How to restart after 30 years of success, Bruce Poon Tip, G Adventures

0:00Welcome to How to Start Up, the podcast that dives into stories of startups and scale-ups told directly by the founders. I'm Juliet Fallowfield, founder of Fallowfield & Mason, a consultancy that teaches founders how to confidently run their own PR and podcasting in-house. Today, I'm joined by Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures, the world's largest small group adventure travel company and pioneer in community tourism. Bruce started the business 35 years ago with two maxed out credit cards from his garage in Toronto and has since built a global movement rooted in purpose and impact. Recently awarded the Officer of the Order of Canada, Bruce returned to the Ecuadorian Amazon, the site of G's very first trip to reflect on the company's legacy and plan for the next 100 years.

0:47In this episode, we discuss Bruce's approach to leadership, how they went from double digit growth to zero revenue in COVID and came through the other side, how he has built community ship rather than leadership, and what it really takes to create a business that changes lives. Hi, Bruce. Welcome to How to Start Up. It's wonderful to have you on the show. Before we get into the details of G Adventures, I'd love if you could just give a brief introduction as to who you are and a bit about the businesses that you've started. Well, my name is Bruce Puntip, as you've mentioned, and I am the founder of G Adventures.

1:21This next month, actually, we celebrate 35 years and we're the world's largest small group adventure holiday company. I can say we also are the world leader in community tourism, proving this idea that travel can be transformational for everyone, not just the traveler. It's incredible that you started that 35 years ago because it feels only recently, maybe even post-COVID, that most businesses were caught up with that program and that idea, whereas you were doing it from the get-go, which is amazing. That's very astute for you to mention because you're right. I felt very thankless in the 90s into the early 2000s, I would say, because there was this race to define our industry.

1:56First it was ecotourism, then responsible tourism, then sustainable tourism. And it was confusing the customer and what that meant because people didn't really connect. They just wanted to go on holidays. They didn't really connect how travel could be transformational and how it could be a force for good. And we were early pioneers on how we could define that. But at the beginning, it was sheer innovation and desire to do something different before, I would say, the rest of the world caught up to what we were doing. Gee Adventures today, everyone will have heard about and know about. But how did it come to life from your garage in Toronto with just two maxed out credit cards?

2:31Well, in order to tell that story, I think you have to go back and understand what the world was like then, because many people don't remember or weren't even born yet. And you'd have to also understand how people researched and how people traveled back then. Because there was no internet, there was no email, there was not even a fax machine yet. The fax machine was invented, but it was not commonly used, especially in the developing world. Believe it or not, my first hotel is I booked by mail, if you can believe it. I sent a letter to a hotel. I said, do you have rooms this day? And they sent back a confirmation.

3:00I went to the bank and got an international money order, sent it to them to hold the rooms, a deposit. and then they mailed back a confirmation. And then eight months later, I showed up with passengers just hoping that reservation was there. Maybe a single call, because if you remember, before calls were deregulated, when we grew up, long distance calls were like$10,$15 a minute. So you have to understand how people traveled. Because we didn't have all this information in our pocket, people didn't know what other countries looked like or what other places looked like or what Africa or Latin America even, what to expect.

3:31They used to go to the library to do research. so just imagine that yeah i remember studying encyclopedias at home and it would be the same book for years and years and you just look and look but it was the same map and it's the same thing we weren't bombarded by content yeah so the customer is completely different and they relied on you for information they didn't have yelp reviews of all the hotels and restaurants or everything they were going to and the idea of travel i think i always say we lost that we lost that gift of the unknown and the innocence. When an airplane door opened for the first time and you got that steam or heat and the smell of a country, people just don't have that anymore because our industry has become so different.

