CU Denver Alum Robin Thurston, Who Founded Outside Interactive, to Give Fall 2023 Commencement Speech
On Dec. 16, more than 1,300 students will graduate from CU Denver and there’s no doubt that their bright futures will impact industries—both locally and globally—as thought leaders, innovators, and doers. It seems fitting that in this moment of transition they’d hear from a lifelong learner, just like them, whose career can serve as inspiration to propel them into the next stage of their life. That’s exactly what Robin Thurston, MS ’99, will do as the commencement speaker for CU Denver’s fall 2023 commencement ceremony.
Thurston earned his graduate degree while working full-time, an investment that he thought would help build his career. Now, as the CEO and founder of Outside Interactive, a multimedia platform dedicated to getting people outdoors, Thurston is changing the way that we think about outdoor recreation and activity. This year, Outside also collaborated with CU Denver on a lab that will use tech and research expertise to test outdoor gear. In anticipation of the big event, we sat down to talk about Thurston’s day-to-day schedule and his favorite memory at CU Denver.
We don’t want to give too many spoilers for your speech, but what advice do you have for graduates or students?
I’m going to focus on this idea that limits are largely in your head. That’s the part for me and I think so many students: I think they get caught up in, “I can only go x far because I have this degree.” I mean, I ran a consumer genetics company and I think the only biology I took was in high school—and I got a C. Our team built one of the largest molecular biology labs in the world in San Diego to sequence and store the human genome. And I knew very little about genetics until I got to the company. Or when I jumped from finance to starting entrepreneurship. Yes, I had the business background to do it. I certainly had the passion to do it. But I think a lot of it is just what we think we can do or can’t do.
Tell us about Outside Interactive, Inc.
Outside’s mission is to get everyone outside, which is really important to me because I believe in the healing power of nature and I want to help inspire more people to get outside and off their screens. We started the company by bringing together 20+ iconic outdoor brands across a number of categories, including the acquisition of Outside Magazine and Outside Television. Today, we have about 370 employees and over $100 million in revenue, with a single membership offering that brings the best outdoor storytelling, videos, gear reviews, mapping apps, online courses, events, and more, together for the consumer.
What’s your day-to-day like?
We’ve put exceptional people in place that really run the core of the business around our divisions, including Media, TV, Events, Event Services, and Mapping. In the next couple of days, I’m going on the road to talk to clients and partners, and I’ll be in Seattle and Portland meeting with a wide variety of outdoor brands. So, I spend a fair amount of time out on the road meeting with clients and really making sure that they understand our vision and how they can work with us to achieve our shared goals.,
When you were at CU Denver, was this where you expected your career to go?
When I was at CU Denver, I was working at Reuters and they paid for my master’s degree. I was very, very fortunate—we’re talking about the late ’90s—that there was a focus by an organization like Reuters to help their employees pay for school. Largely, I did it at night. I thought it was just going to be a long career in the financial services world. It was an amazing journey until 2005 when I found entrepreneurship and my first company MapMyFitness that I sold to Under Armour in 2013.
As Outside Interactive has evolved, there’s a lot of focus on integrating technology into the outdoor space. Why is that a priority for your work?
I don’t think there’s a business in the world that isn’t and shouldn’t think like a tech company. I started with a tech company in the outdoor space called MapMyFitness. And things like Backpacker or Outside Magazine, or Warren Miller films, they all got started by passionate people in the category that had no real tech background. Many of these companies had no engineers or product engineering staff. The theory was that there’s a big opportunity to do this in a different way if you really integrate technology. And now, of our 370 employees, over 100 of them are in product and engineering, which is a new investment that we’ve made in these businesses over the past four years.
Recently, we launched a product called Scout, which is leveraging 80-years-worth of our content data. It’s a chatbot that’s proprietary to our data. And if you say, “I want to do a three-day camping trip in Yellowstone,” it’ll give you an itinerary for three days about what to see and where to go, and then return all the articles we’ve ever written around Yellowstone across the platform. That type of technology just wasn’t possible before.
Do you have a favorite moment at CU Denver?
My favorite memory is the fact that I was very lucky that Reuters was across the street. We were, literally, in the CU management building on Lawrence Street. I would go to class for hours after work and then go back to the office and sleep on the floor and then do it all over again the next day. For me the proximity and flexibility enabled me to earn my master’s degree at night and over two years.
I think that says something about your work ethic!
It was so convenient because I could just go back across, and I could wake up, and I could go back and shower at the school. And then I could come back to work in the morning without ever having gone home.