Six Questions with The Dyrt's founder Sarah Smith

The Dyrt co-founder Sarah Smith explains the 'Yelp for camping' in this Q&A — how the platform's community reviews make it the go-to resource for discovering campgrounds, and the story behind building a company from a genuine love of the outdoors.

Six Questions is a Q&A-style interview series with our portfolio founders from their unique entrepreneurial perspective. Sarah Smith is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at The Dyrt . How do you explain your company to friends and family? The easiest way to think about The Dyrt is Yelp for camping. The Dyrt’s community reviews make it the go-to resource for all sorts of campers — from a seasoned camper to someone who’s just discovered camping. In 5 years, every camping trip will, at some level, involve The Dyrt, whether it’s a review, booking, or planning an epic camping trip. What do you like most about being an entrepreneur? What do you like least about being one? I love being a part of solving a problem. We started The Dyrt because it was hard to find a campground online, and it turns out a large portion of the 80 million Americans who camp also struggle with this. As for difficulties, being a founder can be a lonely journey. I’m lucky enough to have my husband as my co-founder, so we get to share this journey. Having a founder-to-founder community here in Portland (Oregon) has been a game-changer. What metric do you think about the most, and why? In the beginning, we focused on the one thing that we knew would most help us build our platform: our super users, people who loved to review campgrounds. This year, our focus turned to PRO, our premium subscription offering. It was super fun to watch as users signed up for PRO every 60 seconds. One bonus metric I always like to keep my eye on is our ranking in the app stores. You can’t fake being #1 for camping in the app stores and something we’re really proud of. What creative things do you do to develop a likable company culture? All-Staff Zoom Fun Remote working has forced us to re-evaluate our company culture. We could no longer rely on the informal talks in the hallways or kitchen to connect with people from other departments. One way we’ve adjusted it to implement “5x5”s in which one employee shares 5

By Madelyn Rutter at TechNexus Venture Collaborative