💵 Money Moves is our interview series with founders and freelancers about how they make money. This week, we chat with Andrew Tyree of Coast To Costa about his group travel company and how he built his business, weathered multiple storms, and pivoted to see success. Travel isn't slowing down any time soon and travel agents who lead these types of tours are still big business making $50k-$100k annually on the low end and routinely seeing between $200k-$500k annually on the high end. Let's check in with Andrew about how he's making it all work.
Give us the lowdown, tell us what you do for a living:
I founded Coast To Costa the travel company in 2012 but I was working in a restaurant at the time. All in all, I have worked on the business for 10 years. When the pandemic happened, I decided to shift to real estate so now I do real estate 75% of the time and Coast To Costa 25% of the time.
How much money did you start with?
Zero dollars and zero cents. I completely bootstrapped the first trip I ever did, I made exactly 0 dollars. I pitched the idea of a group trip to Barcelona to my friends and framed it as this will be like visiting a place with a friend who can guide you so that you can live like a local. I convinced 8 friends to go with me. As a result, I was able to go on the trip for free.
How long did it take you from idea to launch?
The first trip was in September 2012 and I probably thought of the idea in June. It took about 4-5 months. I worked at a Barcelona themed restaurant in SF and I had previously lived in Spain. I started talking to wine and cheese exporters who would come to the restaurant to pitch and they would say, “you should come to Spain and bring friends.” I thought I have connections, I should do a food and wine trip.
Who is your customer and how did you make your very first sale?
First sale was to friends, the next trip of that was friends of friends and it tripled in size and was incredible. I would say my customers are the people who now are solo travelers who are tired of waiting for their friends to go. Young professionals who want to do stuff but not do it on their own and honestly, the curation part is really nice. For people who plan a lot of stuff and think to themselves, “I don’t want to plan another thing for anyone”. 75% of my customers are women who come on the trip, who say my fucking friends don’t want to come so I’m just gonna come with you.
When did you know you were onto something big?
I would like to say it was a labor of love, a lot of work starting it up. The first batch of people to attend that Barcelona trip were comprised of a photographer, a musician, a videographer, and a web designer. I had talented friends doing cool shit and they helped make it a brand. 2012 was a lot of work, no money. 2013 was when we tripled. The first 2-3 years until 2015, I was working a lot because I enjoyed it but I was putting a lot of effort into it because I loved it. I thought Coast To Costa would be a thing but not a big thing. In March 2015, Obama had just opened Cuba, I met a guy in the airport and I had done different places like Oaxaca, Barcelona, Tulum - all Spanish speaking countries. The first time I went to Cuba I thought this was the right place at the right time. I thought it was going to take off and I was right - there was a flood and the business boomed.
What has been the most challenging time in building your business? Did you ever come close to calling it quits?
Working for yourself is not easy. When it was 2015 and the business was taking off like crazy, we were truly building the plane as we were flying it which is such a difficult place to be when you’re trying to make things function. 2016 was super good. 2017 was amazing. Then 2018 came and Trump talked shit about Cuba and our business plummeted. Trump talked shit on Peru and business became even worse. Trump’s voice was so loud and the result was that people would cancel their trip. September 2019, my wife and I decided to give this 1 more year. Then of course the pandemic hit and completely shut it down for the last 2.5 years. It was 8 years of a push and then a pandemic that nearly wiped it out. Now we’re back and we’ve adjusted, we focus on smaller, private trips and it works.
What is your biggest money tip for founders?
To track your spending, when the pandemic happened I didn’t have a job so I started reading a lot of things and step one was to always know how much everything costs. I would have a receipt written on a napkin and didn’t really track things. For example, in 2019, I had a group of 50 people that I gave a price quote to without understanding the numbers. Only 40 people ended up going. I thought they were all flying from Miami but people were coming from everywhere, like Lexington, Kentucky. I had quoted this trip as costing $200 but some of those flights were $1500. I had already made a contract and couldn’t get out of it. This trip flagged me to the IRS and I got audited, had to go back through my expenses. I should have made $50k from that trip but in the end I had only made $6k. I had to pay for wiring costs and small other items and I didn’t understand my finances at all. The lesson: always know your numbers.
What are your must-have tools for building and scaling your business? (GSuite, Asana, books, podcasts you recommend):
How I Built This podcast is the best for inspiration, Secondly, my must-have tool is to just have a really good team, let go of all the control, hire smart and fire quickly if someone isn’t working out.
What’s the best way that our audience can support you?
If people are interested to travel Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Cuba our IG is @coasttocosta and if people want to follow @andrewtyrealty
