The founder of Stio reflects on the early days of Flylow and how far we've come in the last 20 years.
Words by Steve Sullivan
I remember when I first heard the name Flylow. As a longtime (since reformed) tele skier, I got the reference right away. I thought, well, this is going to be something interesting. Over the course of the next year, I heard a little about the brand and admired the product from afar, but it took some time before I met the founders. It must have been around 2006. I was the co-founder of an outdoor apparel brand called Cloudveil and Dan and I first officially met in the dark, while booting up in a parking lot for a dawn patrol ski in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon. We were connected by a mutual friend who had arranged for an early-morning vertical burn before the Outdoor Retailer trade show that day in Salt Lake City.
You learn a lot about a person while sharing a skin track and I gathered right away that I really liked this guy. He was a positive force of a human, humble and inquisitive with no overt ego, and very important to those of us in the mountain world, Dan was a great skier. He told me more about Flylow and asked me to swing by their booth at the Outdoor Retailer show to check it out. I went to take a look at the product and I loved the vibe. It took me all of five seconds to realize that Flylow was going to have staying power. Anyone with an ounce of brand acumen could tell that Flylow was authentic to the core. You simply cannot fake real.
We first bonded over our shared love of skiing, finding out we were both cut from the same ski bum cloth. We spoke the same language. My first company had gained a measure of traction and Dan and Greg had just started Flylow and although we considered each other competitors, it was a friendly competitor situation. We realized quickly that we were equally focused on the greater mission of getting people out skiing and keeping them comfortable in the mountains. Plus, us smaller companies had to stick together, as we both were going up against much larger, corporate entities with far greater resources. We had each other’s backs from the beginning.
Anyone with an ounce of brand acumen could tell that Flylow was authentic to the core. You simply cannot fake real.
As Dan was a bit younger than me and a bit behind me in the rag game, the subsequent years had us falling into a bit of a mentor-mentee relationship, but I have learned just as much from Dan as he ever has from me. We formed a friendship and continued to connect as often as we could, talking textiles, factory partners, funding efforts, employees, and industry insights while also finding time to chat about important stuff like the best new skis, mountain bikes, family, and life.
Although we’ve been on different paths along the way—I’m on company number two with Stio and he is still shepherding his original vision— we’ve always converged. I have always been impressed with Dan and Flylow’s business approach—quality, creative product and direct, honest, and completely no bullshit marketing. It continues to feel unbelievably refreshing and real in the overhyped outdoor industry that we live and work in. Flylow has also managed the ultimate trick of resisting unfriendly investors and the sale of the business to a larger entity, a trap I fell into far too early in my first company’s existence. We were at the time, and still are, just a couple of guys trying to make great outdoor apparel and share it with others.
It has been incredibly cool watching Flylow continue to grow and prosper. The 20-year mark is an unbelievable achievement in the outdoor business. Between recessions, tariff wars, low snow years, a pandemic, climate change, the decline of independent retailers, and continually rising direct to consumer costs, a business owner in this industry faces a gauntlet. It requires a unique level of focus and a deep commitment to the cause to keep your head down and stay the course, year after year. Flylow has done that in the only way they know how: by staying authentic to the core.
Steve Sullivan is the founder of Cloudveil and Stio. He’s a longtime friend of Flylow, too. This story appears in our new coffee table book, "Homegrown: Celebrating Flylow's Independent culture and grassroots vibe since 2005," which is on sale now.