This week’s conversation is with someone who is, at the time of recording, pre-launch. By the time you hear this, Terlingua Threads will be live in the world. Doug Waters is building a hot weather apparel company designed for above 90 Fahrenheit, made in Portugal, in small batches, with natural fibers only. He’s bootstrapping it with his best friend from business school, has visited all 63 national parks, and is writing a book about them on the side. We got into the inner mechanics of brand building, capital decisions, why he turned down investor money that came with strings, and what it actually looks like to stay creative when you have to be the marketing department too.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify
This Week’s Episode
Guest: Doug Waters, founder of Terlingua Threads, a hot weather adventure apparel company made in Portugal.
Why it matters: Doug is building in a category most outdoor brands treat as an afterthought (summer layers), with a bootstrapped model that prioritizes craftsmanship and creative control over speed. His framing on the trade-offs is some of the clearest I’ve heard.
The takeaway: You don’t have to chase the venture-scale exit to build a beautiful business. But you do have to know what you’re optimizing for, and who you want sitting at the table with you.
The Airstream Moment
Doug was on a consulting trip to Big Bend National Park when the idea hit him. He was staying in a hollowed-out Airstream Airbnb in Terlingua, Texas. No plumbing. No electricity. No cell service. Just space to think.
“How do we stay adventurous in a warming climate?”
That was the question. When he got back to civilization in El Paso, he texted his best friend Daniel. Two years later, they’re launching the brand.
I asked Doug about the moment of breaking stasis. It’s something I’m a little obsessed with. It took me years to quit my job, and I think most people listening to this show are either doing the thing or wanting to do the thing. His answer was honest: it was an exciting enough problem to work on. The status quo in summer apparel is polyester layers that trap heat, stink, and rely on harsh chemical sprays for UV protection. When Doug and his friends started wearing their prototypes in Death Valley and Joshua Tree, and outdoor guides started asking where they could buy them, the validation was real.
Why the LA Marathon Diverted Its Course
The context for Doug’s whole business is that races are starting to bump up against heat. The LA Marathon recently had to offer an option to shorten its course from 26.2 to 18 miles because of temperature. The trail world laughs at this, of course; 80 degrees is a cool day for Western States. But the broader point stands: anything ultra-distance means you’re running through the heat of the day. There’s no way to start even at 5AM and outrun the sun on a 50-miler.
Doug’s framing on this was sharp. He doesn’t oversell what fabric can do.
“Clothing in and of itself is not going to overcome reckless decision-making or poor hydration or lack of sunscreen. Safety is a behavior, not just a product.”
The Terlingua thesis isn’t that the gear transforms your race. It’s that if they can keep you four to ten degrees more comfortable, that’s worth doing. His friend Victor Zeitoun took a prototype to a 500K invite-only race in the Atacama Desert and won. Doug’s takeaway wasn’t that the shirt made the race easier. It was that marginal improvement is the entire point.
The Investor Conversations He Walked Away From
This was the part of the conversation I kept rewinding in my head after we stopped recording.
Doug’s co-founder Daniel had previously launched a brand in the footwear space and raised from angels and other investors. His honest reflection, looking back, was that most of those investors didn’t end up providing meaningful strategic guidance. And in an early company, strategic guidance matters more than the capital itself. At worst, it can actively steer you in the wrong direction.
Doug shared one specific story. An investor got wind of what Terlingua was building and asked why they weren’t producing in Vietnam or Bangladesh. The answer is craftsmanship: their design partner in Portugal has been with them since the beginning, knows their quirks, and is part of the team. The investor wasn’t on board with that. It was a different business than the one Doug wanted to build.
“We want to build something artistic and beautiful rather than just chase a certain valuation.”
I see this all the time on the angel side of my world. A dollar isn’t always worth a dollar. My friend Vivek bought a San Francisco running company and is now organizing races where he can actually deploy the products he invests in. That dollar might be worth three. The consumer VCs who actually move the needle are the ones with deep operator experience in the category. Next Ventures is a good example: Mel Strong spent 17 years at Nike, Lance Armstrong lived the elite cyclist experience, and they've attached themselves to category-defining companies like Aura early. But those firms are rare. Most consumer VC, as Doug put it, tries to be a jack of all trades across food, water bottles, clothing, and gadgets, without the industry depth to actually open the right doors.
