Dream Big (and Send Your Husband Canoeing): Jenna Vanni of Woods + Waters Gear Exchange
It’s our first Guides Gone Wild Wednesday! Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I decided to push ‘publish’ a day early so you had something to listen to on your way to visit your family later, or more realistically, while you bang out a socially distant virtual Turkey Trot tomorrow morning….
Today my special guest is Jenna Vanni, the founder of Woods + Waters Gear Exchange in Brunswick Maine. Woods + Waters is a specialty consignment shop focused on outdoor gear and clothing. It’s also the kind of small, downtown retailer that has been hammered by the pandemic.
As we talk about more in this interview, the seed of Jenna’s idea was planted during her college years, when she started frequenting the local goodwill and consignment shops out of necessity, and stumbled across one of the OGs of specialty consignment, the Outdoor Gear Exchange.
Fast forward a decade or so and Jenna had a solid, stable career in product development for a notable east coast gear and apparel company, but was feeling less excited by the collateral damage her industry’s constant focus on newer and better was inflicting on the environment and the people who made the products.
Jenna got serious about her entrepreneurial dream, and in January 2019, Woods+Waters opened its door in downtown Brunswick, right up the road from Bowdoin college. Things were going predictably well until she slammed into the headwall of March, 2020.
You’ll have to listen in to hear what happened next - AND get Jenna’s recommendation for the item of outdoor gear that you MUST buy consignment every time!
Connect with Jenna and Woods + Waters Gear Exchange on both Instagram and Facebook @woods.waters.gear, and on the web at wwgearexchange.com.
Other links from our conversation:
I really, really hope you all will frequent your local small businesses as much and as safely as you can this coming holiday season. AND I hope you will find a way to incorporate some of your favorite Guides Gone Wild recommendations into your gift giving this year as well!:
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