4:12For us, it was very difficult to start something new. The idea of G-Adventures was actually started as Gap Adventures. We changed our name when Gap Year started to be such a popular thing, but it was bridging the gap between the mainstream traveler and the backpacker. And the idea was to take people on local transport, staying in small accommodations like hospitals, family-run accommodations, homestays, all these programs to give them local cultural immersion type experiences. But we couldn't advertise like a regular company because we were inventing something new. And if I put in the newspaper, tours to Thailand or tours to South America, people would have an image of what that was, which was a coach in an air-conditioned bus with someone with a microphone in the front, staying in a Best Western or a modern air-conditioned hotel.

5:00So the idea was revolutionary. And at the time, I didn't know if the other people in the world were doing it because I couldn't research it. I couldn't go on the internet. I remember one day I spent a few days in a library because the library used to have this room with phone books of the world. And I would go in to see, is there companies like us in Germany? And I couldn't translate because I didn't have a translator. I would look and see, is there other travel companies doing what we do in England? So ignorance was bliss to a point. Yes. So I didn't know we were the only one in the world. I didn't know how innovative we were.

5:27I knew where I was, which is Toronto. No one was doing what we were doing. And then in 1993, I went to the World Travel Market in London, which is the largest travel exposition. And I used most of the year's travel budget to get to England. I stayed in a hostel with these Nepalese representatives from Nepal. And they had a barbecue in the back. So they fed me the whole week that I was there. And I went to this exhibition and it's so huge for me. And I realized, wow, we're the only ones doing what we're doing. And as I talked to other operators and other wholesalers, they were like, what is this?

6:00It's such a unique product. And so that was how it started, taking people on small trips to South America and then exporting tourism, which is how we become this global brand. We started that way back when, because around that time, the fax machine became more common and I could actually fax immediate communications back and forth. and it sped up. So when the internet and email with the speed of communication was revolutionary for us and it took us to another level. How old were you when you were in this garage looking at your credit cards being like, we're starting this? 22 to 23, 23 years old was when G Ventures started.

6:35I started the ideas and building the ideas around when I was 22. And I was in Calgary, Alberta. There was a 15 years old, there was a company's program. It's an after school program for kids to start a business. It was a pilot program by Junior Achievement, which is a big deal here now, but we were the pilot. And I won the gold medal for the province that year for my business. That's where I got the bug that I could run my own business. So at 20 years old, 21 years old, I told my parents, I'm moving to Toronto with$800 in my pocket. My parents thought, are you joining a cult? What's going on? I said, I'm just, I'm moving to Toronto.

7:10I'm going to start my own business. And that's what I do. And obviously looking back now, you're like, of course it worked. But at the time, that ignorance is bliss is actually quite a grace because you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. The youth is wasted on the young. That's the other saying that people said, because I think back to so many things I did and so many decisions I made and thought I can never do that now. I just don't have the steel in the guts that you do with not knowing what you're doing. But at the time, I knew I was fulfilling my destiny. And still today, I believe that this is a calling, right?

7:42I really believe that I was listening to where I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do. You've been called a born entrepreneur, and you were even reported to outsource your paper round as a kid. Yeah, that was my... But what traits from your younger self still serve you as a founder and a leader today, would you say? I think being an immigrant, I'll be honest with you, my parents came to Canada with nothing, seven children. From where? From Trinidad. I'm from Trinidad originally. And a place where my father always said he never owned a pair of long pants until he went to his first funeral.

8:18And to a place where there was bitter cold winter, which my parents didn't really research properly when we decided to move to Calgary in March, and we arrived in shorts and t-shirts. And where were you in the seven? I'm six. And I say this a lot to business people, never bet against an immigrant. We have a fifth gear that everyone doesn't have because our parents sacrificed so much to give us the gift of opportunity. There's an inborn need to perform at a different level. It's something ingrained in us. We were given this opportunity because of sacrifice and a great sacrifice, some of us. So it's not to be wasted.

8:53And yeah, and I see it in the workforce. I employ thousands of people now, people whose parents sacrificed just for their happiness. And you see when that rubber hits the road, there's a fifth gear that exists that I can't explain, but I'm not the only one who has it, but I know I've seen it. And it's not a coincidence. Some of the biggest companies in the world were started by immigrants. Yeah. There's a woman I interviewed in the beauty space and she's like, there was no risk me leaving my job and starting a business. I'm betting on myself. I know myself. I know how hard I work. It's not a risk.

