Richmond's Outdoor Access wants to get people back outside.
Like Airbnb for land and outdoor recreation, Outdoor Access allows landowners to rent out the use of their land for around $30 or $40 a day. Different sites offer the opportunity for different uses like hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and even, in some cases, relic hunting or drone flying.
President and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Christensen came from a career in Geographic Information Systems and previously ran a mapping software company, World View Solutions, that he sold in 2018 in order to take on Outdoor Access full time.
But his love for the outdoors and getting people out into them started even before his career in GIS.
As a child, Christensen grew up visiting his grandfather's cattle ranch in California, living out every child's Wild West, cowboy daydreams. When he was a teen, however, the price of beef collapsed, and his grandfather was forced to sell the farm.
Christensen's time on the farm stuck with him, and a love of the land flourished as a result.
"That was a really heartbreaking moment for my family to have spent years going to this ranch and then suddenly have it turned into a golf course," he told Inno. "My passion is the land and the management of land for conservation and sustainability.
He added, "I like to think that maybe if he'd had something like Outdoor Access where he could have made money from doing recreation activities or conservation activities and additional ways to make revenue, he could have made it through and we would still have the family ranch."
Christensen hopes that the Outdoor Access platform will give landowners an alternative source of income while encouraging people to go outside. Business has been increasing as as result of Covid-19 because people are canceling travel plans and turning to outdoor activities for a socially-distant summer vacation.
"People really are reconnecting with the outdoors just because it's one of the few things we can do right now," he said. "Outdoor recreation is somewhat of a low-cost alternative where you don't have to get on an airplane; you can drive 20 minutes to get to your destination."
Landowners set the terms for what activities are allowed on their property, and users receive a permit to take with them while on site. All normal laws for hunting and fishing still apply while the land is in use.
Outdoor Access got its start in spring 2016 by offering a platform for landowners in Virginia to rent out their land. Since then, they have grown to offer their services across states from Pennsylvania to South Carolina and recently launched in Texas.
Christensen said the platform has nearly 600 properties listed and more than 5,000 members. He said customers are charged a 10 percent service fee that goes to the company, while the rest of the rental cost is paid to the landowner. Outdoor Access also offers premium memberships.
Since launching, the now eight-person team, which includes Christensen's co-founder Buck Robinson, raised $2.8 million in funding over a couple of rounds and plans for that funding to carry them at least over the next year and a half.
As the company continues to expand the locations they service, Christensen said basing themselves in Richmond has allowed Outdoor Access to test out different recreational options they wouldn't have had access to anywhere else.
Customers in the Richmond area can drive to the coast or the mountains in under two hours, stay in town for Class 4 white water rafting or drive 10 minutes out of downtown and be in the middle of nowhere, he said.
"It's a really cool city to be in because there are lots of people passionate about outdoor recreation," Christensen said. "As a startup, you want to be able to run a bunch of experiments and see what happens, and being in Richmond means that we can run pretty much any experiment we want on outdoor recreation from our backyard."
