By Andrew Garcilazo, co-founder
I've been interested in businesses for quite some time.
I started my first when I was 19 years old with a friend from high school. We never established an official business structure, but after a few months we were doing business things, making money, paying freelancers, and building websites.
There wasn't much money to go around in those day, being a college student without a job. If there was, maybe I'd still be running that business. Ultimately, it didn't last, and I moved on to other things.
Still, the desire to work for myself, to building something from scratch, never went away. For years I planned and plotted about how and when I would try again.
Sometime in the spring of 2021, an idea came to me, and I formed a plan.
That idea was Hiker's Gold.
You see, I've wanted to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail for as long as I can remember. The PCT, as it's called, is a 2,650-mile-long trail that runs from the Mexican border in California to the Canadian border in Washington. To thru-hike it, or hike it continuously from one end to the other, takes about five to six months, depending on your speed.
Around early 2021, I was starting to get serious about quitting my job to hike the trail. As I was researching all the food, gear, and resupply strategies necessary for such an adventure, I started to realize maybe there was room for another brand in this hiking/backpacking/camping space. Specifically, I was thinking I could build a website or service that sold multi-day boxes of food supplies for backpackers.
After looking into it, the idea seemed too big (and too complicated) to start with. I needed something simpler, something a little less daunting. If I couldn't sell multi-day food boxes, what about a single product? That's how I landed on snack/protein/energy bars.
A few weeks later, the name came to me during a late night shower: Hiker's Gold.
I never got to thru-hike the PCT. At least, not yet. Sometime in 2019 or 2020, I decided 2022 was going to be the year. Ultimately, I chose to start Hiker's Gold over hiking the PCT, but the trail will always be there. One of these years I'll drop everything and do it. At least, I hope I do.
You can email me any questions or comments at andrew@hikersgold.com or follow me on Instagram (@andrewgarcilazo).
