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This is How I Work, a series where founders, CEOs and leaders share the essentials that help them do what they do, from their morning routines to productivity tools.
Bill Neff has seen it all. He’s coming up on his 10-year anniversary at Yeti, which means he joined not long after they introduced drinkware, which is now as synonymous with the gear company as its overbuilt coolers. He was also there when they rode the wave of success that came alongside the pandemic. As it turns out, when many Americans found themselves at home with more free time, disposable income and a renewed sense of wanderlust, they bought loads of Yeti coolers and insulated bottles for road trips and backyard barbecues alike.
Just as he reached the top, when he was promoted to head of marketing last year, Neff and the company faced some of their biggest challenges yet: massive tariffs that have fluctuated wildly and often, with Forbes noting an estimated tariff impact of $100 million at its worst (that has since abated for now with the pause on some tariffs between the U.S. and China). That’s alongside a huge supply chain reorganization to rely less on China, which actually began back in 2023.
So when I connected with Neff in April to talk about his work routine and the habits that help him succeed, at Yeti as well as at Under Armour and Sitka Gear previously, it’s no surprise that the 50-year-old was ready for some real talk. Social media is filled with viral morning routines and goofy wellness trends, and Neff has seemingly tried them all — and still loves a cold plunge! — but to truly get ahead in an uncertain world where everyone desperately wants to be an expert, he’s found there’s a better path: don’t be afraid to suck at something. I’ll let him explain.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
InsideHook: Looking back on when you started at Yeti a decade ago, what were your expectations going in and what’s been the most surprising thing about the growth of the company?
Bill Neff: When I moved down here, I always knew what Yeti could go do, so I’m not actually all that surprised where we are as a business. I’m probably more surprised with where I am in the company. The fact that a decade into it that I’d be leading the marketing department, that was not a goal. It was not an initiative for me, and at the time I probably didn’t ever think I could ever lead any marketing — [I thought] I’d be a good colonel to some general for the total of my career. But if I look back in the last decade, I believed in [Yeti]. I’d seen velocity at Under Armour and where it can go if you stay true to your roots.
I want to get your perspective on a new product launch. Yeti recently got into bowls. That’s not necessarily the most exciting pitch of all time, but digging into the design of them, I find them to be more than meets the eye.
I will say, we’ve talked about bowls for what seems like five years. They didn’t pass our design or performance — we brought them through the prototype phase, and were like, eh, it’s not where we want it to be. We’re so hard on ourselves, so when a product gets to this stage and actually launches, it’s really well-vetted. There are plenty of products that we move quickly through the system, but bowls is one of those, like, should we do it? Should we not do it? Is it a Yeti thing? Once you get conviction and you start to roll, that’s when it gets really exciting, when finally you can get them out.
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The co-founder talks Dry January, his daily routine and the workplace mentality that helped create a non-alcoholic brewery worth $800 millionI love the idea that there’s like a giant backlog of in-development Yeti products — I’d like to look through that. Looking at your current lineup though, you’re best known for coolers and drinkware, but what’s your favorite piece of underappreciated Yeti gear?
We’ve been doing bags for eight years now and when people think of Yeti, they don’t really think of this category that’s been sitting out there for a while. We came out in 2017 with our Panga bags, which is a submersible duffel bag and backpack, and then we came out with our Camino, which is like a tote bag, which is a favorite of all of our ambassadors — male, female — they use them for everything.
When I think about what I use every day on a consistent basis, it’s my new Ranchero [backpack], which we just launched in March, which I love; and then I use my Camino, whether it’s going to the gym or just grabbing stuff that I need, a change of clothes or whatever. To me, I get really excited about that third leg of the stool for us, and if we can culturally become a first word out of your mouth — which is, Yeti does coolers, drinkware, bags — that’s something we’re really striving for.
I got one of the Caminos for my father-in-law for Christmas. He loves it.
That Camino, when we first came out with it, Roy [Seiders, Yeti cofounder] described it as a soft bucket. You can put everything in it. You can hose it out. He was so excited about it, but we were all like, I don’t know. But because Roy was charging forward and we were just all on Roy’s bandwagon, regardless of whether he wants us to be or not, but if he says something, we believe it. We launched it and we thought, typically, it would skew female, and I’m so surprised on how that is not a female product. It is almost equally distributed. Our male ambassadors immediately gravitated to this thing.
Let’s get into your personal routine. Normally I start by talking about the morning, but I feel like people are becoming more intentional about their nighttime routines. Is that the case with you? How do you get into a place where you can actually get good rest?
The whole concept around sleep has become so important to me. Back in the day, I never really concerned myself with when I went to bed. So my nighttime routine is really solidified, probably more than my morning routine — that can fluctuate, as I have four daughters and they’re kind of in the middle of life right now, one is in college.
