Thursday, april 29, 2021 • ThE BullETiN
WATCH
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 17
Bend athlete-entrepreneurs ‘Go Forth’
in new web series from GoDaddy
BY DAVID JASPER
The Bulletin
I
t’s not a whodunnit, but there are mys-
teries of a sort in “Go Forth,” the new
web series on YouTube.
The four-episode show from web host
and domain registrar service GoDaddy fea-
tures three pro athlete/entrepreneurs — tri-
athlete Jesse Thomas, co-founder and CEO
of Picky Bars; climber and climbing guide
Lizzy VanPatten, founder of She Moves
Mountains; and skier and base jumper Mat-
thias Giraud, also an inspirational speaker
— all of whom live and work in Bend.
In “Go Forth,” each of the athletes strives
to hit an athletic goal as well as professional
aims related to their businesses. And therein
lies the mystery, or rather, multiple mys-
teries: Will Thomas land new investors for
Bend-based Picky Bars, which makes a va-
riety of real-food bars geared toward ath-
letes? These include a new nut-butter spread
called Drizzle, which gets launched during
the show. What kind of reception will cus-
tomers give it? Will he rehab his injuries
and get in race-shape for the Mt. Taylor
Quadrathlon? After all, he did his last Iron
Man Triathlon in 2018.
Similarly, viewers will find out if VanPat-
ten hits her business goal, which is to double
revenue from the previous year for her com-
pany, She Moves Mountains. It works “to
create an educational space for women (cis,
trans) and gender minorities to realize their
strength through outdoors retreats and skills
clinics,” according to the official website.
Her personal athletic goal: climbing Moon-
light Buttress in Zion National Park.
And Giraud, whose nickname Super
Frenchie is shared by a new documentary
about his feats, is in pursuit of new sponsors
and to diversify his income as an inspira-
tional speaker and consultant. His athletic
goal: generate visual content for sponsors
while skiing and jumping in the Alps seems
achievable. Then again, shooting of the
show began prior to COVID-19 altering a
lot of people’s plans and goals.
The series is online now, and you should
watch it. However, we did find out from
Amy Jennette, senior director of Brand Mar-
keting at GoDaddy, that “Action sports and
outdoor adventure are a great metaphor for
starting your own business and being an
entrepreneur: the fortitude it requires, be-
ing self-reliant/self-confident and pushing
toward your goals to make them come to
life through challenges and obstacles. We
began developing the idea that became ‘Go
Forth’ back in mid-2019 with this premise
in mind.”
Courtesy GoDaddy/Submitted photo
Jesse Thomas, CEO and co-founder of Picky Bars, as seen in “Go Forth,” a web series about Thomas and
two other Bend athletes and entrepreneurs as they endeavor to hit new goals in business and sport.
In the early development stage, GoDaddy
brought on Delve Creative, a Bend-based
production and management agency, “to
help drive this concept and bring the op-
portunity to life,” Jennette said. “Delve was
uniquely positioned because of their experi-
ence in talent-relations with athletes, as well
as producing action sports content.”
Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk,
whose company, Birdhouse Skateboards,
will turn 30 next year, serves as a mentor for
the athletes.
The company chose VanPatten, Thomas
and Giraud “because these three entrepre-
neurs are in various stages of owning their
small business, so it felt like a good balance
to follow them for a well-rounded peek into
what it’s like to be an action and adventure
sports entrepreneur,” Jennette said. “They all
have amazing, unique businesses and stories
that are also simultaneously relatable.”
“It just turned out that (Delve) and Go-
Daddy liked Lizzy, Matthias and I, and it just
turned out that that was great, because we’re
all in Bend,” Thomas said.
Thomas did his last Iron Man Triathlon
in 2018, “so it’s been a while,” he told GO!
Taking a sabbatical from triathlons and fo-
cusing on his work in 2019, he incurred an
injury while training in preparation for the
Olympic Trials Marathon, requiring surgery
and close to a year of recovery.
“By then it was early 2020, and I was re-
ally working full-gas on the business and
was just kind of like, ‘I’m not feeling like I
want to get back to full-time racing again,’”
he said. “I kind of retired, more or less,
in my head, and hadn’t really been public
about it.”
Participating in the quadrathlon was
something he wanted to do “partially as a
professional triathlete, and partially just for
fun,” Thomas said.
“I was supposed to spend an entire month
down there working on it,” VanPatten said,
referring to her Zion climb. “A climb like
that is something that you kind of chip away
at, and COVID concerns started coming in
as soon as I got down there.”
Spoiler alert: She Moves Mountains didn’t
have the kind of fiscal year she wanted for it
in the show.
“Last year was horrible. The goals for the
show were obviously to double the size of
the business, and we lost everything except
for our existence,” VanPatten said.
“We were out of work for a really long
time. We took a long time to get back to it,
just because we were being really conserva-
tive,” she said. “This year, we’ve essentially
tripled the size of business in our first few
months back at it, because, I think, one of
the things people can do is be outside, and
so our business is pretty primed for activities
that people can do. And so we’ve been really,
really busy.”
Thomas hopes that viewers take inspira-
tion from “Go Forth.”
“It’s corny or whatever, but I guess inspi-
ration to be entrepreneurial and chase their
goals,” he said. “Regardless of what happens,
you learn a lot and become a better person, I
guess, going through it all.”
VanPatten wishes the show — and articles
for which she’s been interviewed — would
address the fact that it takes advantages and
resources to be an outdoor entrepreneur.
“I just think that there’s no conversations
about the amount of privilege it takes to
even be in the positions that we are in to
start these businesses,” she said. “I wish that
some of these stories that talk about what it
takes to be an outdoor entrepreneur could
also approach it from an intersectional lens
where it talks about, or at least acknowl-
edges, the privileges that we all have had. …
It makes it sound like, ‘Oh yeah, everyone
can just go out there and make it happen for
them.’ It’s like, no, so many things have to
line up.”
e e
David Jasper: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com
IN THE BALANCE OF COMPETING HARMS - WE SHALL PREVAIL
541-788-5858
905 SW Rimrock Way Suite 100A
Nolan Town Square • Redmond, OR
ladiesofl eadusa@gmail.com
Sharon Preston