Anika Begay
From golf to fishing to pickleball, outdoor sports and recreation have boomed during the pandemic. But unlike some pandemic-driven trends (virtual conferences, Zoom happy hours), interest in outdoor activities has persisted.
According to the Outdoor Industry Association, outdoor participation will reach a record 175.8 million people by the end of 2023, or 57 percent of all Americans ages 6 and older.
But the influx of interest has exposed the lack of innovation in many parts of the industry. From phone reservations to cash payments to a gear market dominated by legacy brands, the outdoor recreation category was ripe with opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Over the past two years, entrepreneurs have created SaaS software for hunting and fishing guides. Founders have developed AI-powered companies that find and book golf tee times. Kevin Durant invested in a startup that helps people find pickleball courts. The list goes on.
Meanwhile, VCs have been affected, too. In 2019, VCs invested $48.60 million in 25 sports tech companies, according to PitchBook. In 2021, that number jumped to $949.26 million and 53 companies; in 2023, during the VC winter, investments totaled $189.71 million and 43 companies. While that’s a major drop from 2021 (when VC investment hit record highs across all sectors), last year’s dollars invested still represent a 290% increase from pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Online Acceleration
Benjamin Lazarov, co-founder and CEO of AnyCreek, a startup that creates booking and back-end software for hunting and fishing guides, told TechCrunch that he never would have thought of starting his own company before the pandemic. But then Lazarov tried booking a hunting guide in Vermont in 2022.
He asked the cashier at a nearby Orvis to recommend local guides, and she gave him a paper list of seven names to call. As he called and left voicemails, he realized that everything else had moved online during COVID-19, so why was he still trying to book a guided hunt over the phone? He then left his role as regional director of growth at Compass and launched AnyCreek.
“My thought is if I had tried to start this business five years before COVID-19, I would never have succeeded,” Lazarov said. “COVID-19 has definitely accelerated the adoption of more technology. There’s a new generation of leaders who are technology-first, mobile-first, and are running every other part of their lives online.”
Mallard Bay is another startup that brings hunting and fishing guides online. The Houston, Texas-based company launched in 2019 and has seen its site blossom after lockdowns eased in 2021, growing from 19 guides on the platform to more than 100, co-founder and CEO Logan Meaux told TechCrunch.
Loop Golf, a startup that automates finding and booking tee times at a public golf course, was founded in response to a surge in new golfers making it difficult for existing players to play. Matthew Holden, co-founder and CEO of Loop Golf, told TechCrunch in June that he came up with the idea when he realized that the post-pandemic surge in interest in golf wasn’t going away.
“It got harder and harder to find a tee time,” Holden said. “I would spend hours looking at different options. I was sick of it and my wife was definitely sick of it.”
Behavioral changes
As the world has been forced to move online, consumers have come to expect to interact with all businesses that way, Lazarov said. People just don’t want to go back to booking things on the phone and want technology to do more for their recreational lives, just as it’s doing for their work and personal lives in other ways.
It’s like a New York restaurant that upgraded its point-of-sale system to handle cashless transactions. “They’ll never go back,” Lazarov said, because the new POS system “helps them run their business better. Think about how much more money they could make.”
Scott Holloway, managing partner of Starting Line and an investor in AnyCreek, said people, especially younger generations, are increasingly willing to spend more money on experiences than on physical things. This trend has been well documented in numerous surveys dating back a decade. He added that companies that develop the technology to power these experience-based transactions are in a smart position.
Additionally, people often need to purchase new equipment to perform these new activities.
A number of startups have also sprung up to provide gear, clothing, and accessories to these new hobbyists. Eastside Golf and Malbon Golf are both venture-backed startups that seek to outfit and accessorize new golf enthusiasts who perhaps don’t want to look like Arnold Palmer from the 1960s. Nettie and Recess are startups that design pickleball rackets that don’t look like they came from a Florida retirement community.
Early venture-backed entrants into this category, like Hipcamp, a campsite booking platform, and AutoCamp, a glamping company, demonstrated that there was consumer appetite for innovation in this category years ago. Now, more than 10 years later, Holloway thinks there’s still a lot entrepreneurs can do.
There’s reason to believe he’s right. Rental services for things like canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards still have websites that look like they were created in 2002. The same goes for those offering services for everything from archery to zip lines. Many companies in the outdoor recreation category could still use some technical help.
“The market is huge,” Holloway said. “As Marc Andreessen said, ‘software is eating the world,’ but this is one of the last parts of consumer spending that software hasn’t eaten. Consumers are demanding it. There’s a huge market opportunity to ride that wave.”
