Bruce Poon Tip | How to restart your startup after 30 years of success

Today, I’m joined by Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures, the world’s largest small group adventure travel company and a 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.

In this episode, we discuss Bruce’s approach to leadership, how he built a values-led culture, and what it really takes to create a business that changes lives, within his business as well as so many others.

Bruce's Advice:

• Carve Your Own Path With New Ideas – True entrepreneurship means innovating and standing out from the competition.
• Find Your “Why” – Define your motivation and purpose to stay focused when building your business.
• Know Your Audience – Understanding who you serve is the foundation of successful marketing and growth.
• Define Your Unique Strengths – Highlight your skills and specialties that make your business different.
• Why Your Business Should Exist – Clarify the value and impact your business brings to the world.
• Your Business Reflects You – Every brand is a mirror of its founder’s values and vision.
• Balance Creativity and Strategy – Innovators thrive with ideas, but lasting businesses need both creativity and solid numbers.
• Turn Crisis Into Opportunity – Challenges like the pandemic can fuel innovation and business transformation.
• Human Connection in the Age of AI – In today’s AI-driven world, genuine human relationships and service are what set businesses apart.

FF&M enables you to own your own PR & produces podcasts.
Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2024 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

Juliet: [00:00:00] Welcome 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 Fallow, Field and 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 returns 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. 

 In 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 [00:01:00] 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.

Bruce: Well, my name is Bruce P Tip, as you've mentioned, and I am the founder of G Adventures. Uh, this 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 traveller.

Juliet: it's incredible that you started that 35 years ago. 'Cause 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. 

Bruce: That's very astute for you to mention because you're right. I felt very thankless in the nineties, into the early 2000’s, I would say. because there was this race to define our industry. First it was ecotourism, then responsible tourism, then sustainable [00:02:00] tourism. And it was confusing the customer and what, 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, it, 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. 

Juliet: G 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?

Bruce: Well, in order to tell that story, I think you have to go back and understand what the world was like then. 'Cause many people, don't remember, weren't even born yet. and you'd have to also understand how people researched and how people travelled 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 

 hotels, I booked by mail, if you can believe it. I sent a letter to a hotel, said, do you have rooms this day?

And they sent [00:03:00] back a confirmation. I 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. 'Cause 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 travelled, 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. They used to go to the library to do research.

so just imagine that. 

Juliet: Yeah, I remember studying encyclopaedias 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. We

Bruce: 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 anything they were going to. And the idea of travel, I think I always say we lost that. we lost that [00:04:00] gift of the unknown and, the innocence when Airplane door opened for the first time and you got that steam or heat and the smell of a country. The people just don't have that anymore because, our industry has become so different.

For 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 traveller and the backpacker.

And, the idea was to take people on local transport, staying in small accommodations like hostels, family run accommodations, home stays, 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. [00:05:00] 

So, the idea was, revolutionary. And at the time I didn't know if other people in the world were doing it 'cause I couldn't research it. I couldn't go on the internet. I remember one day I spent a few days in a library, 'cause 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 'cause I didn't have a translator. I would look and see, is there other travel companies doing what we do in England? 

Juliet: So ignorance was bliss to a point? 

Bruce: Yeah. So I didn't know we were the only one in the world I didn't know how innovative we were. I 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 years travel budget to get to England.

I stayed in a hostel with these, an 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 a talk to other operators and other like wholesalers, they were like, [00:06:00] what is this? It's such 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've become this global brand. We started that way back when, 'cause about around that time the fax machine became more common and I could actually fax immediate communications back and forth and it's, and it sped up. So, when the internet and email with the speed of communication was revolutionary for us, and it took us to the level.

Juliet: How old were you when you were in this garage looking at your credit cards being like, 'Ooh we're starting this.'? 

Bruce: 22 to 23, 23 years old was when G Ventures started. I started, the ideas and building the ideas around when I was 22. And, I was in Calgary, Alberta. There was at 15 years old. There, there was a company's program, it's an afterschool 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 [00:07:00] at 20 years old, 21 years old, I told my parents, I'm moving to Toronto with $800 in my pocket.

 My parents thought, what are you joining a cult? what's going on? I said, I'm just, I'm moving to Toronto. I'm gonna start my own business. And that's what I did. 

Juliet: 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. 

Bruce: Yeah.

the youth is wasted on the young, that's the other saying that people said, 'cause 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 and 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? I really believe that I was listening to where I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do.

