Ep 126 Michael Markesbery - Rethinking Insulation
Episode description
Michael is the Co-founder and CEO of Oros Apparel and has also been featured on the Forbes 30Under30. Oros is a performance outerwear company that uses the same stuff NASA uses to insulate spacecraft - and transformed it into max-warmth, zero-bulk apparel. While backpacking across Europe, Michael decided to climb one of the tallest mountains in the Swiss Alps, but he looked like the Michelin Man (tons of bulk and layers of outerwear). He wanted to figure out a way to cut the bulk but keep the warmth, and that was the initial spark that started his quest for better insulation.
While in college, he received a scholarship created by the Mercury 7 Astronauts — The Astronaut Scholarship. Through that scholarship, he learned about aerogel — this material NASA used to insulate things in space - and the rest is history.
Michael and I discussed:
- What is Solarcore
- What is Aerogel
- What has been his biggest challenge as far as consumer education
- The advantage of being a young entrepreneur
- Who their key demographic is and why
- The capability of their technology
- Early-stage growth strategies
- Opening a physical retail location
- The importance of NASA
- The early history of the company
And much more...
My Take: Taking something that has worked for many years or even decades and reimagining it, is the work of dreamers, sometimes visionaries. Without visionaries, we would not have many of the advancements we so frequently enjoy and so easily take for granted.