When Tyler Reeves started making ultralight airpad inflators — or Pad-pals — for friends and acquaintances in the Reddit ultralight community, he didn't intend for it to turn from a small side hobby into a legit, cottage industry startup.
His company, Rex Creations which began to take shape rather organically over the past couple of years, came into official existence in June 2024 after enough people who purchased his Pad-pals through the r/ULgeartrade Reddit thread encouraged him to take his innovation a bit more seriously.
“At first it was just a little side project I thought was kind of cool, but figured most wouldn't,’ admits Tyler, “the most I was hoping for was to sell some through r/ULgeartrade and use the funds to help support my very expensive hobby of developing the Joule Bandit heat exchanger pot system.” (More on that later.)
Tyler, who has had a proclivity for homebuilt electronic devices since high school later transitioned his inquisitiveness for hardware and software design and development into a Computer Engineering degree in college to merge his interests and channel his passions.
“It was during my degree for Computer Engineering that I started the Pad-Pal project and just never stopped iterating the design and trying to make it better, smaller, and lighter,” explains Tyler. “I became a bit obsessive with it at times —there were definitely moments I should have been studying or working on school projects but instead was buried in my work on the Pad-pals.”
Luckily, his college program eventually allowed him to integrate aspects of the Pad-Pal project into his studies, where he could gain course credits for his technological tinkering and further develop his skills and processes.
Tyler spent the first two years of Pad-pal production absorbing users feedback and making necessary tweaks to the design in his 20 foot, off-grid box trailer in Southern California's high desert, the same place his ultralight inflators are made to this day.
“I live with my life partner and her brother in San Diego, California,” explains Tyler, “but work out of the trailer 90 miles away up on my grandpa's property where he lets me keep it.”
“I work and live out of the trailer Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Fridays to reduce the amount of commuting that I'm doing and allow myself to have longer working hours,” says Tyler. “Robyn, my partner, gets to work remotely once a week so we both spend our Wednesdays together at home [in San Diego] working.”
These longer work days became a necessity as the production demand, and thus the waitlist, for his Pad-Pals grew. It was then that he realized he was offering something valuable to a user group that had previously thought them redundant.
“It was very rare before 2024 to see someone in the ultralight community admit to an inflator being in their pack,” says Tyler, who explains why in a rather humorous and matter of fact way.
“Under the ultralight ethos, a sleeping pad inflator is simply extra weight,” he says, “it's not a required gear item, you carry it all day, only use it for one minute, and do so just to save yourself a small amount of time during a situation where you have nothing but plenty of time.”
Alas, it turns out that a lot of people out there (myself included) are willing to allocate funds and pack space and take a miniscule weight penalty for the time saving and convenience of such an item — especially one like the Pad-pal which plugs into a battery bank via USB-C, with the trade-off being that it’s louder than other pumps on the market.
While the Pad-pal has been adopted by a wide range of secondary user groups (hello, Boomers), it's the positive feedback and welcome embrace of the at-times fickle ultralight demographic that he designed it for that has been one of Tyler's favorite things about starting up this venture.
“It’s been a lot more popular amongst the ultralight community than I thought it was going to be and that is so rewarding,” admits Tyler, “It makes me feel like I might be contributing to someone's experience in a positive way for what will likely be one of the most defining periods in their life (like a thru-hike).”
As with any new enterprise, challenges are a foot and Tyler says that starting up Rex Creations at a time in his life when financial stability eludes him has been one of the hardest parts of the journey, albeit one that by its very nature has bred innovation and encouraged minimalism.
“So much of the Pad-Pal’s design was governed by what can I actually make/assemble in decent quantities each day with no more tooling than a consumer grade 3D printer and a homemade open sourced SMT pick and place machine to assemble the electronics boards,” explains Tyler, “Starting a business while being pretty poor and trying to meet the growing demand/interest with my limited resources has been rough, but I think I have a solid plan to work my way out of the circumstances.”
It's that kind of optimistic spirit and forward thinking that continues to drive Tyler to keep tinkering away at his life-bettering innovations no matter the hurdles.
“I hope that every product I make going forward will be a significant stepwise improvement over anything else in its category,” says Tyler. “Otherwise, what's the point?”
“I’m not interested in leveraging marketing and branding to extract higher economic value from my peers,” says Tyler, “I just want to make cool stuff that hasn't been done before and share it with others when I think it can add genuine value to someone's outdoor experience.”
That's the driving force behind his favorite and longest running passion project to date - the Joule Bandit, a heat exchanger pot that's lighter and more effective than some of the most popular options that are available to users on the market today.
In fact, when he's not working on the Pad-Pals, Tyler can be found creating new MYOG items to use on his hiking trips, continuing development of the Joule Bandit/Thief HX pots, and enjoying trips with his wonderful partner, Robyn, of 14 years.
“In the long run, I think I want Rex Creations to be a company that's not afraid to think outside of the box, try new things, and push the limits of what's currently possible,” says Tyler, “That way, when I look back I’m greeted with fond memories full of joy during my playful exploration into something new and a lack of regrets for this time in my life.”
Ali Becker is a freelance writer and adventure storyteller who spends half the year backpacking and bikepacking and the other half sleeping in strangers' beds as a professional house sitter. She and her partner, Mathieu, share their ups and downs on their IG channel at @trip.longer and hope to inspire others to get outside, adventure in nature and find their own freedom. You can learn more about them here: triplonger.ca.