Juliet: You've been called a born entrepreneur and you were even reported to outsource your paper round as a kid, 

Bruce: Yeah, that was my f Yeah.

Juliet: But what traits from your younger self still serve you as a founder and a [00:08:00] leader today, would you say?

Bruce: I think, being an immigrant, I'll be honest with you, my parents came to Canada with nothing, seven children,

Juliet: From where? 

Bruce: From Trinidad, I'm from Trinidad originally. And, a place where my father always said he never owned a pair of long pants till he went to his first funeral. And 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.

Juliet: And where were you? 

In the seven? 

Bruce: I'm six.

And, I say this a lot to business people 'never bet against an immigrant'. We have a fifth gear that that everyone doesn't have, because our parents sacrifice 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.

Juliet: 

Bruce: we were given this opportunity because of sacrifice and, great sacrifice, some of us.

Juliet: So it's not to be wasted. 

Bruce: Yeah, and I see it in the workforce.

Like I, I employ thousands of people now, people that, whose parents sacrificed just for their [00:09:00] happiness. And you see when that rubber hits the road, there's a fifth gear that exists that I can't explain, but I don't, 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. 

Juliet: Yeah. There was 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. And 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 did 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.

Bruce: 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, [00:10:00] the tolerance for risk,

The 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 a 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 I, there's no mentors. Like everyone I knew was telling me to get a job. And I was working on the weekends to pay my rent. 

Juliet: I was gonna ask, how did you fund it?

Bruce: I worked on the weekends 

evenings to pay my rent. at one time, I was completely outta money and a friend of mine took a loan on his car to give me a loan. to continue at one point.

Juliet: So people had faith in you?

Bruce: not many. Not many. That one friend. people always just not, 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, 

Juliet: Well, the sacrifice as well. I mean, at that age you could be easily [00:11:00] distracted by social life and parties travel fun 

Bruce: 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 and 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 wanna do it because I don't think everyone are entrepreneurs. 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 on a garage who's, shouting about this new way to travel. And, very few people understood it.

And, sometime around the late nineties people started to get it, and by the 2000’s it started to grow. And yeah, now we're all over the world and it's a multinational business.

Juliet: I was gonna say in terms of your marketing strategy, back then, without Instagram, without meta ads, without e-newsletters- 

Bruce: or advertising because we're [00:12:00] not, we can't just say tourist to talent, we have to explain. So it was gorilla marketing. We, you know what we say, I had to be out in front of people 

Juliet: would've felt quite relentless and quite a slow burn. 

Bruce: Yeah, 

Juliet: you get traction?

Bruce: the first we went, 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. And, 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 'cause that was the most empty space 'cause 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 see me talk. So I'd go to travel schools and speak at, in classes, ask them if they want a lecturer, and then say, I, they could come and learn something new about travel.

Juliet: So that word of mouth was key.

Bruce: Yeah.

Juliet: And as you said, you had two tours, that's all you needed to fill. And I think that lovely early days where your expectations [00:13:00] 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've grown through the years with the business.

But at the beginning that lovely much smaller remit is quite refreshing, I imagine.

Bruce: yeah, refreshing, yeah. There was never a moment where I doubted what I was doing. 

Juliet: Yeah.

Well I like the way you put It 'cause a lot of people say you need to be so deluded that what your business is offering is needed. And it scans quite negative to be deluded and you must be like crazy or something. But you were so optimistic that what you were delivering was what the world needed.

Bruce: 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 [00:14:00] entrepreneur and you can be an entrepreneur doing that. starting a restaurant, like 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. 

Juliet: The motivation's so key, because you work so hard, you need that impetus to keep you going when you are up against all the challenges you are facing. And I would question you on that, 'cause entrepreneur, a lot of people I've seen in the coworking offices, I'm in and on travel and 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. For me, entrepreneur is you're doing something different, you're challenging something, you are 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 a, an entrepreneur. I feel like I'm a business owner. I think to be truly entrepreneurial, you have to be carving a new path.

Bruce: Exactly. That's and that's being defined lately, right? Because entrepreneur isn't a really, I, it's not a new word, but it's [00:15:00] certainly, it's started becoming heavily used during the.com era, right? When all these businesses were starting 

Juliet: but those are super innovative ideas.

Bruce: When they started Google even Snapchat or Facebook, like these were entrepreneurs. and they were revolutionizing how we, did things. They made our lives better. those are what, really entrepreneurs who were 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.

