Boundary Supply

Boundary asked Kickstarter for $60,000 in 2017 to start making its first backpack. Within weeks nearly 3,000 backers had pledged more than $650,000, many of them paying $189 to be first in line, the Deseret News reported. By August the Salt Lake City company had raised more than $1.1 million across three crowdfunding sites.

Cavin Nicholson had done the trade show circuit before. His first company, the apparel maker Coalatree Organics, topped $1 million a year in revenue, but he told the Deseret News he tired of retailers saying, "If you just drop your price another 10 percent, we can really start selling this stuff." He sold the business and returned to the University of Utah in 2015 to study business after a seven-year break.

He carried two lessons from Coalatree into the new company, he said: sell directly to customers, and make sustainability a top priority. He was also spending about six months a year on the road, and he wanted one bag that could do everything.

The pack came out of Lassonde Studios, the university's student startup space. Nicholson worked with students from five departments, theater among them. The work included laser cutting magnetic buckles. About a year and a half of prototypes later, the Prima System was a 25-liter pack that expands to 30. A removable camera case and a padded laptop sleeve fit inside it.

Boundary's packs are not made in Utah. The company says its products are produced in six countries, from the USA to Indonesia. Its FAQ names a fulfillment center in Hong Kong, while its shipping page says orders ship from a Utah warehouse. What it controls is the material. Every product uses bluesign approved fabric, which Nicholson called "not the cheapest route" in 2017, and the current Errant MK II is built from U.S.-made X-Pac VX21.

The Errant MK II is the pack after eight years of customer feedback, and the company says it is 30 percent lighter than the original. It keeps the clamshell opening and a sleeve for a 17-inch laptop, and it adds a magnetic closing flap. In 2017 Nicholson said he hoped Boundary would be competing with Patagonia and The North Face, among others, within five to 10 years. The deadline runs through 2027, so there is still time.

U.S. orders ship from the company's Utah warehouse, and bags with the newer logo carry a limited lifetime warranty. That is a long promise from a company that started with a $60,000 ask.