We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ian Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ian , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After university I decided to take a year off to travel the world. I went to Kilimanjaro the Himalaya’s, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and the US. When I went to Kilimanjaro the tents were leaking, the food was in a bag, there were no chairs, no pacing of group and only 3 of the 12 trekkers made the summit. It was a terrible experience. I also remember less than averages experiences on other excursions I went on. I remember thinking I could do a better job. This was when I decided to start exploring the idea of running a quality adventure travel company.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am 46 years old. Originally from Ireland and started going on adventure camps from the age of 8 and learned to rock climb and loved it. I joined the scouts and always looking to get outdoors on biking and climbing adventures. I when to the University of Glasgow for 4 years and graduated in 2001. Directly after finishing university I took a year to travel around the world and this was the best thing I ever did.

I returned to Dublin and started working, that is where I let my wife who is from Kansas, cut to years later and we moved to Colorado to live and work and live in a place we have always want to be.

In 2006 the idea of Ian Taylor Trekking: https://iantaylortrekking.com/ was born. In 2008 I climbed Everest at age 29 and have gone on to climb and lead over 150 above 17,000 feet.

The Ian Taylor Trekking mission is much more than offering high quality trekking adventures. Yes, our focus is on running the highest quality trekking trips by investing in the local people we work with. Over the past 19 years we work with the same teams year on year investing in them. We help our staff go to college, set up businesses and help them, their families and wider community. This is what drives us. We want to see our teams around the world grow, develop and be successful in their communities. We offer a concierge service to our clients, taking care of every aspect of their trip, from start to end.

In 2009 we built the Mount Everest school in Uganda: https://iantaylortrekking.com/blog/sponsor-a-child-at-the-mount-everest-primary-school/ and now there are 500 children attending the school. We have built 4 schools in Nepal, We support an orphanage in Tanzania and invest in micro financing projects for our staff and in the local communities we work in.

We have a import business called Ian Taylor Imports: https://iantaylorimports.com/ which support workers and investing in the people who deliver high quality rugs to our clients.

We are starting a 501c3 so we can support the projects we have started and continue to the work we started over a decade ago. The journey continues.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Although we think once we have a service, product or a funnel of customers we can cruise. The more I get into this business I have learned I know less now as things change continuously. I have had to unlearn behaviors of me knowing everything, doing everything. I have learned that outsourcing key aspects of business we are not experts in is so important. We can learn but it is so important to focus on the core values of the business and not be distracted by everything that is going on. I have to learn how to focus on the things I am good at learn about the other areas but hire experts to deliver change and growth.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2019 we had our best year ever. In 2020 and 2021 we had no work. This is why we had to pivot and set up Ian Taylor Imports, This business creates high quality handmade rugs in Nepal and can be shipped to your doorstep. We needed this made this adjustment as our trekking business requires people to travel all over the world and in the pandemic this was obviously not possible. It is important to be agile and diversified in business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://iantaylortrekking.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iantaylortrekking/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IanTaylorTrekking
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iantayloreverest/
• Twitter: https://x.com/Everestclimber
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@IanTaylorTrekking

Image Credits

@iantaylortrekking