As we close into the end our Women Lead month of February, we bring you one last women-led brand guest. This past month I have invited women led brands to share with us their story about starting a brand in a male dominant industry. In addition, I’ve asked what what their challenges where and what they are doing to bring representation to the cycling community. Through their stories I hope to get you thinking about how we too can support these women led businesses to bring more representation to this industry.
Today, I’ve invited Maria Boustead, founder of Po Campo. Po Campo makes bags that are built for experiencing the joy of living a life by bike – and looking good while doing it. Since May 2013, Po Campo has partnered with World Bicycle Relief, a nonprofit that provides bicycles to girls in rural Africa to help them get to school. There are often challenges of starting a small business in this industry, challenges many of us experience when starting out in cycling. However, Maria’s story and growth evolves with the ever growing challenges in cycling culture as well as industry, her determination to bridge a brand and community as an organization aims to elevate us all.
Like many other entrepreneurs and inventors, the idea for Po Campo bags was born out of a moment of frustration. Picture a lovely spring morning in Chicago, a warmth in the air, the first buds on the trees, sun shining, Lake Michigan glistening. I was getting ready to go to work and thinking about my day ahead. On one hand, I really wanted to bike to work that day; it was just too perfect outside. On the other hand, when I thought about the day ahead, the in-person meetings planned, and all I needed to carry with me, I knew the best bag for my day was incongruent with my desire to bike.
So what does one do when confronted with such a dilemma? Do you opt for the joy of biking to work but then pay the price with being stuck with the wrong bag all day, OR do you have the right bag all day but miss out on the ride and endure a miserable public transportation commute instead? Then I thought, “Why does it have to be one or the other? Why wasn’t there a bag versatile enough to attach to your bike and then carry throughout your day as your normal bag?”. Seemed like an obvious enough product idea, so when I couldn’t find one, I designed it myself.
A founding principle of Po Campo was this “no compromise” idea, and this concept still guides our product development today. First, we wanted our bags to work equally well on and off the bike so you wouldn’t be stuck with an inferior product in either mode. Second, we wanted the design to harmoniously unite style and functionality. In many product categories, a utilitarian, function-forward aesthetic = high performing product, while a stylish, colorful aesthetic = low performing product. I could expand on some inherent male/female biases here, but instead I’ll say that we just called bullshit on that. Style and functionality are not mutually exclusive. You can be both strong and stylish. Just ask Beyoncé!
But beyond the product design, my own personal need for a versatile and stylish bike bag to fit my lifestyle quickly evolved into the need for a brand to better reflect me and my bike friends. I loved biking but could not see myself reflected in many bike brands. It became more infuriating the more I thought about it. How could it be that I am a year round bike commuter, biking about 4,000 miles per year, yet still not think of myself as a cyclist?
I don’t think I recognized it at the time, but now looking back, I believe it was because I never felt like I belonged at bike-related things. At bike shops I was snubbed as not a serious biker because I was a commuter, at bike rides like Critical Mass I was treated as not serious cyclist because I followed the rules of the road. Later, at bike industry events like Interbike, I was dismissed as not serious enough because I created a product that was “stylish”.
Eventually I found a group that made me feel like I belonged. Dottie Brackett of Let’s Go Ride a Bike started a monthly bike brunch, and there I finally found “my people”. We talked about our favorite routes, dealing with street harassment, tips for getting coworkers to try biking, the best gear for winter biking (a big topic in Chicago!), and then, of course, we’d check out each other’s bikes and accessories. With these women, I was recognized as the cycling enthusiast that I knew that I was, and it felt good to be seen that way and associate with others like me.
But having found my people made the disconnect with the bike industry all the more jarring. Here we were, all these women who love biking, who spent a lot of time talking about products we wanted to buy, or things that we wish we could buy if they were available, and the bike industry was still sticking to the same narrative that a true biker was some super fit, white, middle aged, wealthy dude, who aspired to be in the Tour de France. I could see how that mentality trickled down to the brands and products, and how it, perhaps unintentionally, excluded a lot of people from enjoying bicycling because they may have perceived the activity as not for them. I felt like we needed some variety, because there were a lot of different types of bikers but we were all being fed the same brand storyline.
I’m an industrial designer so by nature and by training, I’m pretty product focused. I love thinking up new product ideas, doodling out how they’d work, how’d they’d be made, even how they’d be packaged. A couple years into Po Campo, I realized that I was thinking too small. I was still thinking of Po Campo as a product, as a bike bag, when really Po Campo is a business, an organization. I realized the opportunity was not just to design a great product for people to use, and not only to create a great brand to connect our community, but to create a great business that elevates it all.
The bike industry seems to have recognized its myopic view of what a bicyclist is and is (slowly) trying to change it. Meanwhile, Po Campo continues to grow and grow-up. We’re thinking about what it means to be founded with a “by women for women” ideology as our understanding of gender evolves. We’re thinking about what it means to talk about wanting more diversity in bicycling while also acknowledging, based on our data, that our customers are not very diverse. We’re thinking about what it means to promote a sustainable lifestyle while also manufacturing products that, in all fairness, the world would be perfectly fine without. (Actually, I’m not sure I agree with that statement. The thought of a world without Po Campo makes me very sad!).
Po Campo is turning 10 this year and I’m feeling particularly thankful for our customers. Yes, without them buying bags, and recommending them to others (thank you for doing this!!!), we would’ve been out of business long ago. Any company will say that. In addition to that, I’m feeling thankful for how willing our customers are to tell me when they particularly like something we’re doing – and when they don’t. I’m proud that we have that open line of communication between each other because I do believe that kind of collaboration makes the best companies and products. And at this stage, I’m eager to do things with our people, rather than just creating things for them.
Maria Boustead
Po Campo Founder, Owner & Product Designer