David Hanney: Alpkit

Outdoors In Scotland
Outdoors In Scotland
David Hanney: Alpkit
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David Hanney: Alpkit

David is Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Alpkit and Sonder Bikes.

Born out of a love for the outdoors, a belief in nature and not accepting the high cost of technical outdoor gear, Alpkit is a direct-to-consumer outdoor brand selling high performance clothing and equipment to enthusiasts of mountain adventures … those that like to run, hike, climb, camp, swim or bike. They have become synonymous with their phrase Go Nice Places Do Good Things.

Outside work, David lives in the Peak District and is married with one teenage son. They all love the outdoors and perfect time is a long day in the mountains followed good pub, good food with friends and family.

Many people know Alpkit as an online brand, or from their annual Big Shakeout festival or through their stores in Hathersage, Ambleside, Keswick and Metrocentre.

You may have recently invested and become a shareholder as they recently completed an offer enabling customers to become shareholders and invest alongside the founders. The share-offer was one of the most successful CrowdCube have ever run. It sold in record time with the target hit in 8 minutes and doubled the target 44 minutes later when the offer was closed having raised £1.5m from 1,350 customers. At peak customers were investing at a rate of 5 new customers per second. Here’s more about the brand and how product design principles work alongside

Alpkit Design Ethos – gear that works harder costs less

Alpkit’s belief is that the products you love most: the ones you use and abuse year-in and year-out are ultimately the most environmentally friendly.

Their design philosophy starts with developing products you’ll love for longer. They design high performance products, developed with a clear purpose, a technical benefit and with as much cross-over use as possible.

Simplificity is a mission. Keeping it simple is ingrained in what they do. They refine a product until there is nothing to add to it and nothing to take away. That way you need fewer products in your wardrobe.

Their product range is smaller, lead times are faster and as they only sell direct, price-tags are sharper.

Sustainability

They are the only UK technical outdoor and bike brand to be a certified B Corp which are businesses verified to meet the highest standards of environmental, social, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose and use business as force for good. 

They are also the first UK outdoor and bike brand to publish a comprehensive sustainability report which detailed 6 sustainability principles that are a handbook to how the company is run:

  • Reduce, repair, reuse, recycle
  • Respect the environment
  • Treat animals humanely
  • Work we people we believe in
  • Build a better business
  • Give back

They repair any brand and have done since 2004. And they find a new home for old outdoor gear. They take-back any brand of used outdoor clothing equipment and bikes to pass it on to someone that needs it with through their roster of charitable partners.

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