Experience Strategy Podcast: Creating Purpose-Driven Experiences with Sarah Dusek

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In this episode of the Experience Strategy Podcast, Sarah Dusek, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author, takes listeners on a journey through her remarkable career in experience-driven business. From founding the pioneering glamping company Under Canvas to her current venture in global regenerative travel, Sarah demonstrates how aligning personal passion with customer needs can create industry-shaping innovations. She shares valuable insights on the power of businesses to mold culture and drive positive change, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and community impact in experience design. Sarah's discussion of her upcoming book, "Thinking Bigger," offers a compelling perspective on women's empowerment in business and the significance of dreaming big when it comes to making an impact. Throughout the conversation, she provides experience strategists with practical advice on developing strong points of view, building conviction, and creating internal advocates for successful implementation. This episode is a masterclass in experience strategy, offering lessons on scaling innovative concepts, incorporating regenerative practices, and bridging the gap between visionary ideas and real-world execution.

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent, and now here are your hosts experience nerds, Dave [00:00:15] Norton, and Aransas Savas, 

Aransas Savas: Welcome to the experience. Experience Strategy Podcast. I'm Aransas Savas.

Dave Norton: And I'm Dave Norton. 

Aransas Savas: And today, Dave and I are joined by Sarah Dusek. She is an activist at heart. She started her [00:00:30] career as an entrepreneur, but she, since then as a venture capitalist and now author, has dedicated her life and work to helping others. Grow and fund their [00:00:45] dreams. So in 2009, Sarah founded the leading upscale outdoor hospitality brand under canvas, which has formed so many raving fans.

They grew that company to a value of [00:01:00] over a hundred million dollars, uh, coveted Inc 5, 000 list in 2017. And Sarah at that time was named to EY's entrepreneurial winning women's list. I've talked to Sarah many times and I've been so [00:01:15] impressed by her courage and conviction and her focus. on experience strategy and whether it's through her work as a venture capitalist, through the way she runs [00:01:30] her own company and team, or now through the work she's doing with her new soon to be released.

book, Sarah really centers experience strategy and the experience of people, be there her [00:01:45] team members or her customers. And we're just so excited to have Sarah here to share her perspective on experience strategy and to see what we can all learn from the book. [00:02:00] Extraordinarily successful experiences that she's helped create.

Sarah, thanks so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here. Although I feel a little in awe of all that you just said, I don't know that I'm going to be able to live up to [00:02:15] such a wonderful introduction. Wouldn't it be fun if we all had somebody? Walking along behind us singing our praises.

Ah, I mean, how different would we feel about ourselves all day long, right? [00:02:30] Right, right. Although maybe it would go to our heads. Maybe it would be bad for us. Who knows? I don't know. I feel like if I had a done list versus just a steady stream of to do list, I might feel better. So I'll be like your done list and then you can [00:02:45] tell us what's still on the to do list today.

Okay. All right. Deal. So Sarah, what does experience strategy even mean to you? Let's start there. Oh, well maybe first I'll kick off and say that I am an experience [00:03:00] junkie in terms of Everything I am always thinking about is always to do about how we maximize experience. And you were right in announcing that I built an experiential travel company.

That was it. [00:03:15] definition, how do we experience travel and in the outdoors in a very, very different way? I'm just launching my second experiential travel company now. So, and I'm an investor. So, I'm constantly [00:03:30] thinking about the customer experience, the customer engagement with what is it we're trying to provide.

Sell, produce, serve, and all of that for me always revolves around what is the [00:03:45] experience we are trying to create and getting really crystal clear on what is it we're trying to connect people to and why. I love that. And one of the things we talk a lot about here is that. Experience strategies that are successful are rooted in [00:04:00] strong points of view on what the customer wants and needs.

So as a founder, as an experienced designer, and as a venture capitalist who's coaching other founders, how do you think about developing those points of view, [00:04:15] Sarah? Yeah, for me, they have always been. Been very strongly connected with what I care about. So there's a direct correlation between experiences that I want people to have because of what I care about.