I, 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.

Juliet: So you suggest people should really identify what sort of person they are and what's their driver-  

Bruce:  

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, where people are so connected to brands [00:16:00] and emotional spending, you have to know the audience

you're gonna hit. The number one thing I, I've mentioned a lot, quite a few entrepreneurs have 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.

Juliet: It doesn't work. 'cause 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 had journalists hate a 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 was 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 I, we are trying to make ourselves redundant with every client. And my business coach is this is a terrible business model. What are you doing? it works 'cause the client's happy and then we get 10 referrals. So it's so interesting having this conversation because,

for me, I went from to earning a certain [00:17:00] salary, made redundant in lockdown, panicked that I wasn't gonna get my salary, started my business. I was like, actually, I only need two clients 'cause 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 'cause 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 wanna be on Vogue. It's your client doesn't read Vogue.

Why do you wanna be on Vogue? Who is your audience? And that penny drop moment is like, oh. We don't need to be on vogue. I 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 pick three personas of your client. draw them out, draw their personality.

What behaviours 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. 

Bruce: Yeah, and it's a lifelong journey that, because I found out the hard way that building [00:18:00] 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-week holiday

and Australia seems to work between holidays 

Juliet: But they have very different needs, different product needs, 'cause they want longer trips, they wanna see multiple countries and wanna visit and which feeder airports they're nearby. I remember that when I worked for Shangrila 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?

Bruce: Yeah. it gets easier as your business becomes more sustainable or it gets bigger. But it's a constant evolution. But the number one, piece of advice is know your audience. And I use that so much with people because it's a surprise to people sometimes because they're so focused on the product.

I gotta be the, have the best product, and this is my idea. And I said, that's the price of [00:19:00] 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 didn't win, the smarter connection to the audience.

Juliet: won. the old-time example is VHS Betamax, if you remember the video days, beta max is a superior technology, but V-H-S, bought that out. Is there anything you'd advise a new founder to do to work out who their audience slash client are? 

Bruce: 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-luxe and we've launched these new products 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.

And 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 [00:20:00] honing the product or the service. I, I just offer the best service in the world. I'm the best consultant in the world.

But how are they gonna know that? What's your specialty? What is your passion?

Juliet: It's also the client won't believe you because if you are a generalist, why would they come to you if you're not an expert? 

Bruce: 

Juliet: You're not their expert they'll go somewhere else.

Bruce: And also, this whole concept of Simon Sinek of why do you exist? it's something 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 world of information in their pockets.

Juliet: Well, I was gonna 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?

Bruce: It starts with why.

Juliet: Yeah.

Bruce: It starts with why should your business exist in the world? Whose life are you gonna make better? those are the brands that really thrive. and, engage customers [00:21:00] 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 like 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 couldn't live without, these services anymore. But it didn't start with that, 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, 

Juliet:  

Bruce: making their lives better.

Juliet: And so This is above the profit. This isn't about what you're gonna take home. 

Bruce: Yeah if you focus on that, it increases your chances of failure.

Juliet: a lot of people say to me, oh goodness, you're self-employed now. You can [00:22:00] 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. The purpose you get from your role in a self-employed business is so much more than you imagine. 

Bruce: 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 wanna be travel and do whatever you want, that's why you're become an entrepreneur.

Do yourself a favour. just don't become an entrepreneur. That stuff does come 

Juliet: But you have to earn it. 

Bruce: Exactly.

Juliet: And it's a path that hasn't been trodden before, so it's not an easy one. 

Bruce: 

Juliet: We'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 [00:23:00] show, and so much more. Just DM us at hello@fallowfieldmason 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?

Bruce: I love you for asking that question because, the process of an entrepreneur is no different, I think, than someone doing a painting or doing a sculpture. 

It reflects the owner. Every business becomes,a reflection of the owner.

So it's a very personal endeavour. Especially early days where you're putting products out and you're trying to sell an idea, a concept, it's very, emotional. It's like releasing a little bit of your soul to the world. and when people criticize it or people are against it or people don't want the product, there's a certain level of power and courage that's with that, that gives you as an entrepreneur, but it's still very vulnerable.

You're still very vulnerable 

And you're still pushing that idea,

 it's a very artistic approach. It's a very creative process.

