The next question was a dull one. The stuff of spreadsheets, which I find a mind-numbing, dull necessity. It took some pretty creative writing to make it interesting.
3. Has it been a successful choice?
Year one was survival.
Twenty thousand dollars. Enough to know we weren’t completely insane, but barely enough to prove we were onto something. It was 1999 turning into 2000, Y2K threatening to end civilization, and here I was running tours in the Sahara with a website held together by digital duct tape and prayers to the dial-up gods.
Twenty grand meant I could keep the lights on. Keep answering emails. Keep the dream alive for another twelve months.
Then year two hit like a sandstorm you didn’t see coming. Quick sidenote, I’ve been in more sandstorms (or Haboobs) than I can count, and I’m still excited to watch it coming and finally hit. A very Floridaman position, I know, but wait till you experience one, and then you’ll know.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
I had to check the numbers three times. Then check them again. That’s not growth—that’s a rocket launch. Suddenly, we weren’t a crazy idea scribbled on a napkin in M’hamid. We were real. People weren’t just interested; they were booking—Americans who were tired of bus tours. Europeans seeking something beyond the guidebook. Adventurers who wanted their Morocco, not someone else’s version of it.
We’d found the vein of gold. Now we were mining it.
Year three? We summited.
One. Million. Dollars.
The kind of number that makes you stop, stare at the spreadsheet, and wonder if you’re reading it wrong. The scrappy operation that started with donuts in a gravel square and a near-death march through a Kasbah had just crossed seven figures.
And then—here’s the beautiful, terrifying part—we just kept climbing.
Another million. And another. And another. Each year like adding another base camp on the mountain, each one higher than the last. The business didn’t just grow; it scaled. Every satisfied traveler became an ambassador. Every perfect sunset in the Sahara became a story told at dinner parties back home. Every adventure became marketing that money couldn’t buy.
Was it successful?
Let me put it this way: I went from unemployed in Florida with a severance check and a wild idea to running a million-dollar-plus operation built on one simple premise—that people wanted to see Morocco the way I stumbled into seeing it. Raw. Real. Unforgettable.
The best decisions in life aren’t always the safe ones.
Sometimes they’re the ones where you see Africa from Gibraltar and think, “Why the hell not?”
And sometimes—if you’re very, very lucky—”why not” turns into “hell yes” turns into a million reasons you made exactly the right choice.
