We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sam Degenhard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sam below.
Alright, Sam thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Campfire Ranch was born out of an ongoing frustration with the existing camping options that I could find when living and working in Los Angeles. My career after college landed me in Santa Monica working for Red Bull as an event marketing manager – It was an extremely fast-paced environment with a small team, 60-80hr weeks and 50%+ travel. In the few hours that I wasn’t working, I turned my focus to spending time outdoors. Camping was always a part of my life since childhood and when living in LA, I used camping as my escape from the city. I bought myself a small home-made teardrop trailer while living on the west coast and used it as my excuse to get out easier (all my camping gear stayed in the camper so I could just hitch it up and go). When I started looking for campsites and public land to camp out on, I kept striking out. I found campsites that I couldn’t book except for 6-months in advance. I found public land that didn’t allow backcountry camping. I found some cool campsites eventually, but these tended to be so far away that I couldn’t make the trip with my schedule. This process was a huge pain point for me, but even when I did find some okay go-to spots, I found myself asking what I was paying for and was it worth the hassle. As I began to visit these places, I started to invite my friends from work. Living in LA was a lot different from living in Gunnison, CO and most of my friends wouldn’t sign up to join. I camped a lot solo but wished my friends would suck it up and join. Most of these folks didn’t have the gear to be comfortable, so while I slept sound in my camper, they complained and slept shivering in a music festival style tent. This is about the time when I decided to purchase some extra gear, new and used, to help support friends while camping. Letting folks borrow gear was a big step in getting them outside, I’d show them how to use the equipment and ensure that they’d at least be comfortable on the trip. The word started to spread within my friend group at work and more folks wanted to try camping with me. I still didn’t have enough gear for everyone, but between rentals at the local REI, we figured out how to get everyone geared up. I still didn’t have the perfect location to go to, so we settled on some dispersed camping options out near Joshua Tree National Park to make camp. I’d bring all the water, firewood, food, make carpool lists and organized who needed gear. This quasi event format seemed to work for a weekend trips and I got up to hosting about 40 people towards the end of my time in LA. While I finally wasn’t camping alone, this was a lot of work. I realized, both from my event work experience and efforts on these trips, that having a permanent location would be incredible. What if the gear was already there? What if the campsites were designed for our use? What if you could just show up and have everything you needed to be comfortable and just go camping? The seed for the idea of Campfire Ranch was formed and I felt I was “onto something” from this point forward.
Sam , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Sam Degenhard and I am an outdoor instigator. Ever since I can remember, my family and I have been gathering people for good times in the out of doors. The lifestyle I grew up in has allowed me to make a career out of my passion for helping people explore new places and new experiences. I was raised in a camping and travel family, my parents encouraged us kids to get out and explore as much as possible. By the time I graduated high school I had been to over 40 states and am so thankful for these opportunities. These experiences formed my career in the experience industry, where I planned, marketed and produced events both on local, national and global stages. Eventually these experiences took over and drove me to create my own brand that could be a basecamp for others to explore like I did growing up.
At Campfire Ranch, we offer incredible camping and backcountry lodging experiences for the next generation. We offer incredible physical locations, comfortable accommodations, frustration free amenities, onsite rental gear and an adventure concierge service. The components form up the foundation of our business model, where you can come out completely prepared or with nothing at all, to have an incredible experience outside.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Securing financing to build a physical business with multiple locations was and will continue to be challenging in todays world. Many investors feel brick & mortar experiences are dying, digital is the future. At Campfire Ranch, we actually feel that the digital world is disappointing, while we use it to reach out customers, connectivity doesn’t always mean happiness. When it comes to the outdoor hospitality industry, we believe our physical footprint is our value proposition.
At first we went into building Campfire Ranch real estate as our backbone. We though that we’d have to raise capital to purchase land and build physical accommodations. We found land that we liked, got under contract for a small fee (earnest money down) and then tried to raise the capital. After about the third failed attempt, we had to go back to the drawing board. In order to give an early stage investor a return, you need to provide equity or interest (sometimes both), along with an exit. We were trying to raise several million dollars for just one property, with no real track record, and a very low business valuation. So, taking this kind of capital on would give the investor a huge amount of ownership in the business before we even got going. We weren’t interested in giving up this level of business control and direction with the birth of our first property.
While we were trying to sort out the capital problem, we found a defunct public campground owned by a municipality. They were looking to clean the place up and we were looking for a starting location. We entered into a business relationship with the city and signed a management agreement for the park that allowed us to operate our business onsite while kicking them a % of revenue. Both parties win, they get a revamped park, full-time property managers and we got our first location. We knew this format was interesting but also not likely replicable given very few cities own camping-quality land outside of city limits. We still had work to do, but we were stoked to be welcoming customers and bringing in revenue. Proving ourselves to investors.
After hundreds of pitches to investors, we finally met a few key folks who not only listened but provided feedback on structuring the deals we were pursuing. One of these investors presented us with an opportunity on a property they were looking at for a family investment, but knew it would be too much work for them. We worked together to talk through different deal formats and ultimately landed on a land partner structure. This structure allowed the investor to purchase the land, cover the carrying costs for developing the land and then gave us the exclusive right to lease the property back for operations. We got a new location and they got a real estate investment with a ready-to-go tenant. Another win-win situation. But we wanted to be a real estate backed brand, right? The last part of the sentence is the key – we wanted to be a brand. A brand is a feeling and an experience, the customer could honestly care less if you own the land or lease it. So, with our brand as the focus, we found this opportunity to be the biggest win for us. We shifted our perspective and now focus on building our brand, how we do that on the real estate side is second to our customer. Once we discovered this format, we took the investment opportunity back to investors we’d spoken with and the magic started happening. We leaned on the brand and focused on getting the resources to grow that brand. Suddenly, that felt like something folks would invest in and ultimately, they did. We completed our first successful fundraising round at the same time our land partner purchased the land for our second location.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I’ll start by saying that we’re a small company. The team has been primarily me for the first 3 years of business, surrounded by amazing advisors. So while I feel we have a strong reputation, it’s just getting started. In the first days of the business, I was sorting through how to operate the business while also hosting guests. It was a run and gun situation, I was trying lots of things and simply focused on keeping my head just above water. What I realized right way, was that our customers kept my head above water. The people visiting our first location were so inspirational – the had somehow found us, paid to come out and were having an absolute blast. Seeing this unfold quickly taught me that the customer was the answer. So I started to ask questions and listen. I put myself in their shoes and tried to make business tweaks that addressed their needs, wants, stoke and challenges. We hold this mentality still, it’s all about the customer experience. As more people came out to our first location, we saw the experience and continued to replicate and expand on it. Folks started coming back, telling their friends, writing reviews and beyond. We spent less than $500 on marketing in our first year and we were packed. The happiness and stoke of our customers built our brand from the very beginning and will continue to drive our growth.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.campfireranch.co
- Instagram: instagram.com/Campfire_Ranch
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/campfireranchcamping/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/campfire-ranch/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ymk-UHFsIMxEPDXsShGMA
- Yelp: yelp.com/biz/campfire-ranch-on-the-taylor-almont