 And I think that [00:24:00] entrepreneurs, quite often, that's why I see them often hanging out with musicians and artists all the time because the process of starting a business is no different than the process of an artist, a creative artist. And the best entrepreneurs are some of the most creative people they can engage both sides of the brain.

Those are really the best entrepreneurs.

Juliet: So interesting you say that. I had this conversation the other day with a friend who's in interior design and a colleague of hers saying she's incredible 'cause she's got both sides of the brain. She's highly creative, can create beautiful rooms and interiors, but she can run a spreadsheet and run a business, know the numbers.

Bruce: it's very rare. It's a very rare thing. and I employ people now, if I have ops people, they have to, use one side of the brain. If I have marketing and creative people, or on the digital marketing side, they need creative brains. But every once in a while, you see someone that can engage both sides.

it's very rare.

Juliet: How do you identify that in someone? That might be a massive question to ask, but- 

Bruce: I mean, people who are just more comfortable with numbers. I've become less, but I had to be able to run a spreadsheet and, run a business before I could be creative. I think some of the smartest people I've ever met are the people that aren't [00:25:00] necessarily book smart.

'cause book smart people are the ones who are generally operational, who are, 

fastidious in what they do and detail oriented 

and can sometimes be, held back by being over organized. and you need people like that in the world. 

Those are the people that, keep things running. but every once in a while, I see people that, will sacrifice a little of that organization and can work better in organized chaos. 

But they engage a creative side of their brain. And when those two things meet, those are really powerful people that can, do a lot more.

 And when I look at my VPs and my MDs and my GMs around the world at times, you need people that are, responsible, detailed organized and then there's the ones that are, they're the brand voice and the leaders that are motivated by change or die mentality, innovation is the heart of how they live, and they get bored easily.

And they're constantly pushing the envelope and constantly pushing better ways in which we can do things. And those two things together is what makes the chemistry of a great business.

Juliet: It's so interesting you say this because the previous episode was Daisy Bird who runs a travel PR agency in the uk and she says [00:26:00] that it took her a long time to work out her strengths and her neurodiversity and what she need mirrored in her managing director who needed to be more of the ops and practical, analytical side and complimenting her rather than say, copying her skills. But knowing yourself and knowing your strengths and your weaknesses is so crucial to know where you're missing.

Bruce: And a news flash to that, it changes all the time as your business evolves. the hardest job in any company is the journey of leadership, of the leader of that business. the journey of leadership and the road, you have to take to build a multinational company is a very painful road that people never give credit to the founder, entrepreneur, because the leadership road, it changes constantly. It's a life of constant evaluation and constantly getting better and looking how you can do better and looking at your failures. Constantly fine tuning it. 'cause it changes as you grow. 

And when your 

 leadership journey stalls, your company will stall.

If you stop growing, your company will stop growing.

Juliet: And it is your energy and [00:27:00] what you put into it, and I can see it reflected in my team. Like I've had COVID for a few weeks and my energy was not the same and I was not doing as much and I could just see the flow change. 

Bruce: And it's hard. And this is again, how you define entrepreneurs differently. So entrepreneurs, are notoriously self-centred have a level of overconfidence that is sometimes unnatural. So, self-evaluation is very hard. So thinking how you can be better all the time especially when people work for you, is extremely difficult process for entrepreneurs.

And that's why many businesses just stop at a certain size and that's great. Like you can have small businesses, medium-sized businesses, but to grow, and continue growing, it's about leadership evolving and that road is painful for someone who, you know, an entrepreneur started a business. Especially one that's achieved a level of success and how they constantly evolve their leadership, to meet the needs of the business at the time. I'm personally about to celebrate 35 years here, and I'm having my most difficult leadership challenges of my life now, and I'm questioning whether I'm the right leader for [00:28:00] my business. And that's healthy and I'm always excited about that because it's showing my business is pushing me, but it's not any less painful.

Juliet: Which is also really hard because everyone you work with, you employ, so they're not founders and entrepreneurs, they're employees. So it's a completely different seat to sit in. But on that culture is a cornerstone for G Adventures. How did you go about building that culture from scratch and at the scale that you have, and how do you protect that as your business scales?

This is another good question because, this podcast is about being a startup, and the interesting thing about, my business is 

Bruce: I had a startup in 1990. 

Juliet: But 

Bruce: I was a startup again in 2023, ' cause we went through COVID. I laid off over 2000 people around the world and my business went down to zero revenue for two years.

