Funkhouser Strategy is led by Jimmy Funkhouser, the founder of FERAL and a retail operator with more than twenty years running multi-unit stores. The consulting here is not theory borrowed from a framework. It is the job he has actually done, in stores, with real teams and real numbers.
From the corporate floor to his own store
In 2016, after roughly a decade leading multi-unit retail at Toys "R" Us, Jimmy left the corporate world to open FERAL, an outdoor gear shop in Denver. The bet was simple and a little wild: that a community-first store built around getting more people outdoors could out-care the big chains. FERAL opened on Tennyson Street in March 2016 and has since grown into a multi-state business, with a second store in Grand Rapids, Michigan and a national e-commerce operation running alongside the floors.
One of the country's best-known used-gear programs
FERAL's signature is recommerce. The store buys, grades, prices, and resells secondhand outdoor gear and apparel next to new product, online and in-store, and has sold more than 300,000 used items. That used program is what made FERAL one of the go-to shops in Colorado for secondhand gear and earned it national recognition as one of the best independent gear shops in the United States. Put plainly: the resale playbook Funkhouser Strategy teaches was built and proven in Jimmy's own stores, not sketched on a whiteboard.
The resale system taught here was built and proven in real stores, not drawn on a whiteboard.
Why that matters for your store
Most retail consulting is delivered by people who have never carried a P&L. Jimmy has. He has made the buy, set the consignment split, eaten the dead stock, and built the systems and the leadership layer that let a small business run across states. That is the same seat most store owners sit in, which is why the advice lands as practical rather than academic. It is also why the writing on this site, from whether to add a used department to how to start a consignment shop and whether resale actually pencils, reads like an operator talking, because it is one.
The background behind the work
The recommerce focus is not an accident. Jimmy holds a master's degree from Harvard University in Sustainability and Environmental Management, the discipline that explains why secondhand retail is more than a trend: keeping goods in circulation and out of the landfill is one of the most direct levers a store has, and it is a big part of why the resale category keeps growing. That grounding sits underneath the operating decisions, so the advice here is built on both the unit economics and the larger reason the category is expanding. His undergraduate degree, from the University of Evansville, is in pre-law with a minor in business administration, which shows up in the contract-aware guidance across the site, from what belongs in a consignment agreement to the terms that keep a store protected. He is also Wicklander-Zulawski Level 1 certified in interview and interrogation, the training that underpins retail loss prevention and shrink control.
- M.S., Sustainability & Environmental Management, Harvard University
- B.A., Pre-Law, minor in Business Administration, University of Evansville
- Wicklander-Zulawski Level 1, interview and interrogation (retail loss prevention)
What Funkhouser Strategy does
Funkhouser Strategy is a boutique retail consulting practice for independent and mid-market retailers. The work spans recommerce, which is sourcing, grading, pricing, and the operations to move secondhand inventory profitably, plus the wider retail playbook of growth, systems, and leadership that outlasts the founder. There are two ways to work together: a monthly retainer for an ongoing relationship, or hourly help for projects and overflow. The full resale system is taught in the Resale Machine course, and the working library of playbooks lives on the blog.
Featured and recognized
FERAL and Jimmy's work have been covered widely. The store has been featured in The New York Times, Outside, GearJunkie's Best Independent Gear Shops in the USA, a PEOPLE feature, and repeatedly in The Denver Post, including a deep dive on how FERAL led Colorado's outdoor recommerce boom. The used-gear model has also been profiled by The Colorado Sun and the trade press at Shop Eat Surf Outdoor.
Locally, FERAL is a perennial pick for Best Outdoor Gear Store, winning readers' awards in Westword's Best of Denver and 5280's Top of the Town across multiple years, and its Grand Rapids expansion was covered by Crain's Grand Rapids Business and WOOD-TV (NBC).
Connect
Find Jimmy on LinkedIn, see the stores at liveferal.com, or reach the practice at hello@funkhouserstrategy.com. If you want to talk through your own store, the fastest path is to book a session.
Funkhouser Strategy helps independent and mid-market retailers make the calls that move the P&L, resale included, with senior operator judgment and no vendor agenda.