PORTLAND, Ore. -- A company born in San Francisco has moved to Portland.
The firm is called Rumpl and it specializes in outdoor blankets.
The show room at the Northwest Portland headquarters for Rumpl is still a work in progress. But a Portland touch is already in place.
“If you touch it, its real moss. It’s really cool,” said Marketing Manger Jennifer Burpoe.
Rumpl blankets are water resistant and come in a variety of fill materials including down or fleece.
And yes, there is a version made for dogs.
There's also a design from the Portland airport's carpet, a gesture celebrating the move to Portland.
The company came to life back in 2013 in the Bay area when CEO Wylie Robinson and a buddy got stuck in their car in the woods and brain stormed ways to make a better outdoor blanket.
A Kickstarter campaign for $15,000, raised $216,889.00 and they were on their way.
Robinson said demand for the blankets has grown each year. He moved to Portland to find great talent at a price more affordable than San Francisco.
“It’s pretty much expected you are paying someone six figures in the bay area. It’s pretty challenging to live there without a salary like that. And we're a small business. We simply can't afford everybody being on a salary of that magnitude,” Robinson said.
He brought eight employees with him from California and hired six more in Portland.
Some of the California transplants like the local housing prices.
“Much better,” said Jennifer Burpoe. “I can live by myself, which is new.”
In the Bay area she had three roommates to cut costs.
Rumpl’s newest product, out this spring, is a large shammy towel for drying off at the beach.
“So if you get out of the ocean and you want to dry off real quickly--dries off--everything dries off like in seconds,” said Burpoe, the Marketing Manager.
Robinson says the inspiration for the product came from seeing the fabric at factories he uses in southern China.
Like many business leaders, he's wondered recently about the trade war.
“It actually doesn’t impact our category, so yeah. That’s new information that’s just come out in the last couple days. But we're good,” he said.
Rumpl blankets are sold online and at REI and Danner in the Portland area. The company is hiring, you can email them for details.