By Margaret Hedderman
Ram Mikulas wasn’t trying to start a business. He just wanted a functional, outdoor jacket that ticked all the boxes—a garment for the mountain tops and the mountain towns. But nothing on the market had the right blend of features. So, he started daydreaming about what that perfect jacket would look like. One thing led to another and Ram is now the founder of SkyGOAT, a niche outdoor apparel company in Dillon, Colorado.
The journey from idea to launch has had plenty of ups and downs—a rollercoaster that has nearly derailed the business on at least one occasion. In this installment of our Startup Up series, we’ll see how Ram’s story offers a real look at what it takes to build an apparel company in one of the country’s top outdoor recreation economies.
The Spark of an Idea
The idea for SkyGOAT first took shape in the fall of 2018. While driving from Colorado to Wyoming for a mountain biking trip, Ram began visualizing a garment that combined the best features of the various outdoor pullovers he had tried over the years. He wondered if he could make it himself.
“I was like, ‘Oh, well, that might be kind of fun,’” Ram recalled.
He started throwing around business names and imagining what it’d be like to see his product in the local gear stores or out on the trails. Though he’s worked in the
ski industry for years—serving as President of the US Ski Mountaineering Association—he didn’t have direct experience in apparel manufacturing. But Ram’s the kind of guy who likes to learn and try new things… just see if he can. When he brought the idea to his wife, he said she wasn’t surprised by this latest turn of events. Her response was essentially, “Sure, have some fun.”
So, he spent several months refining the idea. He experimented with design elements and functionalities, leveraging his experience in the outdoors to ensure the garment would perform well in both technical and casual settings. Though he had taken sewing lessons in high school, it had been years since he’d stitched anything together. Undeterred, he borrowed his wife’s sewing machine and developed the first SkyGOAT sample.
“I was just curious to see if it’s something I could do—actually create a piece of clothing that I liked and that I could share with my friends and family,” he said.
From Launch to Setback: How a Supply Chain Crisis Led to SkyGOAT’s Breakthrough
With a real-life product sample in hand, Ram decided to trademark the concept in the spring of 2019, marking the official launch of SkyGOAT. Over the course of the following year, he continued to formalize the project—developing a business plan, identifying a manufacturer in Denver, and sourcing textiles.
Then, just a year later, his fabric supplier shut down production. The Polartec facility in Tennessee—which supplied the core material for SkyGOAT’s pullovers—discontinued the fabric entirely.
“That was the biggest challenge,” Ram said. “Here I was, a year into the business… things were going well, and then I find out they stopped making the fabric.”
Ram turned to the research he had done in the early days—networking at outdoor industry trade shows and studying textile options. He reached out to contacts across the globe, but struggled to find a suitable replacement.
“Nobody was making anything that I wanted,” he said.
Eventually, a small manufacturer in Taiwan agreed to help him develop a custom fabric. Together, they created what is now the company’s proprietary GOATGrid fabric, a recycled polyester blend designed for both technical performance and everyday comfort.
That partnership led to another shift—moving manufacturing overseas—into a shared facility with his textile partner. While Ram had originally intended to produce everything in the U.S., the reality of domestic apparel manufacturing made it difficult to scale.
He said the decision has resulted in better pricing, quality, and communication. “Everything is better… which is unfortunate. There’s not much manufacturing of apparel in the U.S.,” he explained. “And those that are doing it have all sorts of challenges themselves.”
Though a major setback, the fabric disruption became a turning point. SkyGOAT now has its own proprietary material—something that sets it apart in a crowded market.
“Looking back, it was the best thing that happened,” Ram said. “Now, the fabric is a key differentiator for SkyGOAT.”
Bootstrapped Growth: Building SkyGOAT on His Own Terms
From the beginning, Ram has made a deliberate choice to grow SkyGOAT without outside investment. Rather than seeking loans or other forms of investment, he’s bootstrapped the business entirely, reinvesting profits to fund each next step. This approach allows him to scale at a pace that works for him, without pressure from investors or debt weighing on his decisions.
“I didn’t want to have the worry of a loan or owing money to anybody,” Ram explained. “I’ve been very conservative with the growth of the company.”
For now, SkyGOAT remains a one-person operation. Ram still works a full-time job while managing every aspect of the business—design, production, marketing, customer service, and fulfillment. Each order is shipped directly from his basement, with a handwritten note inside. It’s a lean model, but one that allows him to maintain full control over the brand’s direction.
That doesn’t mean growth isn’t happening. SkyGOAT has seen steady, year-over-year increases in sales, and Ram has started experimenting with paid advertising and working with a fractional CFO to fine-tune his financial strategy. The goal? To scale smartly, ensuring SkyGOAT’s foundation remains strong before joining his company full-time.
Finding Community in Colorado’s Rural Startup Ecosystem
In the early days of SkyGOAT, Ram was laser-focused on product development and getting the business off the ground. He wasn’t actively looking for outside resources—he was just figuring things out as he went. But as SkyGOAT grew, he began to discover the extensive network of startup support in Rural Colorado.
The shift began when he met Thayer Hirsh of the Summit Economic Partnership (SEP). Through SEP, Ram built a network of fellow rural business owners, gaining insights and support from others navigating the realities of running a company in Colorado’s mountain towns.
Eventually, this led him to participate in the Summit County Founder Coopetition, a program in partnership with Startup Colorado. It was an opportunity to engage with a broader community of rural entrepreneurs, exchange ideas, and gain exposure to resources he hadn’t initially sought out.
“I wasn’t really looking for support at first, but once I found it, I realized how helpful it was,” Ram said. “Just having people to bounce ideas off of and talk through challenges has been huge.”
Join us in empowering rural entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders to achieve even more in 2025. Contributions of any amount directly power our mission to build a sustainable statewide network of resources supporting rural entrepreneurs, so that people and places can thrive and chart their own futures! Will you help us?