9:26And that was a huge, hang on a minute. I know me better than anyone else. I know I've got it in me. If I believe in myself, I'm fine. But for you at such a young age, how do you know that was your life's purpose? Because it's a sort of ignorance is bliss, but also it's quite a risk to leave, say, a conventional route and take this path. I don't think I knew then, but I always knew that there was never a question that I had to do it. It's almost like having something in you that you can't turn off. You just can't turn it off. When I look back now, I see the tenacity and the risk, the tolerance for risk.

10:01The excitement I had then, I had no mentors, especially when you're doing something innovative. If you decide to go into business and you're doing something people know, like starting a store or franchise or a clothing line, people understand that business. But when you're trying to do something revolutionary, you have no support. No bank would give you money. And there's no mentors. Everyone I knew was telling me to get a job. I was working on the weekends to pay my rent. I was going to ask, how did you fund it? I worked on the weekends, evenings to pay my rent. At one time, I was completely out of money.

10:33And a friend of mine took a loan on his car to give me a loan to continue at one point. So people had faith in you? not many not many that one friend people always just I guess so people had faith in me as a human but people just didn't know what I was doing and why I was living on the top of a garage and why I was not going out at night and just working all the time and well the sacrifice as well I mean at that age you could be easily distracted by social life and parties travel fun yeah but I never felt that I never I never felt I was there was any distraction I was happy and but I was independently happy.

11:09And I don't know where that energy really comes from. And one of the questions I get asked the most is, how do you know if you're an entrepreneur? And I always say, you should have a burning desire. And if you have any doubts, you should really truly define why you want to do it. Because I don't think everyone is an entrepreneur. So when I started in 1990, the word entrepreneur didn't really exist. We didn't have 27-year-old billionaires like we do today. So there was no word for it. For me, it was just this crazy guy living in a garage who's shouting about this new way to travel and very few people understood it and sometime around the late 90s people started to get it and by the 2000s it started to grow and now we're all over the world and it's a multinational business.

11:51I was going to say in terms of your marketing strategy back then without Instagram, without meta ads, without e-newsletters. Or advertising because we're not we can't just say tours to talent we have to explain so it was guerrilla marketing we you know what we say I I had to be out in front of people. It would have felt quite relentless and quite a slow burn. How did you get traction? The first, we ran two tours to begin with, and I just had to fill them up. So I was out on the streets. I put signs on lampposts saying, come, we're the largest outdoor store here in Toronto. I asked them if I could hold these talks in there once a week.

12:27And I was standing in the middle of the shoe department. They didn't have any AV equipment or anything to host speakers. I'd be standing in the middle of the shoe department because that was the most empty space because there was chairs for people to try on their shoes. There wasn't like racks. And I would spend all week trying to convince people to come and hear me talk. So I'd go to travel schools and speak in classes, ask them if they want a lecturer and then say they could come and learn something new about travel. So that word of mouth was key. Yeah. And as you said, you had two tours. That's all you needed to fill.

12:56And I think that lovely early days where your expectations are smaller. looking back now obviously you employ so many more people and it's a huge business you're running there's a lot more responsibility and pressure but you would have grown through the years with the business but at the beginning that lovely much smaller remit is quite refreshing I imagine yeah refreshing yeah there was never a moment where I doubted what I was doing yeah well I like the way you put it because a lot of people say you need to be so deluded that what your business is offering is needed. And it sounds quite negative to be deluded.

13:30You must be like crazy or something. But you are so optimistic that what you were delivering was what the world needed. Yeah, but you also have to love what you're doing. You have to be passionate. And that's the first advice I always give entrepreneurs. Don't start a business just to make money. There's many different types of entrepreneurs. And you have to define where you fit in them. And there's very few entrepreneurs that change industries and create new ideas. Having a corner store, convenience store, that's an entrepreneur. Having a franchise, that's an entrepreneur. And you can be an entrepreneur doing that.