And I'm often telling [00:04:30] entrepreneurs that I work with is people will love a product or service. Because you are passionate about it and you love it and you care about it and if you are not connected with your problem that you're trying to solve, you are not [00:04:45] connected with what you're trying to create in some way that's very meaningful, it's going to be a whole lot harder for other people to connect with that.

Because I genuinely believe passion breeds passion. Right. And you see it when someone loves [00:05:00] something, they're so passionate about it and you can't hold it, you can't hold it back. And I think when we're talking about, you know, other people, our customers. Experiencing something from us, either a service or a product, what we're really [00:05:15] trying to do is connect them with something that we love and we want them to love it too.

Voiceover: Tell us a little bit about what you loved and what you connected with, with your first company. 

Yeah, I built a company in the U. S. called Under Canvas, [00:05:30] which became and still is the largest leading glamping company in its space. And when we started, I know it's hard to believe this now, but when we started the business back in 2009, glamping was not a thing.

Nobody knew the term glamping at [00:05:45] all. It was not a phenomenon. That anyone was familiar with in the United States. And so the whole essence of why we built our business was because we wanted to connect people with the outdoors. We wanted to be a [00:06:00] bridge to enable people to get out in the wilderness, to get outside, connect with nature.

But it not have to be uncomfortable. My husband is a massive outdoors guy from Montana, and I am [00:06:15] not from Montana originally. As you can probably tell from the little accent that I have. And when I first went to Montana, I had lived in Africa. I had been on safaris in Africa, had worked as an aid worker on the continent for a [00:06:30] number of years.

And I had discovered a love for the bush, but I had also discovered, well, there's a way to go camping without it being hardcore rough. And my hardcore camping outdoor husband did not understand that there was any other way to be out in [00:06:45] the outdoors without pitching a tent, sleeping on the ground, digging a hole to poop in, you know, hardcore stuff that I had no interest in whatsoever.

But I had learned. To appreciate [00:07:00] and really love the outdoors and nature and wilderness, I just didn't ever want to do it in a way that was like out of my comfort zone. And so we came up with this idea of, could we build a bridge between him and me, [00:07:15] right? He wants to be in the outdoors. I want to be in the outdoors, but I can't do it like he's going to do it.

So could we build a bridge for ourselves and for other people to love, connect with, experience But it not [00:07:30] be painful. And so that was sort of the idea for us. Could we reimagine the Safari experience and recreate it in beautiful, outstanding places around the U. S.? 

Voiceover: It's so amazing and so fun and it's [00:07:45] something that really touches me and, and connects with me because I love camping.

You know, but I am a glamper. Um, you know, I have an airstream and so I think that's kind of the definition of glamping right [00:08:00] there, right? 

Yeah. Glamorous. That's the word where it came from. Glamorous camping. It's luxury camping. It's how do we elevate upscale camping to an experience that doesn't feel raw, doesn't feel rough, has some elements of [00:08:15] refinement around it, but yet still immerses you in all the wonderful things about being in the wilderness and being in nature.

was the experience you wanted people to have. We wanted people who did not necessarily love the [00:08:30] outdoors like we did and would never maybe go camping to cross the threshold and suddenly experience how extraordinary it is to be out in nature and how powerful it is for our souls [00:08:45] to, to love being in the outdoors, but yet for that not to feel scary.

And so that was the mission that we went on is could we create an experience. That would help people cross that divide. And most of our guests were always non campers, [00:09:00] were hotel people, um, and people that would never think about going camping, but suddenly realized that there maybe was a way to, to experience it without it looking as hardcore as a hardcore backpacker might enjoy.

And still maybe getting some of that [00:09:15] satisfaction of, I've been camping. Yes and still feeling like we got to sit around the fire pit and we made s'mores and we were in the outdoors and there was just canvas everywhere. between us and the outdoors, but yet I still had a nice bed [00:09:30] and flushing toilet and a hot shower.

