Follow on Spotify | Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Amazon | Pocket Casts | iHeartRadio | other platforms
She started the first women-owned ski and snowboard brand in the universe, ran it for 12 years, and then closed it — and this conversation about what’s actually worth fighting for is required listening for anyone who wants to survive capitalism and do some good in the world.
Jen Gurecki is a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur who has spent her life doing things differently — founding Zawadisha, a microlending program for women in rural Kenya; starting Coalition Snow, the first women-owned ski and snowboard brand in the universe; and mentoring small business owners on aligning their values with their livelihoods. Her newest venture, Far Out, brings together outdoor adventure travel and creative exploration.
Jen and Angie talked about:
- Growing up as an activist, not an entrepreneur — from a McDonald’s playground moment to taking down her principal in the school paper
- Panty Line Productions, her first business: screen-printed underwear reading “The only bush I trust is my own”
- Founding Zawadisha, which still provides microloans to women in rural Kenya today
- Starting Coalition Snow in 2014 “to fuck with the industry” before anyone cared about women in business
- The startup scene and the soul-crushing pressure to endlessly grow
- Why “unisex” gear is a business decision, not change and the internalized misogyny women bring to women-made gear
- The cancer diagnosis that rewrote what’s worth fighting for
- Deciding to close Coalition after 12 years and why passing the torch is not failure
- Far Out: no fake urgency, no discounts, no Black Friday, and a story page for every maker
- The Fourth Space: funding community dinners and backyard gatherings because small actions matter
- Redefining wealth, enoughness, and why you should stop waiting for someone else to fix it
Listen: Follow on Spotify | Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Amazon | Pocket Casts | iHeartRadio | other platforms
Check out these resources:
- 🌐 Far Out
- 📱 Far Out on Instagram
- 📱 Jen on Instagram
- ✏️ Jen’s Substack: Redefining Radical
- ➡️ The Cairn Project on IG
- ✨ The Cairn Project’s newsletter
- 🥾 Become a Trailblazer
- 📅 Summit Scholarship Foundation
Like this episode? Leave a 5-star rating and review on your podcast app!
You can help us close the gender gap outdoors and beyond:
- Become a Trailblazer. Your Adventure Fundraiser makes wilderness experiences possible for girls and women.
- Check out the Summit Scholarship Foundation.
- Send this episode to a friend who wants to survive capitalism and do some good in the world.
Make sure you subscribe to the See Her Outside Podcast so you don’t miss a story!
Follow on Spotify | Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Amazon | Pocket Casts | iHeartRadio | other platforms
Can you run a truly values-based business and still survive capitalism? In this episode of the See Her Outside Podcast, Jen Gurecki — founder of Coalition Snow, the first women-owned ski and snowboard brand in the universe — shares why she closed the brand after 12 years, and what her cancer diagnosis taught her about what’s actually worth fighting for. Jen never went to business school; her graduate work was in bottom-up approaches to social change, and she has always seen business as a platform for making change rather than a ticket to wealth.
Jen’s entrepreneurial story spans screen-printing feminist underwear in the early 2000s, founding Zawadisha — a microlending social enterprise that still serves women in rural Kenya today — co-owning a whitewater rafting company in the Sierra, and disrupting snow sports manufacturing from 2014 on. She talks honestly about getting swept up in the startup scene, the pressure of a cap table, the “shrink it and pink it” era of women’s gear, why unisex gear is a business decision rather than change, and the internalized misogyny that makes people doubt women who build skis and bikes.
Then came the cancer diagnosis that rewrote everything. Facing chemo, surgery, and her own mortality, Jen decided that fighting for skis and snowboards was no longer the fight worth having. Her new venture, Far Out, brings together outdoor adventure travel and creative exploration — group trips, creative retreats, art kits made with women in Kenya — with no fake urgency, no discount funnels, and a story page for every maker. Her upcoming Fourth Space project will fund small community gatherings, because making a difference on your own block matters more than reaching thousands.
This conversation is for anyone questioning hustle culture, girlboss-era entrepreneurship, and the pressure to endlessly grow. As Jen Gurecki puts it: don’t wait for someone else to fix it — they’re not going to. Listen to See Her Outside, stories from women who adventure, wherever you get your podcasts.
