Juno Musonda is on a mission to cure your anywhere-but-here-ism.
Born in Zambia, Musonda meandered his way to a love of Midwestern nature after stints in New York, Virginia, and Illinois, eventually landing in the Show-Me State. Today, his company, Ope Outdoors, celebrates Missouri and Illinois landscapes via apparel, group hikes, and community cleanups. Five years into its creation, Ope is officially ready to venture into new territory. As a recently added regular at Tower Grove Farmers’ Market and a fresh resident of Brentwood’s REI, Musonda has his sights set on other states across the region.
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“Each place I go, I think I see it differently than the people that live there,” Musonda says. “I’ve always had an odd sense of appreciation just because it’s all novel to me. I want more people to feel that kind of appreciation because it becomes more of like a day-to-day, we have this here, we have that there, but no, really look at it—that’s cool that you have this here.”
Musonda founded Ope in 2020 after a hiking excursion on the West Coast inspired his realization that Missouri also deserved a brand that matched its robust hiking culture. “It just dawned on me that we could appreciate those places here in Missouri—the places that I’ve been hiking and going to every day—because we do have vibrant outdoor culture here, and it was just odd to me that we didn’t have a brand celebrating these parks and places.”
Making Moves
Musonda encourages his clientele to unearth their own passion for the Midwest’s hills, parks, and trails through his products and events that foster identity and localized love, featuring beloved parks such as Castlewood, Don Robinson, and Johnson’s Shut-ins.
“That’s the whole idea of Ope—celebrate the places that you’re from and the things that you are close to you. Obviously, that doesn’t mean the grandeur of Yosemite and all those places aren’t amazing and you shouldn’t go there. But you can have both—you can celebrate the places you go to every weekend and also the places that you go on vacation. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can be grateful and appreciative of all those things.”
Five years after its launch, Ope (named after the popular Midwestern slang) has propelled forward with its mission thanks to strategic partnerships and moves. Ope Outdoors started selling at Tower Grove Farmers Market in 2023, but starting this season, is now a regular, where Musonda routinely announces product drops and activities. “My business really changed when I started doing markets,” he adds. “When I first launched in COVID, I did the group hikes and cleanups, but that was just maybe once a month or so, so we didn’t have a lot of interaction with people. Going to the markets, you get a sense of who your customers are, you get a sense of how people feel about the brand—a lot of things that you don’t really get from online interactions.”
The neighborhood and frequent shoppers of the market also hit close to home for Musonda. “I live in Tower Grove; the market’s such a staple, and the people who come to the market, I feel, are somewhat reflective of the brand and those type of type of people that I’m trying to reach,” he says.
Tying his brand to similarly minded organizations is one of Musonda’s motivations, and he attributes his growth as an entrepreneur as one of the reasons the brand recently made its debut at Brentwood’s REI. “Each year, I get more comfortable in my capabilities as a business owner and just my vision for what this could potentially be becomes clearer the more I do it.”
The next major step for Ope is an expansion to Ohio, where he already has a brand manager, multiple products, and a tentative schedule of group hikes—and then eventually, all Midwestern states. “Each different state will have its own interpretation of the Ope brand,” he says. “And the whole idea is that each state will have community aspect, so group hikes and such and such, and then have products and things that are geared specifically for that state and that version of outdoors that they appreciate in their state.”
Building Community
Group hikes and community cleanups have always been a pillar of Ope for Musonda, who says the pandemic era in which the brand was launched lit that fire even further. “It’s always been important to me that the business feel human,” he says. “And the only way that happens is through interactions and community. There’s just something to having people come together without the idea of we’re selling something to just foster some sort of feeling.”
Musonda adds that creating a “third space”—a social gathering spot outside of home and the workplace—has a multitude of values. “As people, we’re very good at that intangible thing that we all do when we come together as a group, and I feel like that’s important for our business because it gives it heart and soul,” he says.
The brand’s community efforts are ones that Musonda says are especially relevant now. “The cool thing is that I see so many different types of people from different occupations, different cultural backgrounds,” he says. “They come together at these group hikes, and they interact and learn a little bit about each other’s slice of life. I think that’s really important, especially nowadays because our landscape can be so polarizing, but I think stuff like this reminds us how we’re just very similar.”
Future-Forward
Musonda hopes the future of Ope—in which he envisions a brand manager in each Midwestern state, as well as more community service-oriented local events—is as intentional, sustainability-led, and organically motivated as the company has been from its start.
“I don’t want to sacrifice quality for the sake of growth,” he says. “As Ope grows, I hope people always get that same sense of locality and community.”
Maintaining the brand’s identity is especially vital to Musonda, who explains that though each state brings its own individuality and culture into the mix, the Midwestern attitude will remain the same.
“Overall, it’s a Midwest brand, but within that brand is also these individual brands of these states, these parks,” he says. “Even though the Midwest is the Midwest, each particular state is still different with its own culture, with its own version of the outdoors.”
Musonda also has a mind to add different community activities, such as rock climbing, kayaking, and more to the event slate. “The outdoors is a very large landscape,” he says. “So I think we can carve our own unique story within that.”
Join Ope Outdoors’ next group hike at Shaw Nature Reserve on May 18 or its Fishing & Cooking Trip featuring Farm Spirit chef Ryan McDonald on May 24, and follow the brand’s Instagram for future event announcements.