Amazing. All the beauty, none of the pain. Yes, exactly. And so I wanted people to. You know, you asked me what I wanted people to care about, and I wanted people to [00:09:45] connect with and care about our planet and to care about our environment. So we built a company that was very sustainable for me, uh, off the grid most of the time, low uses of water and energy, and I wanted people to immerse [00:10:00] themselves in nature and connect and care about the planet.

And so we built a company that helped people experience it, help people be educated about it and really immerse themselves. An experience that maybe they might not have done [00:10:15] without our help. Mm, I love that. 

Voiceover: It's a, a perfect example of what we talk about in terms of a point of view because you are describing what the near future need is or how the world should be.

You [00:10:30] know, the world should be a place where people can experience the outdoors without having to deal with all the pain and frustration associated with, uh, camping. Yep. I love that. [00:10:45] That's a very clear and articulate point of view. It's something that you connect to. And I love this idea also that because you connect to it, they feel it, which I don't think we've explored quite as much as we should.

Well, 

I think that's, [00:11:00] that's putting your passion on a plate, right? And I, I think businesses have the power. To create our future. And by that, I mean, the experiences we create, the services and products [00:11:15] that we build, the companies that we create, create and define our culture and they move us. into, you said it Dave, in terms of the world as it's going to be.

And it's our job to [00:11:30] create the world as it's going to be. It's not a given what the world is going to be. And so the beauty of building a company or having any influence over a company is we have this power to influence [00:11:45] what our world becomes like, what our culture becomes like, what behaviors we adopt or don't adopt.

You know, just a few years ago, we were not all doing this. You know, video conferencing, not normal, it's not very normal because companies built the [00:12:00] technology and now we have this power and this opportunity to be able to communicate in this way. You know, anytime we're creating something, we are creating, we are partaking in the creation of building our future.

And that's why it's really [00:12:15] important for me that we're mindful about what we create. And I think the passionate amongst us, and particularly those. Who use business as a vehicle for driving change and driving impact and think about more than just [00:12:30] the bottom line. We have a special opportunity to be incredibly influential and move the world forward in a way that, shapes and molds us in a very positive way.

I think you're right. It adds so [00:12:45] much purpose to that impact, right? We're going to have impact regardless. Yeah, well, exactly. I was thinking as I was saying that. We can have a negative impact. Exactly. We really can. So now the glamping industry is a, is a 5 [00:13:00] billion industry to the U. S. and we have normalized the concept of glamping, the experience of being out in nature that isn't painful and difficult, but is pleasant and still [00:13:15] feels like you're getting into being in the wild, but not really.

And that wouldn't have happened without people like me building companies and creating experiences. And that's the power of glamping. of a [00:13:30] business to mold and shape culture, which I think is fascinating. It is really energizing when you put it that way. Well, it makes you think, Oh, this is maybe worth getting up in the morning for.

This is maybe [00:13:45] worth making the best it can possibly be. Yeah, exactly. That's the influence we can have with everything that we create. Everything that we create has the power to shift and change and move us forward. So what are you up to with your [00:14:00] new company? Well, because I'm a little bit of a travel obsessive, I'll call it obsessive because I don't know that it's healthy.

I'm building another travel company and one of the things [00:14:15] that I really want to do this time around because I'm still thinking about building experiences and travel experiences. We're now thinking globally about how we build global experiences around the world. People to, again, experience nature, experience [00:14:30] the wilderness, experience the outdoors, but in a very luxurious, very, very unique ways.

I'm wanting to immerse people and take people around the world, but I'm wanting to do it regeneratively. And by [00:14:45] that, I mean regeneratively. My last company, I would have called sustainable. I built a sustainable company. We use low energy. We use solar power. We use no single use plastics. We use minimal water.