14:03Starting a restaurant, all these are entrepreneurial ways to be in business. But you have to define where you sit and what type of entrepreneur you are and your motivation on why you want to do it. Well, the motivation is key because you work so hard. You need that impetus to keep you going when you're up against all the challenges you're facing. And I would question you on that because entrepreneur, a lot of people I've seen in the co-working offices I'm in and on travel when I do remote working, you see this kind of people beating their chest going, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm like, no, you just started a company.

14:35For me, entrepreneurs, you're doing something different. You're challenging something, you're bending and flexing something in a new direction. For me, I can go on a company's house in the UK, it takes me 12 minutes to start a company and suddenly I'm an entrepreneur. I feel like I'm a business owner. I think to be truly entrepreneurial, you have to be carving a new path. Exactly. And that's being defined lately, right? Because entrepreneur is a really, it's not a new word, but it certainly started becoming heavily used during the dot-com era, right? When all these businesses were starting in.

15:05But those are super innovative ideas when they started Google or even Snapchat or Facebook. These were entrepreneurs and they were revolutionizing how we did things. They made our lives better. Those are what really entrepreneurs who are driven by innovation. And even if you're not creating a product, but even authors today that are entrepreneurs on how they drive attention to their product. There's one famous British one who writes books about schools for wizards, we don't have to mention names, but it's quite controversial character, but still a killer entrepreneur with ideas and not just a creative mind for writing.

15:41So you suggest people should really identify what sort of person they are and what's their driver? And their audience, because people want to create products for everyone to buy or to maximize the biggest audience. And that doesn't work, especially anymore with when people are so connected to brands and emotional spending, you have to know the audience you're going to hit. The number one thing I've mentioned quite a few entrepreneurs or spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs in their startup phase. And I'm shocked at the first question I ask is, who's your audience? Who are you trying to sell to? And they have no idea.

16:15It doesn't work. Because I think we, and this is where it's so interesting to have this conversation with you, because I came out of a 25-year career doing in-house PR. And I always heard journalists hate their PR agency, and they didn't like how diluted it got, and they never got their answer. I'm like, I just don't understand. Someone just needs to answer the question they're asking and that's it it's not rocket science so i started my business teaching founders to own their pr in-house and everyone's like but why would you do that you want the retained revenue yourself otherwise your business model is not a good one it's like no it's better done in-house and we're trying to make ourselves redundant with every client and my business coach this is a terrible business model what are you doing it works because the client's happy and then we get 10 referrals so it's so interesting having this conversation because for me i went from earning a certain salary, made redundant in lockdown, panicked that I wasn't going to get my salary started in my business.

17:04I was like, actually, I only need two clients because my only overhead is me right now. And it took the pressure off. And my two clients are potentially living in the UK, starting their own business, want publicity because they can't afford advertising. Two, two out of how, what, 8 % increase in new companies being registered at companies' house, it took the pressure right off of knowing my audience. But then when we teach them how to do their own PR. They're like, we want to be on Vogue. But your client doesn't read Vogue. Why do you want to be on Vogue? Who is your audience? And that penny drop moment is like, oh, we don't need to be on Vogue.

17:37I was like, yeah, it's so interesting. But it's amazing how people don't know who they're trying to speak to. We say you pick three personas of your client, draw them out, draw their personality. What behaviors are they doing? Because then you know who you're trying to market to and you can really focus your attention on it and not spread yourself too thinly. Yeah, and it's a lifelong journey that because I found out the hard way that building travel is different for North Americans and Canadians who get two weeks holiday, by the way. When I started reading in the library that Germans get six weeks holiday, Brits get four weeks holiday, French get five weeks holiday.