If you’re considering taking money, the question isn’t just what’s the cost of capital. It’s what’s the cost of who comes with it.
The Bootstrapper’s Trade-Off
Doug was clear about what bootstrapping actually feels like day to day. He’s doing Adobe Illustrator and InDesign work, photo edits in Lightroom, barcodes, retail event logistics, journalist inquiries, admin, social posts, and product iteration. All of it. Himself.
“That social media post I should have been able to crank out in a few hours; why did it take several days?”
The benefit is creative control. The cost is velocity. Terlingua has spent two years getting the product and supply chain dialed in. The marketing function got attention roughly five minutes ago. And yet they’ve already been invited to Grassroots Outdoor Alliance’s Connect show in Reno, where 110 family-owned independent retailers send their buyers to discover new brands. Press agencies are reaching out unprompted.
The interesting wrinkle: Doug has resisted using AI for any of Terlingua’s marketing creative. The argument is consistency. If you’re making a craft, small-batch product in Portugal, you can’t signal that with gen AI slop. The marketing has to match the manufacturing. He’s not anti-AI as a technology; he uses it where it fits, hopes QuickBooks keeps building it into bookkeeping, and assumes it’ll have bigger applications as the company scales. But the creative output is human-made. On purpose.
Five Takeaways From This Conversation
Breaking stasis takes a real problem to solve. Doug didn’t quit consulting because he was burned out. He quit because the summer layer problem was specific, underserved, and personal. If the problem isn’t acute enough to keep you up at night, it’s probably not the one.
Strategic guidance beats capital in the early days. The wrong investor can quietly steer you toward a business you don’t want to run. Vet the value-add before you vet the valuation.
Niche is leverage, not limitation. Terlingua only works above 70 degrees. They tell customers this directly. The clarity of the use case is the brand.
Velocity is the price of creative control. Bootstrapping means you’re slower. But you get to actually decide what the output looks like. If beauty and craft are the point, that trade is the right one to make.
Friendship is the moat. Doug quoted Scott Galloway: greatness is in the agency of others. The relationship with his co-founder Daniel, with his Portuguese design partner, with his earliest user-advocates like Victor; none of it is networking. It’s friendship. And it’s what makes the work sustainable.
This Episode Is Brought To You By
The Huddle. Building a business is isolating. You’re making decisions daily that most people in your life don’t fully understand, and surface-level networking rarely helps. What my co-founders Jason Fitzgerald, Ross Yellin, and I built at The Huddle is different: a peer advisory community for early-stage founders who want real accountability and real conversation. Small cohorts, cross-industry, monthly sessions. Someone in the room will tell you the thing you actually need to hear. In-person in Boulder, virtual cohorts open anywhere. Go to findmyhuddle.com and fill out the application.
Popfly. The creator program platform built for outdoor, travel, and adventure brands. It connects you with the largest community of adventure creators on the planet: people who actually use the gear, live the lifestyle, and have built real trust with their audiences. Affiliate links, discount codes, creator and ambassador collabs, all in one place. If you’re a brand, learn more here. If you’re a creator, sign up here.
(Doug literally took out a sticky note during the recording to write down Popfly’s name. So…)
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify
Links & Credits
Guest: Doug Waters, founder of Terlingua Threads
Find Terlingua: terlinguathreads.com · Instagram: @terlinguathreads
Mentioned in the episode: Patagonia, Next Ventures, Big Bend National Park, Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, Scott Galloway, the Harvard Happiness Study
Host: Jonathan Levitt
Network: Long Run Labs
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Curious about the manufacturing and logistics. How much additional costs raised from the tariffs or any similar unexpected changes? Does it matter more for small to medium size businesses than large ones?
Friendship or healthy partnerships is the moats. Just like it’s said “all problems are interpersonal relationships problems “ (second nature BPC book 📖)