We built a very sort of low impact on the [00:15:00] environment company, but now. I'm thinking about, okay, how do we go one step further than that? How do we not just not do things like not use water and not use single use plastic? What's the next [00:15:15] step? And how do I change behavior? And how do I get people to travel in a way invests in the planet and could travel be a force for good for healing and [00:15:30] saving our planet?

So now I'm thinking about carbon. Now I'm thinking about, can we. Not just be carbon neutral, but can we be carbon negative? Can we invest in restoring and rewilding and [00:15:45] Regenerating areas of wilderness that have been lost. Can we help reclaim them? Can we build a company that exists to facilitate that mission?

And so for me, the [00:16:00] experiences that we want to create now are about connecting you with a journey to save our planet and to invest in the planet. So that's what I mean about being regenerative and engaging people in travel [00:16:15] experiences is. That are beautiful and wonderful and amazing and magical. Cause I love creating magic when people travel, but at the same time, your travel dollars are invested in re greening our [00:16:30] world, capturing carbon from our atmosphere and saving some of the most.

Uh, biodiverse places on the planet that we absolutely cannot afford to lose. So that's what I'm up to. 

Voiceover: It sounds, it sounds like a [00:16:45] big, hairy, audacious goal and a wonderful thing. Yeah, pretty nuts. I told 

my children when we were launching, I have two teenage boys, and I told my children at dinner table that, uh, their dad and I were going to launch another travel company.[00:17:00] 

And of course they just kept on eating, not I'm super fussed by that. And then I thought, , I said something that I thought might get their attention. And I said, dad and I have set ourselves this crazy goal. We would love to be responsible for the company that we build, be responsible [00:17:15] for capturing a million tons of carbon a year.

So like, that means we're going to plant trees, rewild areas. Restore wetland, you know, you name it, to capture excess carbon that we've got in the atmosphere. And my 16 year old [00:17:30] son looks up from his dinner plate and says, Is that it? Is that all? And I was like, I thought that was a pretty big deal. I thought that's a pretty monstrous And he was like, is that all?

[00:17:45] So now I laugh and every time I think I've thought big enough, I'm thinking, you know, thinking big. I just have to talk to my teenagers who will bring me grounded back to earth and say, is that it, mom? Is that as good as you've got? Think bigger, [00:18:00] mom. We're counting on you. Think bigger, mom. My reaction, my gut instinct to this is.

Well, of course she'll just do it. And, and, and yes, it is hairy and it is audacious and wildly complex. [00:18:15] And I have absolute belief in you. Thank you. Cause I'm going to give it my best shot. You are somebody who tackles big problems. Yeah, it won't end up exactly like you expect it to, but I have so much confidence in [00:18:30] your ability to make progress on this and that is really exciting as a human being on the planet.

Voiceover: I do have to ask, you mentioned the word luxury. Tell me about this juxtaposition between saving the planet and luxury [00:18:45] travel. 

Yes, because I don't think saving the planet has to be painful. I think we can enjoy ourselves at the same time. I think we can have magical experiences in wild and wonderful places [00:19:00] and at the same time be mindful and conscious and impactful.

Our travel dollars have so much value. In terms of the good they can do in the communities where you travel, I took a [00:19:15] group of, um, female CEOs on a trip, um, last year in October. And we went trekking to see the gorillas in Rwanda, which in itself is a incredible miraculous amazing thing. It is [00:19:30] mind blowing to trek up a volcano and stand 10, 20 feet away from gorillas and watch them in the wild, knowing that, you know, just a few short years ago, there were hardly any.

Any gorillas, mountain gorillas left, and now there's [00:19:45] very healthy numbers. But I say that to say every single dollar we spent on that trip, it was an expensive trip. It is not a cheap event to go trek and see gorillas [00:20:00] in Rwanda. But the impact that that national park is having on the surrounding communities and the people that we met who we personally engaged with and heard their stories about Rwanda.[00:20:15] 

Doing conservation work and creating social impact was mind blowing. I, we had several women porters with, with us, and I asked them afterwards, What difference has it made as women, I'm always [00:20:30] interested in hearing women's stories in particular. What difference has having a job and working in the National Park and is it good that we come and we visit your country and you know, because we could say, well, this is voyeurism and maybe this is not [00:20:45] great.

