Focus on Entrepreneurship 

Survival mode

Polson entrepreneur creates, markets GearPods survival kits

By ERIKA HOEFER
 Flathead Business Journal

James Davies remembers the trek that eventually changed his life.
It was sometime in 2001 or 2002. He was mountain biking in Northern California and what could go wrong, did.
He got lost and suffered injuries, dehydration and mechanical problems.
One thing was clear: Relying on a survival kit that could fit into an Altoids tin wasn’t going to help anyone survive, at least not for long.
He needed a better way to prepare for disaster, a way that wouldn’t weigh him down or change the way he went about his adventures. It had to be discreet and portable, but able to hold the items necessary for survival in a time of need.
At the time, CamelBak hydration systems were just swinging into popularity. The introduction of the backpack-like water container with its flexible straw negated the need to carry a water bottle into backcountry, freeing up a standard pocket in most day packs as well as the water bottle clip on a mountain bike. Davies found the unused space in his own bag to be the perfect place to carry a survival kit and the idea for GearPods was born. After years of engineering and testing, he launched Polson-based GearPods as a full-blown business in August 2009.
“Everybody’s got the same need. When things go south you need something to help you,” Davies said.

GearPods takes a modular system of lightweight interconnecting waterproof containers and stuffs them with survival gear. The cylindrical canisters are open-ended and stackable — “adult Legos,” Davies calls them.
They come in four sizes and colors and are the same shape and width as a water bottle.
“To be useful, they have to be pretty small,” Davies maintained. He tries to pack as much gear as possible into each kit without making it difficult to either take out or put back in when done.
Take the Survival kit, for example. It fits a rescue flash signal mirror, emergency whistle, one-handed fire-starter, weatherproof and waterproof tinder, 10 NATO-approved waterproof matches and striker, compass, LED flashlight, folding saw, folding knife, water purification tablets, a sterile water bag, heavy-duty needle and thread, safety pins, eight feet of wire, 25 feet of braided nylon cord, a fishing kit, duct tape, weatherproof stationery with pencil, a Fresnel lens, instructions and a Stuff Sac with drawcord — all in a four-inch canister.
The Survival Pro kit adds a second screw-on canister with the GearPods CookMug and stove and two solid fuel tablets. A Snack Pack component can be twisted on to also carry a granola bar, soup bouillon cube, coffee and tea, hard candies, condiments, a spoon and cleansing wipes.
While several different kits — from first aid to shelter — are available, empty components can be purchased as well, in addition to fabric slings that can be affixed to the side of a raft or pack. The top sellers are the Backcountry kit, a combination of the Health and Survival Pro kits, and the Wilderness kit, which adds the shelter component to the Backcountry system.

Davies was born in England and came to the U.S. in 1991. Three years later he moved to the West and in 1996 settled in Northern California. A biologist by degree, Davies ended up working in the software industry for a decade.
In September 2006, Davies brought his family to Montana for vacation. He went on a backcountry tour of Glacier National Park. Within a week, he and his wife, Courtenay, decided to sell their California home and relocate to Polson, where their house overlooks both Flathead Lake and the mountains.
It’s all about discovering what’s important to you, he said.
Which is how he decided to leave software behind and become an entrepreneur.
A keen outdoor enthusiast, Davies had been a consumer and user of survival equipment for years, and as such, he’s confident his GearPods system will revolutionize how people prepare for disaster.
“People’s ideas of survival kits haven’t changed in 20 years,” Davies said, pointing to a tiny Altoids tin. “I’ve really set out to do something different, to innovate.
“I’m a man on a mission,” he said.
The business, which began in his basement, already has found international appeal through its website, www.gearpods.com, and Facebook presence. GearPods have been used everywhere from Glacier National Park to Mount Kilimanjaro, Davies said.
He found product development to be one of the most challenging aspects to getting the business up and running. For such a simple system, Davies maintains that each piece is highly engineered and exhaustively tested. For that reason, it took nearly a year to get the first product out. The second generation, which modified the line based on users’ suggestions, took only four months and was released this spring. Davies was surprised by how much he learned in such a short amount of time.
The canisters are manufactured outside of Bozeman and are assembled by Davies in his Polson basement, keeping overhead low.
He sees his biggest opportunity in retail and has begun reaching out to some outdoor suppliers.

With the lingering effects of the recession, Davies said it’s very daunting for new entrepreneurs out there.
“It’s really difficult to get a new business off the ground,” he said.
Davies turned to the U.S. Small Business Administration to secure a loan for GearPods. Even that was difficult.
“People are just not cutting checks like they used to,” he said.
But the hard work is paying off as GearPods gains more fans.
“If you have a good product, you should be successful. You’re halfway there,” he said.
For more information about GearPods, go to www.gearpods.com.