Getting crafty with rafts
By Erika Andrews
Samantha Hunter, Austin Shirley, Lewis Price and Sean Pope giving life to old rafts.
Got a boat that won’t float? The young entrepreneurs of Oh Be Joyful Bags want to turn your raft into satchels, wallets and belts. Rubber garbage. While it’s typically not the stuff dreams are made of, it’s the cornerstone of an ambitious start-up for four aspiring social entrepreneurs. Born out of a school project at Western Colorado University, Oh Be Joyful Bags is the brainchild of Samantha Hunter, Sean Pope, Lew Price and Austin Shirley. Armed with a mission to give new life to old rafts that are otherwise destined for the landfill, the young company has cast a broad net in sourcing materials, adapting production methods and developing a variety of products. “Our vision is to see a world where every piece of rafting material is given new life,” Pope said of the group’s creative upcycling endeavor. “The material itself isn’t recyclable, and with boating becoming more and more popular, more are being built and eventually heading to the landfill.” It all started when one of Price’s favorite professors, Taryn Mead, emailed him information about a competition and class that Western was hosting. “The intent was to encourage some start-ups in the valley,” Price said. With a circular economy approach, the 30
Dusty Demerson
competition directed participants to find a waste stream in the valley and do something with it. Concurrently, Price had three dead rafts that he’d decided to fix. Estimating that it would take 60-70 hours to get each raft to float again, his thoughts shifted to what else he might be able to make from them. First came the idea of making patch or repair kits. But once the group assembled around a table for the first time and started brainstorming, they came up with the idea of making durable, longlasting bags in the form of the Sunny Gunny Satchel. As part of the competition, they created a pitch video and garnered enough votes to win, which awarded them a Venture Well grant and access to the ICElab business accelerator on Western’s campus. “The accelerator has been amazing. We’ve been in touch with other start-ups, and they basically let us know what we don’t know,” Hunter said, admitting that the closest she’s been to business school is the class that brought her in contact with Pope, Price and Shirley. To Hunter, the whole idea of building a business from the ground up has been somewhat daunting, but also exciting. “It’s certainly high risk, high reward,” she said. The group has since been able to synthesize their ideas, developing a variety of prototypes – from belts and wallets to purses and bags. “One thing I liked about our group from the very beginning is that we come to decisions relatively easily,” Hunter said. “We have different strengths, and we wear many hats and have