And they said, absolutely, yes, please come and please bring more people to come because, because we have jobs. Because of these gorillas, and because of looking after this mountain region, I have power to make [00:21:00] choices about what happens in my home and in my community. Because I have a job, I get to have a voice, and because I have a voice, I can make decisions that benefit me and other women in my community.

And then one of [00:21:15] them said, Because we got a voice in what happens with National Park money for our community, We bought an ambulance for our community and we all went, Oh, that's nice. And then they said, and now no one dies in childbirth [00:21:30] in our village. And my mind was just like blowing. I was like, because women had jobs, because women had a seat at the table to invest in their community.

Now no one dies in [00:21:45] childbirth. And they said, because when, when, when a woman is in labor, now we can take her to the clinic. Now there is a way for her to easily get. Um, and I was like, Oh, that, that blows my [00:22:00] brains out. So the ability and, you know, then you would say, okay, well, but you spent a lot of money and I was like, we created so many jobs, we created so many jobs and we had [00:22:15] extraordinary experiences.

We ate beautiful food that was locally grown and harvested by local people and. We've invested in a community, we've invested in a sustainable way to support a [00:22:30] community and have magical experiences that will change our lives forever. And that for me is just in a nutshell, the power of, it's easy to say, Oh, that's, it's very [00:22:45] extravagant.

It's very superfluous to life, right? And I say travel, for me, I believe travel is not superfluous, period. I think it's, it's almost like a human, right? We, we need to rest. We need to recuperate. We need vacation, like we need [00:23:00] oxygen, but the power of how we do that and where we do it, um, can have an enormous impact for good in our world.

So those are the kinds of experiences I'm curating. I'm taking people on those [00:23:15] trips and making magical things happen. I'm wanting to make memories with my kids. Now, and that was the beauty of under canvas. One of the reasons we created under canvas in the first place was I want to have fun experiences out in nature with my kids.[00:23:30] 

And so we built a company. That was very child friendly. We had dogs at the time and so Under Cannabis accepts dogs. We built it for us and the things that we were passionate about and believed that other people were like us, that we weren't unusual. [00:23:45] And so that's what I'm doing now. I'm wanting to take people on trips around the world.

We're building lodges that will be regenerative. They're impacting and rewilding incredible areas of the planet and impacting local communities. So. [00:24:00] Yeah, I'm busy. You are busy. and again, right, it's, it's powered by purpose, and by your own natural enthusiasm for the topic. And it's, our last episode was with, one of the experience [00:24:15] leaders, uh, the Sierra club.

And we were talking about, uh, People, places, planet, and mission led travel. We've been doing a lot of work over the last few years with the transformational travel council and a lot of research into transformational travel, and it [00:24:30] is that intersection of those three that keeps coming up with the transformational traveler and frankly, with experience in general.

Right. So for us, from a business strategy standpoint, your best experience strategy is the one that [00:24:45] yes, serves the company, but it also serves the people within the company and it serves the customer. And so it's that, that triangulation in which you find the real power. What are you talking about in your book as it relates to [00:25:00] experience strategy and what are some of the key lessons we'll get from that?

Yeah. Well, my book's called Thinking Bigger. So going back to my teenager's comments to me, one of the things I have noticed over the years, and the book's written [00:25:15] primarily for women, although everyone will get benefit from the book. But. It's called Thinking Bigger, a Pitch Deck Formula for Women Who Want to Change the World.

And what I had noticed was women tend to be very good at building small businesses. Women are [00:25:30] not, have historically not been so great at building big businesses or even understanding why They should think about building a big business. Now, for me, the reason to build a big business is to create a lot of [00:25:45] change and build a lot of impact.

