My side of the BlackOvis/Camofire story - Podcast and Q&A

[ktowncamo]

Hey guys, Kendall Card here. I’m the former Co-Founder/VP, then CEO, and later Head Buyer/President of Camofire/BlackOvis. I spoke with Robby and Ryan (owners of Rokslide) before posting this and have their support in posting what follows in this thread.

BACKGROUND
For those who may have missed it, on October 22 Camofire Holdings Inc.—the parent company of BlackOvis and Camofire—filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. At the time there was a long thread here filled with speculation, curiosity, armchair quarterbacking, and some finger-pointing. If you want context, you can read through that thread. I actually read it start to finish myself this past week.

As an early advertiser and supporter of Rokslide since joining the forums on May 14, 2012, I’ve always viewed this community as an important part of the hunting industry. I believed in what Robby and Ryan were building then, and still believe it’s a valuable resource for hunters.

WHY
Now that some time has passed, and after more than a dozen conversations I had at the Western Hunt Expo—including running into Robby—many of them unsolicited, I felt it was time to tell my side of the story. A friend and former BlackOvis coworker who hosts the First Generation Bowhunter podcast agreed to help record this, which is where these episodes will appear.

Part of my reason for doing this is simply to move forward. Importantly, there are still many unanswered questions in this community and the broader hunting world. For these purposes I recorded this story of Camofire/BlackOvis and my own journey—from humble beginnings to a difficult and unfortunate ending.

PODCAST EPISODES
Adam and I recorded one long conversation and broke it into four shorter episodes:

Episode 1 – 17 Years Building a Hunting Company
Episode 2 – The Price of Private Equity
Episode 3 – Tug of War
Episode 4 – Bankruptcy: The Unanticipated Aftermath

Q&A
I told Robby I’d actively participate in this thread over the next 7–8 days to answer questions and address topics not covered in the podcast, to the best of my ability. If there are gaps in the story or things you’ve wanted to ask that weren’t addressed, feel free to post them here. I’ll check in a couple of times a day and participate—this won’t be a “post and ghost.”

FOLLOW-UP PODCAST
I’ll likely keep a “top 10” list of the most thoughtful questions that come up here. Adam and I will then record a follow-up episode addressing them before putting this thread and topic to rest.

THREAD REQUEST
I realize that by posting this I’m putting myself out there—target on my back style. Robby and others have said I don’t owe anyone an explanation. I both agree and disagree, and as such have chosen to post this.

I’d ask that questions here remain respectful. I’ll do my best to be transparent and share the truth as I see it from my perspective. There are always two sides to every story, and mine is only one. I can only speculate about others’ decisions, but I’ll do my best to remain respectful when doing so. I hope the same courtesy will be extended in this thread.

 

[ktowncamo]

Question 1 - Returns and Refunds. After listening to the podcast, I realize that I missed the issue of the customers who sent in returns just before or after the bankruptcy filing.

I'll answer this one here and as well on the Q&A podcast.

From August to October, I wasn't in the office much as I was stepping away from day to day activity in the business as mentioned in the podcast. When the warehouse lease landed in my lap after the bankruptcy fling, and with it all of the inventory to get it consolidated and moved to another warehouse for the court, I saw how many returns continued to flow into the warehouse and how many had been piling up. I asked the gal over receiving (one of the former employees I hired to help consolidate) what was going on with returns and processing them. She said that there were some large BlackOvis orders that came in from overseas, some large Crispi pre-book orders and a few others from "go forward" brands that she was focused on getting received into the system to end Q3 sales strong. As such processing returns was starting to back up. She had trained another warehouse employee to help with returns and that gal had begun processing returns more regularly to get caught up the week before the filing.

After the bankruptcy fling, when consolidating the inventory to have it moved out the warehouse. I asked the court what could be done with the returns. I was told that each customer would have each file claims and that the associated inventory would need to be accounted for. Not what I was expecting.

Since the credit card processing system had been shut down the option for properly processing returns to people's cards was out of the question. What I did was to open each return, try to identify the customers name, address, phone, email, products returned, associated website, refund needed. This all went into a spreadsheet (started by the former returns gal, and then my wife helped finish it), that I then presented to the court for them to cross check this with the credit card processing company to eliminate those who had already filed chargebacks, so that the court could notify those customers so that they could make a claim. I was told by the court that each of the people who sent in returns would be notified by mail.

 

[WeiserBucks]

Any chance of a short cliffs version for those of us that don't prefer podcasts?

 

[Olympics777]

I really don’t have time to listen to multiple podcast episodes about this, but I am curious why you guys went under. Black Ovis was the best thing going for an online hunting store.

