Update: We Created A Mobile App And Grew Revenue To $60K/Year
This is a follow up story for Hobnail Trekking Co.. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Mark Johnson, here, owner and founder of Hobnail Trekking Co. Following a chance meeting with an Everest Region Sherpa in Nashville, Tennessee, in the summer of 2016, my wife and I decided to act on a bucket-list dream of trekking to Everest Base Camp (EBC).
Over the next six months of planning, we realized that there were no companies based in the Southeast U.S. that provided treks to EBC. This realization coincided with me leaving my corporate job as a director of communications.
The stars have aligned, and we partnered with our Sherpa friend (who already owned a small Nepal-based trekking company) to form Hobnail Trekking.
Although COVID was a major bump in the road, we are back in business and grossing around $60K annually.
When you have a great work ethic, provide a quality product or service, and are nice to people, good things tend to happen.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Our growth has exceeded all expectations. Before COVID, we only had two years of actually sending treks, and they were exclusively in the Nepali Himalayas. However, something happened during COVID that changed everything — REI Cooperative left the international adventure travel space.
We knew nothing about this until, out of the blue, I was contacted by a marketing collective composed of REI’s former international partners. This collective actively tried to replace the business lost by REI ceasing operations.
Through this initial connection, we decided to expand our list of destinations. Since May 2021, we have developed partnerships and added destinations in Scotland, Peru, Patagonia, Morocco, Italy, France, and the Balkans of Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo.
With each new partnership, we try to have our partner make an invitation video that we can display on our website and social media. Here are a couple of examples:
Last May, my wife, Holly, and I were invited to attend an adventure travel event in France — all expenses paid — to develop relationships there with local trek providers!
Here’s a video I made following our trip to France:
We have fully rebuilt our website to reflect these monumental changes and are marketing as aggressively as our time and budget allow. We have also developed strategic partnerships with several outdoor retailers and product companies and continue to conduct our live event, “The Everest Base Camp Trek Experience” at venues across the Southeast. Here’s a radio interview I did before a live event in my hometown in North Carolina.
Finally, we added a mobile app to our list of customer services. This has been a cool process. The app is designed and implemented by a British company called Vamoos which specializes in the travel and hospitality space. Based on their template, we can use the Vamoos design portal to customize the app to Hobnail Trekking and our individual clients.
When customer books, we give them a custom login to our app that loads their particular trek details. When they open their app, they see a countdown clock, a full itinerary, all of their flight details, maps, their digitized travel info (passport, insurance docs, COVID docs, etc.), points of interest, weather, and more.
Quite frankly, it’s amazing. Instead of carrying around a bunch of loose papers and documents, everything is right there on the customer’s phone. Here’s what the app looks like:
The service costs around USD 1,400 annually, so it’s a bit of a risk, but we felt that this was the direction the industry was moving, so we made a leap of faith. The reception so far from our clientele has been great, and we expect premium service to boost our rebookings substantially. Check back with us in a couple of years on this!
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
Our challenges have been good and bad. The worst has been COVID. For two years, our revenue ground to a complete halt. Nothing. No one could travel at all. Holly and I struggled to replace that income with other side-hustle ventures through my work as a web developer and marketing professional.
However, because of the shutdown and subsequently being contacted by REI’s former partners, COVID became a blessing in disguise. I NEVER would have had the time to rebuild the site had the pandemic never happened, and consequently, our growth would’ve been impossible.
Aside from the financial stuff, the other biggest challenge has been simply marketing our treks. It’s a bit tough to do without any money. We have had to rely on social media word-of-mouth, live appearances, and earned media. We have also built the company without practically any debt except for a couple of SBA pandemic-relief loans.
Regardless of the challenges, we are still optimistic about the possibilities for our company.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The biggest lesson has been to remain diligent and don’t give up. When you have a great work ethic, provide a quality product or service, and are nice to people, good things tend to happen.
We could never have imagined adding all these other destinations and partnerships, but because we worked hard and projected a friendly, professional image, this new business came to us.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
Our first goal is to complete the addition of our new partnerships and destinations on our website. I hope to have this done by the end of 2022. Next, we want to increase our annual clientele by at least 200% and make enough revenue for both of us to devote all of our time to Hobnail Trekking.
Lastly, we want to “crack the code” of adventure travel and find innovative ways to bring the activity to more people, especially in the Southeast U.S. where there isn’t a strong culture of international adventure travel. But when we see photos like these, we know we’re on the right track:
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
Stephen King’s “On Writing.”
“Never Cry Wolf” by Farley Mowat.
“Boone’s Lick” by Larry McMurtry.
“Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Return emails and phone calls quickly and professionally.
The world has become so casual and lackadaisical about communications, if you are quick about returning business emails and calls, you will stand out. People will want to work with you.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