 It was the hardest time of my life, I built this culture of absolute winners. The months before COVID, we were growing 38% around the world as a business. and then revenue just stopped,

and we had to start making decisions on who we keep and [00:29:00] who we let go. And it was all based on cultural heritage preservation. Like it was almost like a zombie apocalypse. Who's gonna be able to restart us on the other side of this? Who's gonna be able to, keep what we have the little that we have?

'cause it was survival mode, right? going into putting the company in hibernation for two years, and if I ever heard these words come outta in anyone's mouth, I would correct them. Which is, I wish we could just get back to normal.

And I said, no, we are not gonna waste a good pandemic. We are gonna come back better. We have the opportunity here to rethink everything that we couldn't have done because we've grown so big already by 2020. And we could only make incremental change at that point in the business without disrupting people's lives and changing people and how we were gonna run business.But now we have an opportunity to, we change everything.

Juliet: That's a sign of a true entrepreneur to see opportunity in crisis. 

Bruce: The greatest company of our life came out of the Great Depression. The greatest businesses that run the world, now, came out of the Great Depression. the phoenix, rising from the ashes. That was my message to my people. it was scary of course, 'cause we had no revenue.

People were jumping off like the side of a sinking ship because they have to take care of their families [00:30:00] and, we have no revenue and how is Bruce gonna pay? And so some of the most talented and brilliant people that have worked for 20 years for the business were jumping ship to take care of their families, or we were letting them go. So there was, the most difficult time. But from that gave us the greatest opportunity of my life.

The start of this was your question about culture, and I couldn't answer it because we had a culture before 2020 that was award-winning. We won about 60 awards a year for being a great business. We wrote a book, a New York Times selling book, Looptail, like it was about culture and how culture drives business. That ended, not by my choice. I remember when COVID started escalating and people said, Morocco's closed. I'm like, what? Morocco's not an amusement park.

How can a country close? Like suddenly we went from living life to a bad Will Smith movie where countries were popping up and passengers were stranded all over the world, and who knew that could ever happen? But how are you gonna, internalize that? And how are you gonna come back better on the other side?

And our culture was the first thing that we were trying to preserve. But we knew it wasn't gonna be the same on the other side because now we have remote workers. We never had remote workers. Our culture was built around [00:31:00] offices and being together. Communities about people being together and our people fighting us not to come back and to work.

Juliet: How have you managed that? Because I, am always on the fence on this 'cause I love remote working, hybrid working, but I love seeing my team and we have the best days when we're together, but we also need time apart. How do you manage that?

Bruce: The first thing is don't be attached to an outcome is my first piece of advice, and don't hang on to the past. And it was hard to find people, especially the people we kept, 'cause we didn't make the best decisions every time on the people we kept. We made the best decisions in 2020, but when we decided what we needed now in 2022 or 2023,

were people that can think differently. That people weren't stuck in the past. Some of the old guard that stayed, can I get them past COVID? And the Stockwell principle where, how people deal with trauma, 'cause COVID was trauma. We were picking people and, laying people off and it was gonna impact people's lives and families and everything. But we were just trying to survive. And I got heavily criticized for the first time in my life before COVID, if you looked on, Glassdoor, I was the number seven CEO in the world.

And Tim Cook was eight, by the way, [00:32:00] of Apple. I used to brag about that all the time. and now, someone wrote a big story on, I got fired by Bruce Pun tip on Zoom. I didn't fire anybody directly, of course, but, how else could we get rid of people? But other than Zoom, 'cause everyone was at home, right? 

Juliet: I guess that in business in our lifetime, that is gonna be the biggest thing that happened to a lot of people. And I witnessed a lot of people who had established businesses that everything that they could assume from the day their businesses started, stopped and they had to change. But going back to that entrepreneurial phase, that startup phase, did you look at it as a sort of blessing in disguise that you had a new blank canvas to start again?

Bruce: Oh my God, yes. I can't express that enough. Like I got to restart my business with 30 years of experience. I was trying to survive in 1990. I'm trying to survive in 2023, so the emotion level is the same, but I'm way smarter.

I'm way more confident. I'm way more knowledgeable about my industry. I created our industry in the travel industry, but I had a chance to redo everything. It was hard for me [00:33:00] to get other people to be excited though. especially people that work for me. I have a very close relationship with the people I work with and they worry about me, and I couldn't have been happier once again. I was happy in that garage in 1990.