 

[adamandeverest]

Hi all - Adam here who worked with Kendall to put together the podcast. I really appreciated how open Kendall was through this experience and it really helps to understand the backstory. We both worked hard to be as clear and concise as possible and I believe this can't quite be laid out so simply in a quick reply on 'why did Camofire and BlackOvis cease operations'.

The podcast is live and the answers are there. It covers 17 years of a journey in this business and its not as simple as this was shutdown because of a myopic event. So listen to it or don't, the information is there. I really support Kendall in this decision to take this approach because if someone was to challenge the last 17 years of my business journey, it would have many nuances which Kendall does a nice job outlining.

Spring is here, I'm sure your yard needs some attention and maybe this podcast can be a great co-pilot as you weed your garden.

 

[Brock A]

Looking forward to listening to these. Business, whether its success or failure, is always interesting. Also, I remember camo fire in its early days and bought from it frequently. Its neat to learn the behind the scenes of these companies. Yes, they are long, but its obviously not a quick and easy answer. Thanks @ktowncamo

 

[ktowncamo]

Any chance of a short cliffs version for those of us that don't prefer podcasts?

I really don’t have time to listen to multiple podcast episodes about this, but I am curious why you guys went under. Black Ovis was the best thing going for an online hunting store.

Good points. The podcasts are certainly done in story form and the listener certainly will be left to conclude the "why did BlackOvis" file bankruptcy. I plugged a YouTube video link for the 4th episode into Gemini and the output as a short summary, but doesn't really answer the "why" question. So you could do that with each episode and get a short summary of the story.


Why did we go under? Thinking on the fly how to summarize this simply. Taking a stab at this...

1. Overpurchased inventory - In 2021 & 2022 as well as the beginning of 2023 we were buying more product than we could sell as the post COVID money spend by consumers was waning faster than we could sell through higher levels of incoming product flow.

2. Private Equity management style of playing defense to not lose vs playing offense to win - This is my perspective of a business approach change from pre-PE involvement to post-PE involvement. (April 2022). I felt that the PE team was operating in this manner, void of taking chances and looking to win while accepting there could be failure along the way.

3. Private Equity team break up - I didn't realize this was happening while it was happening, but looking back I think the unrest between the PE company partners with the one partner who initiated the investment in Camofire/BlackOvis being on the outside, taking with him the loyalty of his friends and family who constituted the majority of the initial investment. When called upon (see remark 7) to make a capital contribution to invest in the new business plan (mid 2025), even though they liked the plan and were stoked for the new BlackOvis branded product lineup, I think they didn't trust the remaining PE partners. Just my 2 cents as an outsider seeing what did or didn't happen here.

4. Banking constraints on limiting clearing out inventory. When the company was trying to sell out of the over inventory situation, the bank wouldn't let the company sell below certain margin thresholds. When we did on a few occations, sales were stupid huge, but the low margin set off alarms with the PE team and the bank. It was a lose lose situation of not being able to sell the slow moving inventory fast but holding higher prices. It was like putting cobbles on a horse and telling it to run.

5. Restructure of the company too late. - This is likely my fault. The PE firm wanted to abandon retail entirely by focusing only on the BlackOvis brand and ceasing to retail any other brands. They knew I loved the retail side of the business and so I fought them on this in 2023 & 2024. Tired of the fight, I gave in when the hired CEO in Nov 2024 suggested we go all in on BlackOvis. They compromised in early 2025 and the plan was set in place to reduce to 30-35 brands to retail (from 250+) and entirely support BlackOvis with a new lineup of product for 2026 and it would be the flagship brand. Looking back, I think embracing this in mid 2025 was too late and should have been done in 2023 or early 2024. Hind-sight certainly is 20-20.


6. Tariff impacts in April/May 2025 - If there are 8 nails in this coffin, tariffs were at least 4. The ripple effects of the costs, the pause in April/May of 2025 to determine if we can move production (already mid-stream) from China to other countries, caused a wave of issues (langing product very late in the year, landing product at a much higher cost, compression of margin, compression of sales at higher retail prices) that compounded with the other issues in a higher magnitude of effect than if the tarrifs had come in prior years.
7. Capital raise failing & bank negotiations failed

8. PE unwilling to continue to fight to win - I think the even though the margin of success may have seemed very small to "threading the needle" in 2026 with the sales and branding forecast, I believed it could have been done. The team in 2025 Q3 had shown this, but the ink was drying and the PE team didn't want to keep investing in the company. I did hear from a source at the bank who after the fact was quite surprised that the company filed, thinking the plan that was laid out could have succeeded. Sadly no one will know who was right