The end of gear hunting: Wacka wants to automate-away manual price chasing

Late nights. Too many browser tabs. Price comparisons across half a dozen retailers. Waiting weeks for the right moment to buy. Justen Wack knows exactly how outdoor gear purchases usually happen, he said — because the tech founder used to grind through the process himself.

It’s a ritual familiar to skiers, cyclists, backpackers and climbers everywhere. And to Wack, it was hair-pullingly inefficient.

“Consumers actually spend 15 hours researching a considered purchase,” said Wack, founder and CEO of Wacka. “You’re checking sites over and over, tracking prices manually, and buying wherever you finally find the best deal.”

His startup’s premise is simple: What if software handled all of that instead?

The answer could reshape how outdoor gear — and eventually much more — gets bought online, Wack said.

A flatland founder with the mountains in his heart

Wack now lives in Evergreen, Colorado, surrounded by the lifestyle that inspired his company. But the foundation of Wacka traces back to the Kansas City region, where he spent 15 years after arriving to play soccer at MidAmerica Nazarene University.

The relationships stuck.

“All of our circle — both business and personal — is still in Kansas City,” Wack said.

That network continues to influence the company’s growth, even as its first market centers on the outdoor industry — a sector where passion and purchasing behavior collide in unusual ways.

Gear enthusiasts don’t just buy equipment; they study it. They compare specs obsessively. And they hunt deals relentlessly.

“If you’re a skier, you typically have multiple setups,” Wack said. “People are passionate not just about the sport but about the gear and the technology.”

That hardcore behavior truism became Wacka’s starting insight.

Automating the 15-hour purchase

Boiled down: Wacka functions as an automated price-tracking and product monitoring platform.

Users enter a product once using what the company calls an AI-powered search. The platform then locates the item across supported retailers, monitors price changes and alerts the shopper when conditions match their buying threshold.

Instead of manually checking retailers night after night, the software watches continuously, looking for the best price.

Wacka currently tracks products across roughly 20 sellers, with plans to expand across the broader outdoor retail ecosystem — from national brands to independent specialty shops.

The long-term vision goes beyond hiking packs and skis.

“I have 11 additional verticals identified,” Wack said. “Outdoor is just the starting point.”

The logic: Outdoor gear represents high-price, research-heavy purchases — ideal conditions for testing automated shopping behavior before expanding elsewhere.

Everyone hates those coupon sites

At first glance, Wacka enters an already crowded field.

Google Shopping dominates discovery. Browser extensions like Honey and Capital One Shopping promise discounts automatically. Affiliate networks have spent decades optimizing purchase funnels.

That reality isn’t lost on Wack, he said.

“The biggest competitors are promo-code finders and Google Shopping,” Wack noted.

But, he argues, those systems often extract value primarily from retailers through advertising fees and referral overrides. Wacka’s model instead attempts to align incentives between buyer and seller.

By identifying shoppers already waiting for price drops, Wacka aims to connect retailers with high-intent customers — theoretically lowering acquisition costs.

“My vision was to build a platform where both sides win,” Wack said. “Price tracking has traditionally been detrimental to sellers. We’re trying to flip that.”

Whether that balance holds at scale remains an open question. Giants like Google benefit from massive distribution advantages, and many startups struggle to wedge themselves into entrenched shopping habits.

Still, early partners appear willing to experiment.

Then industry giants called

Wack originally planned to spend his first year validating consumer demand before pursuing retail partnerships.

Then something unexpected happened: Utah-based travel and adventure retailer Backcountry reached out.

A Kansas City mentor had predicted the moment, Wack said.

“There will be a tipping point where sellers start seeing what you’re doing,” he recalls being told.

Within weeks, multiple retailers contacted the company independently. Today, Wacka counts eight partner sellers — including Backcountry, Competitive Cyclist and Sun & Ski — all inbound relationships.

The opportunity forced a classic startup pivot.

Engineering resources shifted away from consumer-facing improvements toward building retailer infrastructure, including analytics dashboards and single-use promotional code systems designed to prevent misuse by third-party extensions.

“It’s that founder dilemma,” Wack said. “You have a roadmap, and then opportunity shows up.”

 

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Retailers see potential though tread carefully

Sam Miller, digital marketing manager for Ski ‘n See (UtahSkis.com), began working with Wacka last fall and sees promise in both customer engagement and pricing intelligence.

“I saw the benefits on two fronts,” Miller said. “Consumers can price match and track products, but for us it helps solve a giant problem.”

That problem emerges when products fall outside minimum advertised pricing rules and retailers must adjust pricing competitively.

“It becomes kind of the Wild West,” Miller said. “When you have over 5,000 products, it’s hard to stay on top of everything.”

Automated alerts could help retailers identify when competitors undercut pricing or inventory stalls.

Still, Miller emphasized the partnership remains exploratory.

“We’re still playing around with it right now,” he said. “The potential is really high — that’s why we’re investing time in helping shape it.”

Industry veteran Chuck Hamrick, affiliate team lead at a long-running outdoor affiliate network company AvantLink, described a similar outlook.

“There’s kind of a gap and a need for it,” Hamrick said. “I see great opportunity here.”

He believes automated alerts around price drops, restocks and wishlists could complement existing affiliate ecosystems rather than replace them.

“If there’s a way to alert consumers instantly, boom — that drives sales,” Hamrick said.

The hard part starts now

Wacka is currently raising a new seed round targeted to close this spring, following a smaller earlier raise that brought the product to market after Wack and his wife self-funded the MVP.

Recent months focused less on growth metrics and more on proving a complete business loop: user acquisition, product tracking, purchases and revenue.

“Everything was about proving a formula,” Wack said. “From a new user to a sale to revenue.”

Now comes scaling — the phase where many promising commerce startups falter.

Wacka must expand retailer coverage, grow consumer adoption and convince users to trust yet another layer between themselves and checkout buttons already controlled by tech giants.

It’s a steep climb, pun intended.

But the behavior Wacka targets is real — and persistent, Wack said, noting millions of shoppers already act like price-tracking algorithms; they just do it manually, hate it or not.

For now, Wack remains focused on the immediate mission: saving outdoor enthusiasts time.

Because the less time spent refreshing product pages, he said, the more time remains to pursue the passions that demand the gear in the first place.

Haines Eason is the owner of startup content marketing agency Freelance Kansas. Previously he worked as a managing editor for a corporate content marketing team and as a communications professional at KU. His work has appeared in publications like The Guardian, Eater and KANSAS! Magazine among others. Learn about him and Freelance Kansas on LinkedIn.