18:11And Australia seems to work between holidays. But they have very different needs, different product needs, because they want longer trips, they want to see multiple countries in one visit. And which feeder airports they're nearby? I remember that when I worked for Shangri-La Hotels, discovering what feeder markets were, like where the airlines are flying into and from and out to. What can that American get to with two weeks holiday? So for you, did you have a massive puzzle that you needed to piece together bit by bit? Yeah, it gets easier as your business becomes more sustainable or it gets bigger, but it's a constant evolution.

18:46But the number one piece of advice is know your audience. I use that so much with people because it's a surprise to people. sometimes because they're so focused on the product. I've got to have the best product and this is my idea. And I said, that's the price of entry. You have to have a good product, but people don't necessarily buy the best product anymore. And there's so many examples in business where the best product can win, the smarter connection to the audience one. The old time example is VHS Betamax. If you remember the video days, Betamax was a superior technology, but VHS bought that out.

19:18Is there anything you'd advise a new founder to do to work out who their audience slash client are? It just can't be everyone. Don't try to be everything to everyone because you end up being nothing to everyone. And that's just starting. You can always branch out because I started with one kind of brand of tours. We have 12 brands of tours now. We've launched G-Lux and we've launched these new products for our fastest aging demographic is over 60. And so you can become anything, but when you start, especially if you have a limited amount of budget or funding and time, you need to understand the core.

19:51And I don't think there's any magic to it other than having the conversation. I'm just so surprised that people just don't even think about it because they're so busy honing the product or the service. I just offer the best service in the world. I'm the best consultant in the world. But how are they going to know that? What's your specialty? What is your passion? Well, it's also the client won't believe you because if you're a generalist, why would they come to you if you're not an expert? You're not their expert, they'll go somewhere else. And also this whole concept of Simon Sinek of why do you exist?

20:20It's something that people have to really understand and ask. Because why businesses exist today is fundamentally different than it was in 1990 or 1995. Because people have emotional connections to the products they use now. They didn't have the world of information in their pockets. Well, I was going to say you've built a global brand with impact at its heart, but you've done it way before many other brands have done that. What advice would you give founders trying to build a purpose-driven business today? It starts with why. It starts with why should your business exist in the world? Whose life are you going to make better?

20:55Those are the brands that really thrive and engage customers to, whether it's a lifestyle choice or engaging customers to a higher purpose on why you exist. And you can see that all over the world when businesses start, whether it's something as boring as video streaming like Netflix, who created emotional connections to video streaming to people, right? Amazon is another juggernaut company, but there's an emotional attachment that Amazon gives to people of convenience, the ease of it. And I don't give it enough credit because it's just a shopping site, but people could live without these services anymore.

21:32But it didn't start with that. It didn't start doing that. Jeff Bezos lost money for over 10 years because he was passionate about where he was going and he understood what he wanted to do. But his first building block was connecting with the customer, making their lives better. And so this is above the profit. This isn't about what you're going to take home. Yeah. If you focus on that, it increases your chances of failure. A lot of people say to me, oh, goodness, you're self-employed now. You can go on holiday whenever you like, or you must be the master of your own destiny. And I was like, It's so not about that.

22:04The purpose you get from your role in a self-employed business is so much more than you imagine. And that will come. That could come, but it can't be your motivator to begin with. If you're really thinking about that before you start a business, my advice all the time is don't start a business. If you want more time and freedom and you want to travel and do whatever you want, that's why you're becoming an entrepreneur. Do yourself a favor. Just don't become an entrepreneur. That stuff does come. But you have to earn it. Exactly. And it's a path that hasn't been trodden before. so it's not an easy one.

22:35We're taking a quick 30-second break from this episode to ask, are you thinking of starting your own podcast? If so, this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself. This course is for people who do not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it. You want to learn how to do it yourself. We teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show and so much more. Just DM us at hello at Fallowfield Mason to book your spot. Well, you've said entrepreneurs are the artists of the business world, which I love. But could you expand on what you mean by that and how has creativity shaped your entrepreneurial journey?