If I do not turn the TV on, my nighttime routine is far better. This is kind of a bad time of year based on the NHL and NBA playoffs, but if it’s not live sports, I just don’t watch TV. The only other thing I’ll do is if my daughter or my wife wants to watch something with me as an activity where we can laugh at a show together, then I allow myself to watch TV. But if I’m solo watching reruns of The Office, that’s like the kiss of death and the depression spiral for me.
When I find myself at my best is I’ll eat dinner between 7 and 8 p.m., go for a 20-minute walk after dinner, usually with my dog. Then I’ll come in and I’ll read for 10 to 15 minutes. I’m not a big reader — my wife can finish a book in four days, that same book would take me four months to finish — but if I can just sit down for 10 or 15 minutes or 10 pages, it’s the unwind time. I generally read nonfiction, I’m not a fiction book kind of guy, and then I’ll try and be in bed by 9, 9:30 at the latest.
That vulnerability of being a beginner, if you can get over that and be okay that maybe someone might laugh at you, it changes your whole life.
– Bill Neff, HEad of MArketing at Yeti
You said your morning routine can be a little more hectic, but what’s the ideal for you?
In the ideal state, I’m usually up by like 6:30. Unfortunately, I usually look at my phone right away, which I try not to do. It’s so hard to gravitate away from it.
So there’s that morning, and then on three of the days — Monday, Tuesday, Friday — there’s generally a 6:30 a.m. [workout] class that I’ll get up for, so then I’m waking up at like 5:45. I’ve tried to do the 5:30 a.m. workout class in the morning and I just do not have it. I’ve done it where it’s like, we’ll just do it for three weeks or a month and then you’ll just get used to it, your body will get used to it — but it just wears me down, that 4:45 wake-up every morning. So I’ve just tried to be really honest with myself. There’s a couple days of the week where I’ll get up and I’ll work out or lift and then there’s a couple days I’m just going to sleep in a little bit more and have a little bit easier morning. That kind of balance really helps.
There was a point in my life where it was like, all right, I’ve gotta get to the red zone, I’ve gotta get to the cold plunge, I’ve gotta meditate, I’ve gotta do my breathwork for 20 minutes. It felt like I had so many answers to questions I wasn’t even asking. I’m like, I don’t need any more answers.
So I try and do a lot of that stuff in moderation. I do love it when I get consistent with breathwork. I love being able to do Wim Hof’s thing. I just like being able to say, I’m gonna work on this, instead of trying to work on 10 different things. But I’m a believer: When you can get in a cold plunge, you do feel a dopamine release, and when you can get vitamin D for 45 minutes and just lay there and let that sun cook you, you feel better. But when you try and jam them all in the same day, you’re going to bed the night before and you’re like, I’m dreading going through this entire checklist.
What’s the fitness class you’ve settled on these days?
I belong to a CrossFit gym, and I’m not someone that competes or puts my scores in or anything like that. I just like the idea and the gym that I’m at focuses on strength. On Mondays is squats, on Tuesdays is bench and then on Fridays is shoulder press. And then we do a Saturday class, we call it strongman. It’s just like lifting heavy things, which is fun, it’s just a bunch of guys and girls just kind of goofing off and lifting.
But then truly what I’ve really gotten into is 45 minutes of zone 2 cardio, really being smart about the heart rate, controlling the heart rate. Then on Sunday, I’ll do some level of — I call them Sunday sprints — but it’s just sprint work where I try and get my heart rate up and then exercise to get it back down.
It usually takes me 45 minutes, an hour in a day to complete any one of those. I definitely have an hour in the day to do those things. Now, when I tell myself I’m gonna do two-a-days and I’m looking at two hours plus travel time, I need to be honest with myself and be like, that’s not doable for a dad, a husband. I’m coaching my daughter’s lacrosse team. All those things that come into play. With all the answers that are out there for our wellness patterns and our routines, giving yourself a little grace I think is really important. Not too much though! Because that can get you down the death spiral.
Yeah, then you find yourself watching three hours of The Office at night.
That’s exactly right.
Can you tell me a bit about the Yeti HQ in Austin? Is there anything special about the campus itself that you think helps foster a better workplace?
The one thing I would say that’s sort of interesting is the way we celebrate our ambassadors. On all the walls, there are pictures of our ambassadors — these like four-by-four portraits of them. The importance of who Yeti is, personified, is really important to us. Whether they’re bull riders or pit masters or culinary experts or anglers or hunters or surfers or skaters, they’re all on here. The diverse mix of people that are out there representing our brand for us is something we really celebrate.
