San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Building a better cargo carrier so campers can easily ‘load and go’
NEW BRAUNFELS — Next time you throw an empty beer can into the recycling bin, it could be on its way to carrying someone’s camping equipment on the back of an SUV as part of a Pakmule cargo carrier.
Based in New Braunfels, Pakmule stands out among carrier brands in that its product is made entirely of aluminum, about 70 percent of which is recycled. As a result, it’s about half as heavy as a steel carrier — coming in at 42 pounds — does not rust and does not have painfully sharp corners. It’s been tested to have a capacity of 1,500 pounds, founder Kansas Sartin said.
In part, he said, he was inspired to start the business after his daughter ran into the pointed end of a steel carrier on his vehicle while riding her tricycle, cutting her forehead.
Sartin had been interested in welding since his time as a student at Texas State University, where he studied environmental resource management, and had made carriers for himself and friends. So, in 2016 he filed the paperwork to create Pakmule. The next year, he got the business going. In 2019, he left behind his career as an executive in the construction industry to devote himself to it full time.
His goal is to make it easier for customers to make the decision to go camping for the weekend by eliminating the hassle of loading and unloading gear. And to make it easier to take the dog in and out of the car — including his family’s own, a 14-year-old lab
named Hank.
“Really, the development was like, how do we have a way that’s easy to load gear and easy to access it, so you can just load and go?” he said.
His hitch-mounted cargo carriers are pricier than many — the basic model sells for $945 — but built to last, he said.
“Mine was purpose-built, which is just different,” Sartin said of the design concept. “You know, I wasn’t trying to value engineer it. I was trying to make it as awesome as possible. I think that’s the difference.”
He and his wife now devote themselves full time to the business
and have two employees. They recently hired a marketing coordinator and are looking to fill another marketing position.
The carriers are manufactured at an independent fabrication shop outside Wichita Falls, northwest of Dallas. Sartin said he hoped to eventually do the manufacturing in-house and has talked with the city of New Braunfels about the possibility of opening a shop.
He recently sat down with the Express-News to discuss the virtues of aluminum, the “enlightened purchasing experience” and the importance of letting consumers know you
exist. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: So you were the first one, as far as you know, to offer a cargo carrier in aluminum?
A:
We’re the only 100 percent — well, I think there’s another brand that’s just come out — but previously, we were the only 100 percent aluminum fully welded system on the market.
Q: Your prices are higher than for the steel carriers, right?
A:
We’re probably twice as expensive as others. The difference is in the construction and materials we use. I mean, a solid block of aluminum — nobody would ever, probably, dare to do something like that because it’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, it’s our own extrusion die. Nobody makes that shape; we had to custombuild a die to be able to create that two-by-two solid piece of billet. But it’s super-durable.
It’s kind of a one-and-done, buy-once, cry-once kind of product. Certainly in the way that we fabricate it, it’s a lifetime product. The design is such that it makes it easy to use, easy to load your gear. You know, on Friday at the end of the day when you’re exhausted from the workweek and you’re wanting to get out of town? When you’re like, “I’m just so tired, maybe I’ll just stay home today and I’ll watch Netflix, and I’ll sleep in tomorrow.”
We want to make it easy so people can rally over that point and be like, “I’m just throwing my stuff in, it takes a minute to put on my Pakmule and another five minutes to throw my cooler and my stuff inside and take off.” Because what I found, personally, living in Houston and grinding it out every week but wanting to escape on the weekends, is when I rallied and I got out of town, I came back more refreshed. I was inspired and invigorated. Our purpose is to inspire people to go, build products that make it easier for them to go.
Q: Nowadays it seems like a lot of consumers just choose the cheapest product on Amazon. Is it hard to find people willing to pay more?
