Meet Dane Baker | CEO at EcoCart/ Outdoor enthusiast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dane Baker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dane, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
Born & raised in Ventura county, I frequently found myself in LA and am now based there. I grew up in a family in which my father, both grandfathers, and many of my extended family were entrepreneurs and small business owners. My family took extreme pride in the work they did because of the extreme ownership that came along with being entrepreneurs. My dad and grandfathers were huge inspirations to me because they instilled the extremely important notion into me that I could do anything that I set my mind to. Their dedication to serving the community and building something meaningful that could outlast them was inspiring to me, even at a young age.

What should our readers know about your business?
I’ve always wholeheartedly believed that entrepreneurship is the best vehicle for making positive change in the world. Before EcoCart, I founded an online peer-to-peer rental marketplace because I thought that renting, in contrast to consumption, was a far greater net benefit for the environment — especially with high-plastic items like kayaks, snowboards, etc. Throughout operating the business, we realized that sustainability, both for businesses and consumers, was incredibly complicated and expensive.

So we started EcoCart with the mission to make the fight against climate change easy, affordable, and accessible so that everyone can do their part. We are leveraging the immense power of commerce as a force for good in the world and making the world a more habitable place for our families into the future.

EcoCart powers a carbon neutral option at checkout for shoppers. In other words, EcoCart is the distribution mechanism for earth-saving and cutting-edge carbon offset projects. We feel as though there’s immense power in eliminating the friction and barrier for consumers to take climate action at scale during their daily lives.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d spend a day in Santa Monica and a day in Santa Barbara. In SM, we’d go to the Promenade and the Bungalow and end the night at Mastro’s Ocean Club in Malibu. In Santa Barbara, we’d hit up State Street and the Funk Zone to a few breweries and end the night at the Cliff House Inn in Ventura.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
In addition to my father and grandfathers that I mentioned, my parents distilled in me the feeling that I can do anything I set my mind to. I was an incredibly curious child and my parents constantly leaned into that – they pushed me to question everything and fostered the idea that the structure and rules of the world around me were created by people no smarter than me. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that mentality having been fostered into my psyche from the beginning.

Website: ecocart.io

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecocart-io/