Jake Andersen is a dental student with a passion for hammock camping. Thanks to his recent successful Kickstarter campaign that funded at over 300%, he is also on his way to being a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. Go check him out at hobohammocks.com!
Kilted Man Crafter: How did you get into hammock camping?
Jake Anderson: When I was younger I went camping with my family all the time, as I got older, my back is not the greatest, as you can see I am all hunched over, so it started not being enjoyable for me to sleep on the ground. And then a couple years ago one of my roommates up in Logan bought a camping hammock and he’s like… back then there were ten of us in the house and when one guy did something we all did it. He like “Everybody needs to get hammocks, we’re doing it”. So we all bought hammocks and tried out hammock camping and it was just awesome. I mean I slept great that night we had a good time just a big ole hammock hive, all of us in there you know. Ever since then I’ve just loved it.
KMK: So you liked hammocks and decided you wanted to start a business. Tell me how that came about.
Jake: So I’ve toyed around with other business ideas online, I’m in dental school as I told you before and… do know much about affiliate marketing?
KMK: Nope.
Jake: So affiliate marketing you, for example I was doing it for Amazon where I created a blog and I linked people to Amazon on my blog, and they have it set up so you can create an account on Amazon where when you link somebody to Amazon, whatever they buy even if it’s not the product you linked them to Amazon for, whatever they buy in that session you get a commission for that. It starts out at four percent and the more items you refer to the higher the percentage goes. So I started doing that with electric tooth brushes and it was not the best but it was a good learning experience kind of figured out the ropes of making a blog and all those things. Then I thought I want to do something I was more passionate about because I love dentistry but electric toothbrushes are kind of like there, you know, there’s not much of a difference between different brushes. So then I started thinking more and more about hammocking and I thought I would really like to do something with hammocking. and I was going to do affiliate marketing at first but then I thought, why don’t I just start my own company?
The way the homeless thing tied into it is last year me and my roommate want to go on a trip to Thailand but we didn’t have the money for that. So we decided to be homeless for a little while to save up the money. That’s what kind of got me interested in the homeless so I thought why not combine those?
KMK: So you guys had no rent you just camped for a little while to save money?
Jake: We found an abandoned softball field in Draper and we strapped our hammocks to the backstop of the softball field and just lived in our hammocks.
KMK: Wow!
Jake: Yeah that was pretty awesome.
KMK: So did you meet any homeless while you were out there?
Jake: While we were there, no, but because I kind of got introduced to that, I mean we’re living out of our cars so it wasn’t near as bad as the homeless actually have it. But being in that environment made me think more about the homeless and so I started to interact more than when I could, not necessarily when we are living in our hammocks, but if I was driving somewhere in Salt Lake and saw some, I would stop and talk to them, offer them food, stuff like that. Actually last fall I took a date to Pioneer Park and we brought pizza and hot chocolate to a bunch of homeless people there.
KMK: Very cool! So with your hammocks what, what is different about your hammocks besides your cause.
Jake: Honestly the actual product there isn’t a huge difference. I mean you know ENO makes great hammocks, Grand Trunk makes great hammocks and I wanted to make a hammock similar to theirs because I knew I could do it at a more affordable price while still including straps with the hammocks. That’s a difference; usually the other companies don’t include the straps and also doing the cause where we’re helping out the homeless, giving them a meal for every hammock we sell. So the actual hammock really isn’t all that different from an ENO or a Grand Trunk. It’s got about the same weight ratings, you know all those specifications are going to be pretty similar.
KMK: So when you went to design it what was your process behind deciding how you wanted your hammock to be?
Jake: One of the biggest things I’ve noticed when I’ve gone hammock camping is that I don’t like single hammocks, I don’t like a hammock that I feel tight in. You know I like to be able to cocoon myself in it so that was one of my biggest priorities is making sure that the hammock is plenty big, plenty of space for you to sit in there and cocoon yourself, you can shift a little bit and get comfortable. So yeah that was actually the main thing when designing the size was just making sure it’s long enough and wide enough to be comfortable.
KMK: What is the name of the shelter that you’re working with?
Jake: So right now are working with the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake. They have a You Tube video you can look up, I think it is called “The Forgotten” to check that out. There’s also several other companies we’ve been talking about the Homeless Youth Alliance, we want to work with them but it’s going to be a little bit more difficult because the way their program set up, their meals are pretty costly per person but we are going to work something out where we will be able to help them too.
KMK: So I hear you’re going to try to get hammocks to the homeless as well, how are you going to work that?
Jake: Yeah we’re going to do a, I’m calling it a hammock recycling program. So basically it’s a warranty on our hammocks where anytime somebody has a hammock that tears or rips or anything like that they’ll be able to send that in with the recycling fee. We still haven’t figured out exactly what that will be, probably fifteen to twenty dollars, and with that fee we are going to fix the old hammock and we’re going to send them a brand new hammock and then we’ll take the old hammock and will donate it to the homeless.
KMK: What else you want the blogosphere to know about Jake and Hobo Hammocks?
Jake: I don’t know what to tell you about it, I mean I am really passionate about it! It’s been a lot more work than I expected it to be because of the positive reaction I’m getting from people. I’ve been doing a lot of advertising through Facebook groups and everybody’s responses are super positive and I love working with all these great people. The interaction with all of the people is half the fun of this business for sure!
My thanks to Jake for a fantastic interview. I wish him all the best. As a fellow hammock camper, I can vouch for the comfort. I will never sleep on the ground again, if I can help it! Send me pictures of you in your hammocks!
THE KILTED MAN KRAFTER 
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