No one could tell me to do anything different. This is my destiny. And at that time, and coming outta COVID, I knew that there was no one else in the world except me. I'm the chosen one to bring us out of this. And I hadn't had that feeling, which is not a bad thing, when you're running that business.

But, my threshold for my business and my promise to my people has always been if we're not doing cool stuff, that I'm the only person that can lead us through, then I'm not the right leader for the business 'cause there's way better CEOs. That can lead us into incremental growth, that can lead a business, that are much better at everything that I do. and then, that's the other change because I came outta COVID with two CEOs. And I'm now, chairman, new leadership role, new challenges, very difficult, very emotional, but it's just a different path [00:34:00] for me. And if I don't nail it, the business will stall.

Juliet: Yeah. I love how passionate you are about it because you still have it even after 35 years. And I was gonna ask, actually, coincidentally, the question from the previous guest is the same one I have for you now is, 'what gets you up in the morning when it comes to your work?', Because it's tiring, it takes a lot out of you, you sacrifice a lot to be an entrepreneur, you have to give it your all and more. 

What for you, keeps you motivated? 

Bruce: Today it's very different. Like for me today is the people. So it's all about people for me. So, making people's lives better, but just the product, it's the people that work for me now. So my goal is to make a great place for people to work. So I'm not,there's no longer motivation for money or no motivation for free time. All these kind of things that people talk about at the beginning, or, I don't know, people say I wanna travel more. And I'm even, having this debate with my wife because we wanna retire differently. I don't wanna travel anymore when I try, I wanna be in one place for the rest of my life.

And, I've traveled my entire life of 300,000 miles a year, and so I don't need to travel anymore. And,when you get to that [00:35:00] stage of waking up in the morning, for me it's about, that we're doing such amazing stuff, such cool stuff, continuing to innovate that it's making people's lives better. 

And that's what motivates me, 'everyone that works for me is very happy.

We have very low turnover, but I still push myself to make their lives better and it excites me when I know that I've got a lot of gas in the tank and I know I can still give them a runway to make the lives better and make them better people. 

Juliet: People are totally everything. And I remember having on paper, the best job in the world. I think I got it very young at 29, I was head of communications for Chanel, Australia, New Zealand, flying up to Paris all times a year. I was like, my boss had left and I was in the right place at the right time.

and then the culture changed and it wasn't the best job, but on paper it was still the same job, but it was the people around me and the people make or break a job whether you are working next to someone in a coworking office or you're traveling with somebody or you are in your team or your clients.

And for us it's press and our podcast production clients, but people are everything. And it is a joy, but it's also very hard when it goes [00:36:00] wrong. 

But what would your question be for our next guest?

Bruce: I think, what the challenge for entrepreneurs now is AI. How human connection, high touch is gonna be so much more important in a business world that's being revolutionized by AI. I'm not afraid of AI, I'm- AI works great for, the style of entrepreneur that I am.

What type of leader are you gonna be in that new environment? Not what you are today. 'Cause it's changing so fast. And I, we could do a whole podcast on my kind of leadership journey. But, now I'm going back to 1973 a book called Servant Leadership.

And, even though I had elements of that, going through my whole like threads of that through my leadership journey now is it's never been more important to me to serve people. And servant leadership, Robert Greenleaf wrote this book in 1973, which is coming back to me anyways, and I'm giving it to my leaders about how we have to, be servant leaders.

Like we're here for a reason, that, and we believe that the leaders in this business and all of us are [00:37:00] here and we're answering that calling to lead people to serve. and that is what's gonna get us through, our culture especially, that'll build a culture. That will be needed and still make people's lives better, even though there's revolution upon us.

Once again, I survived so many revolutions, like whether it was the internet, which was gonna destroy the travel industry. Email, which was gonna destroy the travel industry. And then how about 9/11, how about tsunamis, how about the credit crash? In 2008, we grew double digit. All those years, I've never seen another company.

Juliet: and I've, I ask all the time. That has had double digit growth for 35 years. Like we have, excluding, of course the Covid years. before COVID, I say 30 years of double digit growth. I've never seen another company that has done that like we have. And the world will still throw curve balls at business owners, and yes, what type of leader are you through those curve balls.

Bruce: Yes. And also the audience you've engaged, who back you through change.

Finding new audience. And that's what, community Ship is about, where community ship is, about [00:38:00] everyone. community is about everyone, like everyone who touches our brand, not just our customers, which most companies are focused on, local people.

