Connecting to Nature: Kay Rodriguez’s Visionary Pursuit with Outerly

Outerly is a social network that connects people to nature and to each other.

In 2020, I founded Urban Outdoors, which helped urban dwellers find outdoor activities in their cities via written articles. We grew that audience to ~250K readers a month, and we’d constantly get emails from them saying, “I want to go to these places and do these activities, but I don’t know anyone who will go with me.”

After hearing this repeatedly, we researched and realized that no one is solving this issue at scale. So, after hearing the same problem statement many times over, we decided to get to work and solve it ourselves through Outerly.

Many people consider long-term travel a “career break,” but I definitely don’t. I learned more about resilience, grit, and resourcefulness while traveling than in any other role or company I’ve worked at. 

Traveling solo in places where I didn’t know anyone and couldn’t speak the language required me to get super creative about getting from point A to point B, all skills critical to the success of Outerly. I also learned to celebrate the highs AND the lows…some of my worst challenges while traveling are now some of my best stories.

Regarding product building, traveling taught me that everything is a hypothesis. There’s a lot of value in being flexible and nimble when you miss a flight, get pickpocketed, or face unexpected circumstances. This hypothesis-driven approach has shaped how we build our product, using customer feedback and behavioral data to change course and remain as flexible as needed.

During much of the pandemic, the outdoors was the ONLY place where people could safely socialize. Many people took to the trails, the parks, and the waterfront to get a break from the inside of their homes and connect back to their communities and cities. As a result, the outdoor industry saw a HUGE uptick in participation during the pandemic, and those participation numbers have continued on into 2023.

Only 55% of Americans participate in outdoor recreation each year. From our research, the biggest barriers to participation are 1) a need for knowledge of where to go outdoors locally and 2) a lack of people to go outdoors with. Outerly solves both of these challenges.

But our purpose goes even deeper than that. Our collective mental health and loneliness epidemic has worsened despite the larger outdoor participation numbers. Some stats cite that as many as 60% of American adults suffer from loneliness!

Research supports that time spent in nature can help mitigate some of the most prevalent symptoms of mental illness. This is where Outerly plays its most critical role – by connecting people in local green spaces, we can help fight loneliness AND get people outdoors.

We’ll use these funds to reach product-market fit in Washington, DC. We aim to hit our stride by December and then raise another round early next year. This includes product iterations and new features, marketing, and employee requirements until we are cash flow positive for our DC market.

By September 2024, Outerly will be in at least 5 cities nationwide, with 3 generating $1M ARR each year. We’ll have raised our Seed round across VCs, angels, and community members, and we’ll have a community user base of over 1M people. “Outerly” will be synonymous with going outside socially, and we’re growing quickly and consistently using network effects and word of mouth.