Brand Feature: Free Ride Equestrian
In the spirit of community over competition, I'm excited to continue the Brand Feature Series. Each month, I feature another woman owned equestrian small business that I love. This month we get to meet Katie & Raina, the equestrians behind the cult favorite breeches: Free Ride Equestrian.
Tell us a bit about Free Ride Equestrian
At Free Ride Equestrian our utmost goal is to create comfortable, unrestrictive apparel that enables athletic performance. We love to connect with our fellow equestrians and strive to bring a positive shopping experience to our customers.
At Free Ride Equestrian our utmost goal is to create comfortable, unrestrictive apparel that enables athletic performance. We love to connect with our fellow equestrians and strive to bring a positive shopping experience to our customers.
Why did you start the business?
We are both lifelong equestrians. From our time in the saddle, we knew there was plenty of room for improvement in the equestrian apparel industry. Equestrian apparel was often complicated, uncomfortable, or out of our budget! Our goal was to create the perfect mesh between technical athletic wear and equestrian apparel, at a fair price point. As close friends with a mutual passion, it was only natural that we went into business together. From the beginning Free Ride Equestrian and our business relationship has been a success, it's just one of those things that seems meant to be!
What is your favorite thing about owning the business?
We both love getting to know and connect with our customers that share the same passion that we do. It is also so rewarding to see our products being worn and loved by so many. We put an extensive amount of time into designing and trialing our products, and it feels so worth it when we get positive feedback from our valued customers!
What has been the biggest challenge of owning the business?
Neither of us are a huge fan of the math part! Trying to keep up with accounting, bookkeeping, calculating how much inventory to order (never enough, good problem!) size splits, barcodes....the list goes on. It seems like we need a mathematician on staff sometimes!
We both love getting to know and connect with our customers that share the same passion that we do. It is also so rewarding to see our products being worn and loved by so many. We put an extensive amount of time into designing and trialing our products, and it feels so worth it when we get positive feedback from our valued customers!
What has been the biggest challenge of owning the business?
Neither of us are a huge fan of the math part! Trying to keep up with accounting, bookkeeping, calculating how much inventory to order (never enough, good problem!) size splits, barcodes....the list goes on. It seems like we need a mathematician on staff sometimes!
What is some advice you would give to entrepreneurs?
Believe in yourself. Insecurity is your worst enemy. With Free Ride, having the business be a partnership has been instrumental to its success because we are able to lean on each other when it gets risky or stressful.
Tell us about some fun things customers can expect to see in 2021.
We are planning on fulfilling as many customer requests for products. We hope to have a full line of sun shirts in as many colors as we do breeches. We plan to offer every single breech and legging with a full seat or knee patch option. We will have show shirts and a better selection in the children’s sizes!
Believe in yourself. Insecurity is your worst enemy. With Free Ride, having the business be a partnership has been instrumental to its success because we are able to lean on each other when it gets risky or stressful.
Tell us about some fun things customers can expect to see in 2021.
We are planning on fulfilling as many customer requests for products. We hope to have a full line of sun shirts in as many colors as we do breeches. We plan to offer every single breech and legging with a full seat or knee patch option. We will have show shirts and a better selection in the children’s sizes!
I really enjoyed getting a behind the scenes view of Free Ride and I hope you did too! Katie & Raina, you are amazing and inspiring equestrian entrepreneurs and I cannot wait to see what you do next! And as an extra bonus for Dapplebay fans, you can save 10% on their website with code DB10...head over and shop now!
Leave a comment