In rural Wyoming, three friends have transformed their love of the great outdoors into a highly successful, multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Maven is the brainchild of Brendon Weaver, Cade Maestas and Mike Lilygren, who in 2012 found themselves unhappy with their corporate jobs. While drinking beer around a campfire one evening, the trio decided to “take control of their own lives” and pursue their passion for adventure through entrepreneurship.
Weaver, Maestas and Lilygren combined their backgrounds in operations, design and product development to launch Maven, an outdoor equipment company that uses modern materials and technologies to produce high-quality, adaptable optics with simple designs for, and by, “the modern outdoorsman.” Their product line includes sportsman-inspired binoculars, scopes, rangefinders, tripods, clothing and more.
In just over a decade, Maven has grown to $10 million in annual sales with 22 employees based in rural Lander, Wyoming. Last year the company constructed a brand-new 27,000-square-foot facility in Lander that includes meeting rooms and warehouse space—a landmark accomplishment in a small town with a total population just north of 7,000 people. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon attended its grand opening.
Maven has seen its total sales grow by roughly 20% year over year since its founding—a number Lilygren says was fueled in part by his team’s decision to tap Amazon after years of selling directly to customers on their own website.
As orders ramped up, the cofounders knew that something had to change so they could continue to grow Amazon as a sales channel and shift their attention to focusing on their product.
“Fulfillment by Amazon(FBA) is what made the difference,” Lilygren said. “FBA has been the big difference for us.”
Lilygren said it was also “essential” to hire a business-savvy strategist to manage their Amazon sales channel.
“We realized that we were missing great opportunities within Amazon because the subtleties of that business segment were really important, from the marketing aspect to advertising as well as the inventory management,” Lilygren said, adding that the investment has paid off.
For the past two years, Maven has been featured in the Amazon store during its annual Prime Day, helping sales skyrocket to record-breaking numbers. In 2023, the company sold six figures of product in just two days.
“What we love about Prime Day the most is that there’s sort of an ongoing ripple effect,” he added. “The impacts are long-lasting. Yes, you gain some more customers and sales during the event, but you also gain exposure that helps over the long term.”
“The beauty of Amazon is you can affect your brand exposure and not just sell products, but actually more people can learn about you,” Lilygren said.
In 2023, Maven added four new employees and Lilygren said he anticipates hiring at least two more sales and operations team members this year as business continues to grow. The company already ships to Canada and is looking to expand its international footprint.
However, no matter how far the company ships its outdoor accessories, Wyoming is—and will continue to be—home for Maven and its three cofounders, who are growing their families and their business there.
“Being a Wyoming company has always been an important part of our brand,” Lilygren said. “We’re very proud of our state and our community here.”