Boulder entrepreneur outdoors media empire iconic Outside magazine

Robin Thurston’s dreams of becoming a successful professional cyclist were dashed when he crashed into the back of a team support vehicle, knocking him unconscious and leaving him with more than 100 stitches in his head.

He did not lose his passion for outdoor adventure. But, he also managed to harness his natural competitiveness and become a successful entrepreneur. He has transformed a Boulder-based multimedia firm into a major player in the outdoors media sector over the past two years. His collection of online and printed assets covers almost every aspect of recreation, adventure, active living, and has been a key contributor to the success of a number of other companies.

Thurston is the chief executive of Outside Interactive. The company has more than 30 media sites and services, including Outside, Backpacker and SKI, Trail Runner and Triathlete, as well as Warren Miller Entertainment. Formerly called Pocket Outdoor Media, the company was renamed Outside Interactive when it acquired OutsideTV magazine. OutsideTV is an iconic magazine for backcountry enthusiasts. Outside Interactive also offers a registration site and a mapping app called Gaia GPS.

The company headquarters are located in Boulder, just blocks from the Pearl Street Mall. Thurston’s goals go beyond building a media empire, and they involve new emphases for Outside, which has told stories of high adventure and exploration since 1977.

“I believe Outside’s brand is the most amazing brand in the category, but I think it has a bigger purpose than it did before, which was telling amazing, aspirational long-form stories around all of these adventures,” said Thurston, who has three children ages 6-11. “The average kid in the U.S. is getting 70 minutes a week outdoors. It seems impossible to imagine this living in Colorado. For me, growing up in Colorado, I bet I was outside 70 minutes a day — minimum.

“I think about Outside as a platform for (imagining), how do you inspire the next generation? How do we use storytelling? We have our TV channels, events, and mapping tools. But how can we use that stuff to get people to spend at most 120 hours (outside)? And, hopefully, a lot more.”

Outside Interactive has been the leading source of outdoor recreation media in the U.S. and announced a long-term partnership with them in October. Ski & Snowboard Association to livestream all of its domestic World Cup events.

“We want to be the home for winter activities, and that means live sports, documentaries, films,” Thurston said. “We want you to watch Warren Miller (ski films). We just signed Dew Tour (a well-known national snowboarding tour). We want to be the home of cycling. We want to do the same thing in running and outdoor adventure.”

Outside recently ceased print publication of Backpacker and Climbing. Trail Runner, Triathlete and Yoga Journal will cease print publication next summer, leaving Outside as the company’s only print publication. Thurston said that the company had also fired about 12% employees this month. He blamed it on declining advertising revenue.

Currently, about 70% of Outside’s content is free, but a metered paywall is coming next year. Through a “membership” called Outside Plus ($60 per year), users get access to everything Outside and its other assets have to offer, including articles, films, livestreams, the mapping app, event registration, even finish-line photos.

“You’re getting film, TV, live sports, the mapping tools, discounts on registration fees,” said Thurston, 50. “We’ve built a master-class platform called Outside Learn that has 600 classes in it. The goal is to get you into those other products to move you along that cycle of being a beginner in something to being more advanced so you can then share it with other people that you know and, hopefully, bring them along in that journey.”

Conor Hall, director of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, said state officials are in discussions with Outside to partner in major “programs” he’s not ready to divulge.

“Having an innovative mind like Robin, and having a group like Outside housed here in Colorado that really has become a major leader in the outdoor media space, is huge,” Hall said. “They are an aggregator of so much within the industry, they have a gravitational pull that is good for Colorado.”

Thurston was a professional biker in Europe for four years prior to the accident that made him feel lucky to still be alive.

“Unfortunately I went through the back windshield of a team car at about 40 mph,” Thurston said. “No helmet, because there were no helmet rules then.” Helmets weren’t required in competitive cycling until 2003.

Thurston, who was 22 years old when he returned to Denver, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in finance at Metro State University Denver and University of Colorado-Denver. While he initially worked in the investment sector, his first venture into entrepreneurship came from a 2005 European cycling tour.

“We were in Switzerland, near an area where I had lived, and I was showing other Americans the roads,” Thurston recalled. “Somebody at dinner goes, ‘It would be cool if I knew these roads you’re taking me on without you being here.’ I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t think that exists.’ There were travel books that showed routes, but there was no way for me to create a map and send it to you as a friend.”

It all started with a spark of an idea. Thurston co-founded MapMyFitness in 2009 as a digital mobile fitness tracking company. It offered maps and other features through MapMyRide (one of the first iPhone apps) and MapMyRun (two of the earliest).