Denver Entrepreneur Marisol Vance Scales Outdoor Gear Brand Nationwide

Marisol Vance started selling hand-sewn gaiters and neck warmers out of a folding table at a Denver farmers market five years ago. This spring, her company, Timberline Trail Co., signed distribution agreements with two national outdoor retail chains, a milestone Vance says still feels surreal.

"I remember doing math on napkins to figure out if I could afford fabric for the next week," she said. "Now we're negotiating purchase orders in the tens of thousands of units." The company has grown from Vance working alone to a team of eighteen, with a small manufacturing facility in a converted warehouse space in Denver's Globeville neighborhood.

Staying Local Through Rapid Growth

Unlike many apparel brands that shift production overseas as they scale, Vance has kept manufacturing in Denver, a decision she says has been more expensive but central to the brand's identity. "Our customers know exactly where their gear comes from," she said. "I didn't want to lose that just because we got bigger."

The decision has required creative supply chain management, including partnering with a local textile supplier to secure better fabric pricing at higher volumes and investing in more efficient cutting equipment to keep per-unit costs manageable as order sizes grew.

Navigating the Challenges of Scale

Vance says the hardest part of the company's growth hasn't been production or sales, but management — learning to delegate decisions she used to make alone. She brought on a operations director last year specifically to handle day-to-day production scheduling, a role she says freed her up to focus on product design and retail partnerships.

Looking ahead, Vance says she's cautious about growing too quickly, citing cash flow challenges that come with large wholesale orders requiring significant upfront production costs before payment arrives. "We could probably take on more retail partners right now," she said. "But I'd rather grow at a pace we can actually fund."