootstrapping: Getting to decide how we are going to make the product, design the product, how we market, and how we manage relationships. We quickly became self-taught with Shopify to launch a site, and wow, can you believe what it used to look like?

Through the efforts of a staff that’s grown from two to 25 in the last eight years, Parks Project has engendered a love of these outdoor spaces through specific, project-based work instead of just cutting a check to parks. And to get there, we had to flex every type of loan, credit card, working capital line, and more to finance this growth.

An on-the-job education in finance, to say the least. One memory that stood out was having to procure 1/4 million dollars in two weeks, boy was that stressful.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We are really happy with the current state of the business focusing on profitability over growth and omnichannel distribution over just DTC. We have amazing wholesale partners like REI and Urban Outfitters, who bought into Parks Project after our first tradeshow in 2015.

Fail fast, fix, rebuild, make better, and then over years, you will have something you can do an interview over!

We can innovate, design and push forward with our e-commerce business, then use the results to share with wholesale partners in identifying what will be successful for sell-through at their stores.

Additionally, we have expanded the brand to Japan and, after a few years, saw some success. And, as our product lines get more global in messaging and with cool print patterns, we will start to move into new markets in Asia and the EU as a way to reach more people with the leave it better than you found it message.

We already see it tracking, and the long-term goal will be to follow behind Patagonia’s amazing purpose-driven footsteps to do our best to make the world a better place.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

I believe taking risks and timing play a huge factor in getting a business off the ground. Over the past years, we have learned a lot about riding the crazy wave of building a business from the ground up.

There are highs and lows, wins, and massive mistakes, but most return to taking bold moves and trying new things. Combining a retail business and fashion with a public entity like the National Parks is no easy feat too. It takes time, determination, and much collaboration. Our launch was during the 2016 National Park centennial, which gave us some great tailwinds and good timing.

We've also taken a lot of risks along the way, trying new product categories, testing new distribution strategies, and reaching lofty goals to see if something was possible. Some ideas haven’t panned out, but you gotta give it a go to see if it might be a viable business opportunity. And if it doesn’t work out, we get over it quickly, learn and let it go.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Our tech stack is quite common I wouldn't say it sets us apart from other DTC companies.

Shopify and Klaviyo do a lot of the heavy lifting as well as our back-in-stock app because we sell out of product drops quickly, and when we replenish inventory, it gives us a great revenue boost.

Gorgias and Yotpo are great tools for taking care of customers, who are our number one priority. Additionally, Triple Whale is also necessary for doing e-commerce business and understanding attribution in a complicated digital world.

Lastly, Sprout Social is a tool that the social media team leverages for their day-to-day planning and reporting.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

The books I read are at the intersection of business, parks, startups, and conservation. I especially love “Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead.” I’ve got great respect for brands that build strong emotional connections with their consumers, and that book does a great job explaining the “why.” Many other books that speak to me are at my desk as reminders, from “People Before the Parks” to my “California Naturalist Handbook” to “Good to Great.”

Here’s a photo of the books:

And on the podcast front, there are so many these days, and hard to keep track! I do love “How I built this,” then mix in lots of other business-building stories to get inspired by how people grow long-lasting enterprises.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

I always suggest that aspiring entrepreneurs think about solving a problem, not coming up with an idea. We solved a distribution problem, couldn't get park products outside of parks, we solved a product problem, not that many “cool” park goods,” and there wasn’t much social enterprise in the outdoor market.

It takes lots of risks too, you can’t half-ass the venture, and you have to have the passion for the idea to let go of many other things in life, dedicate 110% to the startup, and jump off the cliff head first.

You will fail over and over too, that’s part of the shortcoming, but if you keep at it with the right mentality, it’s all just a sequence of problem-solving over and over and over. Fail fast, fix, rebuild, make better, and then over the years, you will have something you can do an interview over!

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We post all open positions on our website and encourage people to submit their resumes to [email protected].

Where can we go to learn more?

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!