Sarah Dusek on Glamping, Growing Businesses, and Giving Back
We’re going to hear from Sarah today, as she discusses the trials, tribulations, and success of the USA’s favorite glamping resort Under Canvas, writing multiple books, launching her VC fund for women called Enygma Ventures, and more. Read on to learn more about Sarah’s journey and ways you can think bigger and get inspired to make a difference, too.
With the vast plains of Montana serving as the backdrop, Sarah and her husband Jacob created one of the first glamping experiences in the USA. Jacob’s family were farmers and ranchers, and so they had access to beautiful land so they wanted to do something creative with it in the hope of earning a living. The fact that Jacob is an avid outdoorsman and Sarah herself, well, was not so much, was the original genesis for what helped them start their initial glamping business, providing unique outdoor experiences to others right there on the Dusek farm.
“We have always considered ourselves ‘accidental entrepreneurs’”
Both Sarah and Jacob previously worked for nonprofits for several years before switching over to what Sarah called ‘dark side business’. “I certainly had this thought that making money was evil–it was oppressive and wrong. So, venturing into business was a huge shift for us but it was born out of necessity to earn a living? We looked at what we had and asked ourselves, "Can we create access to land that is beautiful, amazing, and wild; and inspire people to get out in nature and experience it all while not being uncomfortable or difficult?”
“Our challenges really were very practical from the first standpoint. We were trying to convince people to go glamping that had never heard of the idea of glamping.”
What would become Under Canvas was at the front end of a new way to experience the outdoors– therefore we had to inspire people to come out into nature and stay in different types of accommodations. “We faced the challenge of having to figure it all out. Nobody had done what we were trying to do. We were trying to find a business model that would work, and trying to find product market fit where you've got something that people want and they will pay for.” Sarah and Jacob also battled with lack of finance and resources. They struggled to raise capital throughout their journey, while trying to grow and scale their business. An ongoing battle familiar to new and budding business owners.
There were 3 distinct pivots before Sarah and Jacob came up with the business model that would become Under Canvas. “We started our venture on my husband's family's farm in Montana, but quickly realized that the business was not going to be very viable. We struggled to get enough people to come and want to stay with us in that location.” Thus, they needed to make another pivot to try and figure out something that could work. “We shifted into being a tented event business, where we took our tents around the country for people's weddings, events, and so on” but this business didn’t prove to be very scalable. Finally they pivoted into the business model that still exists today, which is the Under Canvas we love and admire.
“Under Canvas has become one of the largest glamping companies in the country. It was a three year journey to get there, and a constant evolution of trying to figure out a business model that would work. Initially, our goals were to figure out a business model, and once we finally figured out a business model, we then started to think about, how do we scale this business? How do we grow it, and how do we build a national brand? That became very critical for us.”
Enygma Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in female entrepreneurs in Africa. “When we sold the majority of Under Canvas in 2018, about a year later, we launched Enygma Ventures. I started my career in Africa 20 years ago,so it was great to return to the continent, not as an aid worker this time, but to come and help women grow and scale their businesses, just like I had done in the US. To grow and scale a business as a female founder was very difficult, and I realized that there were so few women investing in other women. Sarah therefore wanted to take her experience of being an entrepreneur and help fund other women.
“If more women are investing, then more women will get investment. We’ll end up building a more diverse, more equal world, because we’ll be solving more problems, figuring more things out and navigating our way, together. 98% of all funding is controlled and utilized by white American men. Enygma Ventures was really about trying to rebalance geography, gender, and create access to capital.”
“The biggest challenge, obviously, is the lack of capital, lack of access to capital for women, which is very, very stark, only 2% of all female founders are getting funded annually–so there's really something up with that. And it's said over and over again, well, there's just not enough women to fund. But that's actually not true. One of the reasons for writing my new book, “Thinking Bigger: A Pitch Deck Formula For women who want to change the world” after becoming an investor myself, was to really help women position themselves–to think about building the kind of businesses that are investable, and helping demystify what it looks like to be investable.” Sarah’s latest book addresses key components that investors are looking for, some of the acronyms and jargon that exists in the venture world, and to help women think big.
“One of the biggest challenges is that only 2% of all female entrepreneurs ever build a business that does more than $1 million of revenue a year. So not very many women are building the kind of businesses that are doing a lot of revenue. Arguably, that’s because they’re also not getting funded.So potentially, that’s chicken and egg.”
However, this book can be of inspiration to anyone and everyone who wants to scale their business. It was written to help all entrepreneurs think about growing, scaling, and building a big business, but “particularly for women and helping them overcome some of the mindsets and the obstacles that get in their way.”
Uniqueness is a must and her advice comes more in the form of questions! “What's your unique angle? What makes you different? What's your uniqueness? How are you standing out from the next glamping site down the road, or in the next town or in the next county? What is the heart of what you are doing? And why is it different? How are you going to do something different from the next guy? We don't want to just see lots of the same–right? How do you craft a unique offering? How can you evolve, and evolve the industry? How can you keep pushing us forward? How can you keep setting new standards? How can you keep driving change by what you imagine and what you create and what you are trying to do with your business?”
Different is the key ingredient and driving factor of evolution.
“Offering something different, that’s positioning itself differently, that’s thoughtful about what it’s doing. How can you keep raising the bar? I think that’s the great thing about competition, honestly. Competition should be making us all better. And I think if we all focus on doing that, we’re going to build better businesses, and we’re going to build a better world too.”
