Back in 2018, Lisa Peña heard a podcast about an entrepreneur in San Francisco who ran a business leading hikes across San Francisco. The concept was easy: As a substitute of taking hikes along nature trails, urban explorers were trekking through alleyways and winding city streets.
“I got that excited feeling that I’ve only had a couple of other times in my life, and I knew that I needed to bring urban mountain climbing to Kansas City,” Peña told In Kansas City.
The Kansas City native launched Urban Hikes KC the next yr as a side hustle, charging customers $28 to take guided tours together with her on foot around town she loved. Today, that business is a profitable, full-time endeavor that provides ten different mountain climbing routes with a staff of 6 guides. Here’s how she put Urban Hikes KC on the map.
A passion for travel
Like many successful entrepreneurs, Peña took an activity she had a passion for and discovered a approach to monetize it. A former Peace Corps volunteer and backpacker, she loved to explore internationally and locally. Peña applied that very same curiosity to her mountain climbing business, taking tourists and locals to sights off the beaten trail.
After hearing the podcast interview about UrbanHikerSF, she contacted the corporate’s founder, Alexandra Kenin, and asked her questions. Peña spent the following yr researching routes, establishing a social presence, getting insurance, constructing a website, and determining a payment system.
Setting out as a side hustle
Peña launched her business in 2019 while working for Girl Scouts of NE Kansas & NW Missouri. Her first hike was the Crossroads Westside Urban Hike, which weaves out and in of alleyways in town’s Arts District.
Photo by Urban Hikes KC
“I began it out as a side hustle,” she told Marketplace. “I didn’t understand how much money I used to be going to earn. I literally was ranging from scratch. There was no other urban mountain climbing sector in Kansas City.”
Interest was so great that she added one other tour to her business after which one other. Soon, she realized she’d should quit her full-time job if she desired to scale.”That was a scary leap,” she says.
One in all her first moves was upping her price from $28 a head to $38.
Slow burn
Peña concedes that she made no money within the business the primary few years. Her expenses included insurance, her guides, and other bills related to the business and life.
But in the summertime of 2020, she began getting more guides and routes, and the business began to boom. “It was a good thing to do in the course of the pandemic since we’re mostly outside and will be socially distanced,” Peña told In Kansas City.
By 2021, over one thousand customers took hikes together with her company. By 2022, she had a lot business she needed to hire additional guides and add more routes.
As for profits, she’s doing just high quality now. “Finally I’m making an income that’s a sustaining income,” she said on Marketplace.
What guests can expect
Peña says urban hikers can expect to see a side of Kansas City they’ve never seen, “even in neighborhoods they think they know. We learn concerning the history and stories of people that made a difference in Kansas City, and see various kinds of outdoor art, including murals, walk-up hidden stairsteps, bridges, alleyways, and parks.”