In honor of Women’s History Month, QuickBooks is spotlighting the success of small businesses by women, for women. Check the Small Business Stories hub all month to read their stories and find inspiration.
Name: Cassie Abel
Location: Sun Valley, ID
Business: Wild Rye
We make beautiful and technical outdoor apparel for women that fits, inspires confidence, and welcomes more women into the outdoors. Today Wild Rye is focused on women’s cycling, snow sports, and a quickly growing active and outdoor lifestyle collection.
We’re an outdoor brand exclusively for women, designing exclusively for a women’s body. Wild Rye offers sizes 0-24 and is dedicated to creating a more welcoming access point to the outdoors. Wild Rye is also proudly a B Corp certified brand in addition to Climate Neutral and members of 1% for the Planet.
I had worked in the outdoor industry for years and kept seeing all these cool new brands that merged contemporary style and technical features, but nothing for women. Women deserve a better option and we deserve a brand that prioritizes us above all else.
I know very little about running a business, but I’m capable of learning on the fly, and fast!
How much I love it! It gives me the same adrenaline rush I got from competitive team sports growing up.
Energized and excited and sometimes scared shitless.
Funding. It’s no secret that women have access to a fraction of the capital that male-led businesses, but as I set out on my most recent round of fundraising in a challenging economy, I truly felt just how hard it really is to raise capital.
Don’t get paralyzed by perfection, especially in the early days. The more you fail, the more you learn.
The Tory Burch Foundation Fellows Community, Title Nine’s Movers and Makers Community.
And personally — my adventure buddies (Lady Shred, TNR, and colleagues and friends).
Imposter Syndrome and access to capital, which also kind of go hand in hand. I can’t speak for all women, but I’m of the camp of under-promise and over-deliver, which is not always the best approach when seeking investors and outside capital. My natural inclination to make conservative forecasts is great in the day-to-day, but not so great when it comes to raising capital.
This is a really hard one as there are truly so many. Here’s a short list: Opening REI as a retail partner and then within a few years having Wild Rye in all 170 of their stores, moving to our first 3PL, hiring my first employee (then my second, third, eighth…), officially becoming B Corp certified, being contacted by Forbes to tell the Wild Rye story, winning the Bend Venture Conference (and taking home $70K as a result – mostly because I overcame a huge fear of public speaking to do so), raising close to $20K for Planned Parenthood and other related funds in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned…the list goes on and on!
This year we’re really focused on going back to being 100% true to the Wild Rye brand, which means serving our amazing (and growing) community of women, being planet conscious in everything we do, taking some risks and being bold all while having a hell of a lot of fun in the process.
My VP of People and Ops — who also doubles as one of my very best friends, fellow toddler-mom, and favorite adventure buddies. Shannon is the yin to my yang. I’m highly emotional and she has the ability to listen to my rants and then bring me back to earth in a way that helps me think clearly and gets me ready to keep forging ahead.
Work/life balance is a myth when you’re an entrepreneur. That said, I’ve done a better job of prioritizing the things that fuel me in recent years like exercise, getting on skis with my toddler, and much needed time with dear friends.
“Eye of the Tiger.” It was the song that kicked off all of my pre-game warmups while playing college lacrosse, but I still find it incredibly relevant in business.
Call Sales: 1-877-683-3280
