Again in 2018, Lisa Peña heard a podcast about an entrepreneur in San Francisco who ran a enterprise main hikes throughout San Francisco. The idea was easy: As an alternative of taking hikes alongside nature trails, city explorers have been trekking by alleyways and winding metropolis streets.

“I bought that excited feeling that I’ve solely had a few different occasions in my life, and I knew that I needed to carry city climbing to Kansas Metropolis,” Peña advised In Kansas Metropolis.

The Kansas Metropolis native launched City Hikes KC the next yr as a aspect hustle, charging clients $28 to take guided excursions together with her on foot across the metropolis she liked. Right now, that enterprise is a worthwhile, full-time endeavor that provides ten completely different climbing routes with a employees of 6 guides. Here is how she put City Hikes KC on the map.

A ardour for journey

Like many profitable entrepreneurs, Peña took an exercise she had a ardour for and discovered a solution to monetize it. A former Peace Corps volunteer and backpacker, she liked to discover internationally and regionally. Peña utilized that very same curiosity to her climbing enterprise, taking vacationers and locals to sights off the overwhelmed path.

After listening to the podcast interview about UrbanHikerSF, she contacted the corporate’s founder, Alexandra Kenin, and requested her questions. Peña spent the following yr researching routes, establishing a social presence, getting insurance coverage, constructing a web site, and determining a fee system.

Beginning off as a aspect hustle

Peña launched her enterprise in 2019 whereas working for Lady Scouts of NE Kansas & NW Missouri. Her first hike was the Crossroads Westside City Hike, which weaves out and in of alleyways within the metropolis’s Arts District.

Photograph by City Hikes KC

“I began it out as a aspect hustle,” she advised Market. “I did not understand how a lot cash I used to be going to earn. I actually was ranging from scratch. There was no different city climbing sector in Kansas Metropolis.”

Curiosity was so nice that she added one other tour to her enterprise after which one other. Quickly, she realized she’d must give up her full-time job if she needed to scale.”That was a scary leap,” she says.

Certainly one of her first strikes was upping her value from $28 a head to $38.

Gradual burn

Peña concedes that she made no cash within the enterprise the primary few years. Her bills included insurance coverage, her guides, and different payments related to the enterprise and life.

However in the summertime of 2020, she began getting extra guides and routes, and the enterprise started to growth. “It was an excellent factor to do throughout the pandemic since we’re principally outdoors and might be socially distanced,” Peña advised In Kansas Metropolis.

By 2021, over one thousand clients took hikes together with her firm. By 2022, she had a lot enterprise she needed to rent extra guides and add extra routes.

As for earnings, she’s doing simply advantageous now. “Lastly I’m making an earnings that may be a sustaining earnings,” she stated on Market.

What friends can count on

Peña says city hikers can count on to see a aspect of Kansas Metropolis they’ve by no means seen, “even in neighborhoods they assume they know. We study in regards to the historical past and tales of people that made a distinction in Kansas Metropolis, and see several types of out of doors artwork, together with murals, walk-up hidden stairsteps, bridges, alleyways, and parks.”