EP 144: Centering Women Of Color In The Outdoors with Color Outside Founder Nailah Blades Wylie

The Nitty Gritty

* Why moving to Salt Lake City from San Diego inspired Nailah to start Color Outside — and how the free meetup transformed into the company it is today
* How Nailah budgets, markets, and plans retreats — and why she hosts them in places that you wouldn’t normally take a vacation
* How she uses private Facebook groups to connect with her people right away, plus her approach to sharing and posting content within it
* What’s included in every retreat–including renting out an entire home, hiring a private chef and a photographer, offering unique activities, and more–plus, the pricing strategy Nailah uses to calculate costs–including profit

As a new mom and a newcomer to Salt Lake City by way of San Diego, Nailah Blades Wylie sought community and adventure to reconnect with herself. That’s why she founded Color Outside, a meetup-turned-travel company for women of color who are ready to create unapologetic, joy-filled lives through outdoor adventure.
In today’s conversation, Nailah shares how she budgets, markets, and plans the retreats and what’s so important about getting out into the wild. If you’ve ever considered running retreats or live events as the core offering of your business model, this is an episode not to miss.
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The evolution of Color Outside from a free meetup to an adventure company
“I realized that hiking, exploring, kayaking and being out in the wild helped me to really reconnect with that part of myself that I was missing. My mind stopped racing. I was able to think through things more. I got a broader perspective on what was going on in my life… and I thought: other women need this.” — Nailah Blades Wylie
As a new mom and a new resident of Salt Lake City, Utah, Nailah felt disconnected from herself — and from a community. She craved getting into nature and she needed to be around other women going through the same thing.
Initially, Color Outside started as a free meetup group. She organized hikes for women of color to come together and explore this new place she called home. As Nailah continued to host meetups out in the wild, she realized just how much she enjoyed it.
With a background in life and business coaching, she easily connected with other women on a deep level. In this episode, Nailah talks about a hike that confirmed this for her. As she and another woman powered through the woods, the woman shared that she was in a job she hated — and that she wanted to be a writer instead.
For the remainder of their time together, they mapped out a plan for her to start exploring this new life path as a writer… and by the end of the day, the woman felt so much better because she had a plan to research and implement.
That’s when Nailah knew that Color Outside could be so much more than a meetup group. It could be an opportunity for life and business transformation — and a place where women of color could feel — and experience — unapologetic joy, one of Nailah’s biggest values for Color Outside.
Prioritizing and infusing unapologetic joy into everything
“Expressing our joy and being unapologetic about it is revolutionary, especially for women of color. It’s something that’s not a given for us. We have to fight against the stereotype of the angry Black woman or the spicy Latina. Just showing up and taking up that space is huge: it ripples throughout our community and the entire world.” — Nailah Blades Wylie
Unapologetic joy: even thinking about the idea feels liberating.

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