Speaking of, are you an outdoor adventure kind of person? What’s your excursion of choice?
I’m open to anything, but before I even got to Yeti, hunting and snowboarding were probably the two things I would have said. But now that I’ve had the experience to go out and do a lot more fly fishing, that’s probably number one for me. And I grew up skateboarding, so the fact that there’s people like Geoff Rowley and Louie Lopez on our team now is so cool. I’ve never surfed in my life, but now since I’ve worked at Yeti I’m like, maybe I’ll go try one of those like beginner surf camps.
What I love about Yeti is that we tell these stories of these people, and hopefully they make you be like, maybe I’ll go try that. Maybe I’ll be open-minded to it. We see it in our ambassadors — who are usually so solo-pursuit — they’ll be like, hey, you know what, I really would love to go hunt an elk, or something like that, and we can facilitate that. You see people going from experts to beginners. That vulnerability of being a beginner, if you can get over that and be okay that maybe someone might laugh at you, it changes your whole life.
I went from probably two main pursuits to now I’ll do just about anything. I don’t care if I suck at it, I just love the learning on the other side of it and what that affords you mentally and spiritually.
Are there any moments that stick out to you when you felt super vulnerable? When you were learning a skill and were really out of your depth?
There are two moments, both in the fishing space.
Before I moved to Austin I lived in Bozeman, Montana, and I was working for a hunting company up there called Sitka Gear. All these guys up there would go fishing and they were always like, Bill, you want to come? I always made up an excuse, because I had been fly fishing once before. I had no idea how to do any of it. But I had told people that I had fly-fished, and now that I told him I fly-fished now they assume something — this is all circulating through my own brain, because they don’t care! They don’t care if I’m shitty at it or not. They just want to be with me as a friend. But I was living in the backyard of three or four of the most world-class trout streams and rivers in the world, and I didn’t take advantage of it for the two years I lived there at all. I regret that wholeheartedly.
When I got down here, I went trout fishing for the first time and that was really hard because it was in front of all these people, but that was the first step of being okay with being vulnerable — because when I got off the water you realize it’s just about having fun. I started to realize even at age 40 at the time that this was okay!
I thought then I had become good at [fly fishing], so I went down to the Bahamas to go bonefishing, and that’s a different game. In bonefishing, you’re seeing the fish and casting to the fish. I could cast and get it in the water, but I couldn’t cast to the fish, so I came home and that was the time I was like, you know what? I’m gonna get lessons. It was this vulnerability of being like, I actually suck at this style of fly fishing.
So I got lessons and now a friend of mine, we’re on our eighth trip tarpon fishing and it’s my favorite thing to do. But I would have never done that if I wouldn’t have gotten over the vulnerability of like, hey if I want to do this, go learn how to do it.
When you’re in the office and not wading in a trout stream, where do you turn for inspiration when you need to problem solve or generate ideas?
Days are busy here. To get a moment away, it’s usually in the mornings, when my brain is the freshest to think. As I go through the day and I just become kind of drained on all of the meetings or all the discussion points, then I’ll rely on my team and I’ll bring a couple people in to talk through things. I’m not a dictator-by-manager. I’m the final say on some things, but I’m very open-minded.
What are the essential items in your office that help with your productivity and creativity?
My only true essential is my speaker, because if I’m going to really sit down and think, I have to have some level of music. I can eliminate some of the dirt in my thought process with music. It calms me and it allows me to think in the moment much better.
So what artist or station gets you in that zone?
It totally depends on what I want to do. I’ll do everything from an Avett Brothers station — I just need some sort of rhythmic beat — maybe I’ll pull up a Wu-Tang Clan station or a little old-school hip-hop. The old Pixies station is something I love too.
I see you’re wearing an Apple Watch right now.
Yeah, this is the Apple Ultra.
What are your essential apps? How’s your relationship to notifications? Since you’re following a more realistic wellness routine now, does that mean you’ve silenced a lot of that?
Activity is the app that I go to a lot. I was a Garmin guy forever, because I wasn’t a huge fan of just the way that the original Apple [Watch] looked as much. This is just a total side note, but my Garmin would stay charged for a week, which is so nice. I don’t like having to charge this every night. They say it lasts longer than that, but no, it doesn’t.
I do get notifications. I know people are like, turn those off, but I have more anxiety over unseen notifications than over [notifications themselves]. Maybe that’s something I need to go to therapy for, but the thought of someone wanting something from me out there, even if it doesn’t exist, is more anxiety for me. So I like notifications. I don’t answer them right away. I just know what’s going on. A lot of times it’s my kids or my wife, but if it’s my boss that needs me — it just doesn’t bother me. I don’t run from one notification to another, I just know what I need to and move on.
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