A:
I think there’s still this path of disposable products where people go, “I could buy five of those
for the price of yours.” You’re like, “Well, do you want to do that? Like, is that fun to have? I mean, why are you having to buy another one? Because it failed on you. And how did it fail? Were you on a vacation with your family, and it ruined the vacation?” I think there’s an alternate piece where people are considering their purchases — you know, where does it come from? How is it made? What’s the impact on the environment?
I don’t know that buying habits will ever change completely to this new sort of enlightened purchasing experience, but I think that companies like Patagonia have a case where they say, “Look, we take care of our employees and our factory workers.” I think that people look at that and say, “Well, I want to be a part of that.”
Q: With your construction job, I imagine you had health insurance and other benefits. With four kids, was it difficult to take the plunge to devoting yourself to your business?
A:
It’s a little bit like driving down the highway and throwing your steering wheel out the window. Just hoping for the best, apply pressure to the brake, slowly. Yeah, it’s unnerving — you just take the risk and sort of go for it. I mean, we had no health insurance when we left, and we still have a varied health insurance policy right now. You pay in like $500 a month, and they’ll help reimburse you — it’s a Samaritan type of health care system. Fingers crossed, it works.
Q: What impact did COVID-19 have on your business?
A:
Like most companies, the first few months were scary and crazy. Then we started getting lots of orders. Our direct-toconsumer
(sold online rather than through a dealer) percentage was really high and then continued to get better and better. With the direct-to-consumer business we’re educating people, we’re trying to build this relationship with them. We’re genuinely interested in what they’re doing and they send us these pictures of all their setups and that gets us pretty fired up and inspired. It’s really fun to be a part of that.
Q: What portion of your sales are online versus to dealers? A: Last year we were 79 percent direct.
Q: Could you give a sense of how your company is growing?
A:
We’ve got over 3,000 units on the road. We’ve grown 100 percent or more every year since we’ve been in business. Now the
focus is, how do you grow 100 percent this year? So we’ve been hiring, getting the right people in place to help divvy up the work. In the past, I was answering the phones, sending the orders to the warehouse, I was at trade shows, developing new products and overseeing manufacturing, all these things.
Now we’re trying to be more specific who’s doing what so they can do that one thing really well, versus me doing lots of things and doing OK.
Our highest priorities are a great product and great customer service. It’s funny, because people send us an email and we respond. If it’s in an hour, it seems delayed for me, but people are like, “Whoa, that was a quick response.” When we answer the phone, “Oh, my gosh, somebody answered the phone.”
Q: It seems rare for a business
these days. A:
I really believe, in my core, about getting people outside. If there’s a way that we can encourage and inspire them, make it easier, that’s kind of number one. And then giving back to conservation efforts. You know, it’s really doing more than just a commodity. Like, I hate going to the cereal aisle and you look down — “There’s a whole lot of things, I guess I’ll just get a box of Cheerios.” We don’t want to add to the noise and the confusion.
Q: If you’re looking to have two marketing positions, it must be very important to you.
A:
The biggest challenge is letting people know that you exist. Once I know you exist, it’s then sort of telling your story and why it’s helpful for them. It’s always hard to convey a product on a phone screen, like, “Oh, what’s the great thing about that?” And it becomes more noise.
Q: Do you want to be like Yeti, where everyone has your sticker on their car?
A:
That’s certainly an aspiration that a lot of brands have. I don’t think it’s something that can be replicated — I think in the time and the space it was kind of a unicorn event.
For a long time, when we were only selling 100 or something, we said, “One day, we’re gonna be driving down I-10 and we’re gonna see somebody drive past with a Pakmule and that’s gonna be crazy.” And last year, we each individually saw somebody driving down I-10 with a Pakmule. Then a week later, we were in Port Aransas and we were coming out of Snoopy’s restaurant and a 4Runner pulled in that had a Pakmule on the back. We were driving, and a guy stopped us because we had a Pakmule, and he’s like, “Hey, I’ve got one of those Pakmules. That thing’s awesome!” So within a week’s period of time, we had all these people talking to us about it — which is pretty fun, you know?