Our suppliers. Bringing people together with a shared sense of responsibility that we all have.

Juliet: it's such a good B Corp value, isn't it? It's not just your customer and your revenue base, it's looking up down the pipeline everywhere of auditing them, asking the difficult questions and all trying to champion yourselves to be better. Someone said to me, why would you bother being a B Corp?

You're a small service-based business. It's like 78% of the UK economy is me. So if, if we all try a bit harder to be a bit better, we'll all be better off.

Bruce: Yeah. I say that all the time because in our industry, travel, which got devastated during COVID It was so interesting during that two year period how the industry came together. This is our opportunity to get better. 

I had calls from some of the largest cruise company CEOs who normally hate me. And because I talk about anti cruise messages all the time, and we were having these conversations that, the industry can, come back so different and we have the [00:39:00] chance to change and finally lean into being this transformational industry that, an emotional product that travel can offer people. 

Juliet: So interesting you say that. There's a WhatsApp group that started in the UK by James Tracy, who's head of comms for Abercrombie and Kent, and he did it for all the PRs and it started at 10 people, 20 people. It's now, I think, a thousand strong and it's all PRS helping say, oh, does anyone know a journalist that loves golf in Edinburgh?

Or does anyone know the new visa regulations for Thailand? And everyone is helping everyone, and that is why I love the travel sector so much because it's collaborative and it's hospitable. I left Chanel for Shangri-La and I was like, God, everyone's so nice. do you know you're in hospitality now? Not fashion.

I'm like, and the penny dropped. And it is this wonderful moment of everyone's on the same team. This is great.

Bruce: Yeah, and again, you were asking about culture. our community ship, this is all defined by ourselves and coming outta COVID was about bringing everyone into our story, as opposed to, G Adventures before COVID was, we thought we were the coolest thing on earth, and we were somewhat, internal about how great we [00:40:00] were because, we were I don't know, we were just kicking goals every day.

Like we made very few mistakes from about 2013 to about 2020. We were just on a, this run, and it's hard to stay tough and keep a sharp edge and push change when you're winning so much. So I said that, but the number one thing during COVID that I said, let's not waste a good pandemic.

I keep saying, 'we're not gonna waste a good pandemic. We're gonna take this opportunity and it's going to be the greatest thing that ever happened to us. And I talked halfway about how people internalize in trauma. Some people, deal with trauma for the rest of their life, they can't get over it.

There's some people who internalize it, and, can deal with it. But there's some people who, when they internalize that trauma, it makes them stronger, more resilient, makes them tougher. They come out stronger, better, faster. And there's, those are three different types of people. And we realized that going through something traumatic, like COVID, where we were, as I said, and [00:41:00] I didn't know this at the time, there was different people who were gonna process that differently. And I needed those people on the other side, and we were picking people, right? Like as I said, it was like a zombie apocalypse where we had to, every department we'd have to go through who are we gonna keep and looking at positions instead of people was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. And who are we gonna keep to preserve our culture on the other side of this?

Juliet: I remember backpacking in New Zealand when I was a teenager and I, on the back of a hostile lou door, it said, experience is what you get after you've needed it. And it stuck with me because for you now, you've done it, you've gone through it, you're out the other side. You've gone through the eye of the storm and now you've built again. But at the time you didn't know that. And you didn't know it was gonna come out that way. So, I mean, incredible that you have built the culture again and rebuilt the business stronger. 

Bruce: And we're stronger, faster everything than we were before COVID, and everyone can see it. We're crushing it at the moment, thank goodness. And, as a business, I've never felt more confident. Like I really haven't. I was pretty confident in 2020, lemme tell you.

I mean, But to think [00:42:00] now, the level of confidence we have as a global organization and a leader in our space and the team that we have and the momentum that we have, and the group that we have pushing the business at the moment,it's like a surreal time really, for us. it's just, it's so different, but at the same time,it's amazing. It's amazing time in our history at 35 years.

Juliet: thank you for leading the industry with such an amazing heart thank you so much for sharing everything you have with our listeners, because anyone gonna be inspired by listening to you.

So thank you so much for your time. 

Bruce: Thank you for having me.

Juliet: If you'd like to contact Bruce, you can find all of his details in the show notes along with a recap of the advice that he's so kindly shared. 

 And tune in next week to find Neada Deters', founder of Lesse Skincare, her answer to Bruce's question on AI.