That's what gets me up out of bed in the morning. And my belief that if I have a larger platform from a larger company, my voice gets bigger, the people I can reach are more. And I, I think that's important. And I also think [00:26:00] if. Women are not at the table, you know, ambulances don't get bought, right? So if women are not wealth creating, and they're not taking a seat at the tables of power, We're going to continue to build a world [00:26:15] that is not a world for everyone.

And we have a vastly unequal world. And I think having women at the table will help close some of those gaps, will help us invest in a future [00:26:30] that is for everyone. So the book is really about helping, helping all of us, but particularly women. Think bigger about what's possible and the practical components of [00:26:45] putting together strategy around what creating bigger looks like.

I know for me, when I was building under canvas first time round and being a sort of a, a relatively new, inexperienced entrepreneur, I did not [00:27:00] know The metrics that mattered. I did not understand what the fundamental building blocks were. And I found the world of funding and venture capital, like a very big boys club that was not open to the likes of me, [00:27:15] especially, I did not have an MBA.

I had no business school background. I was like most women who are building small businesses, who have, who are passionate about things, who have great ideas, but don't have the framework for building [00:27:30] anything. And I was privileged enough to meet people who helped me on my journey. And I was privileged enough to have stumbled on a great business idea that was highly scalable.

And [00:27:45] this book is the story of how I built that company and the things that matter, building bigger, scaling a business. Getting investment into a business [00:28:00] and helping change the parameters around what might be possible and why. And I, I wrote this book because I would love women to really just understand.

It's not a dirty word to think about [00:28:15] building wealth. It's not a bad, evil thing to build a big company, and to say it's possible, you should, you could. And here's how I did it and here's how you could too. So that's [00:28:30] really the essence and the heart of the book. It's interesting to just to sort of bring it back to this focus on experience strategy.

I think all of that is in essence what we do as experience strategists, right? We develop a strong point of [00:28:45] view. We build the necessary insights and our own conviction and what is possible. And then we create a bunch of advocates and allies internally. To help us get it done. And where most experienced strategy fails is that we don't create [00:29:00] those advocates.

We don't believe big enough in the impact of our ideas and they don't get funded. Right. And so you see, it doesn't happen and then it doesn't happen. Then everybody says like, eh, it was a bad idea. No, it was. It was often [00:29:15] poorly funded and poorly advocated for. Yes. Exactly. And a lot of that comes down to belief, right?

And when I think you nailed it right there with like, , what do you believe is possible? And part of , the big [00:29:30] problem in particular, I think women struggle with, but definitely not exclusively. Yeah. It's that we don't believe in what's possible. We've not got a clear enough vision around what could be and tracing the steps [00:29:45] backwards To figuring out how do we make that happen?

Often there's a very huge gap between vision and execution. And we've got to close those gaps down. We've got to break it down and make it tangible. And that's partly [00:30:00] what this book is trying to do is like, how do we make tangible the gaps between where we are today and where we want to be? And maybe where we want to be, we need to even multiply by a hundred so that it's, you know, where we're trying to get to is, is [00:30:15] even bigger than what we imagined.

So maybe we need a cheerleader on one shoulder and your son on the other.

I believe in you. You've got this. Now go do better. Now go do better. Yes. [00:30:30] I love it. Sarah. But we are so excited to keep cheering you, your companies, your book, and the other companies that you reach on and what an advocate you are for experience strategy and the [00:30:45] impact it can have. Thank you so much for joining us here today.

For our audience, reach out to Sarah. We'll put links in the show notes so that you can find the book, pre order, it makes such a difference for authors. And bye. To check out some of the, the [00:31:00] work that she's building out in the world. We hope you found some inspiration for your own big, bold ideas, either within your company or within the companies that you want to create for impact.

Thanks for listening. 

Voiceover: Thank [00:31:15] you for listening to the experience strategy podcast. If you're having fun nerding out with us, please follow and share wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Find more episodes and continue the conversation with us at experience strategy, podcast. [00:31:30] com.