How do you scale a company without losing your soul or passion?
Mitch Bach talks this week with Paul Whitten, founder of Nashville Adventures, about how a former combat veteran, Peace Corps volunteer, UK Parliamentary Fellow, and Amazon project manager translated the learnings from his winding life path into a fast-growing tour company built at the intersection of passion, profitability, and public history.
Paul identified a “Paul-shaped hole” in Nashville’s bachelorette-heavy market by blending deep historical knowledge with an approachable, beer-in-hand delivery style. We discuss why he rejects over-scripted tours in favor of hiring obsessively passionate subject-matter nerds (bourbon, ghosts, coffee, Civil War) and giving them ownership; how early growth came from soft-launching, the power of relentless relationship-building with distilleries, chambers of commerce, concierges, and DMCs (and the power of simply responding to emails!); and why enthusiasm, not hacks or ad tricks, is the true differentiator.
The conversation dives into scaling without losing soul, balancing founder-led guiding with team development, leveraging community partnerships and veteran identity, and experimenting with new formats like coffee crawls and XR-enhanced tours. We also tackle the harder edge of the job: the tour guide’s role as a public historian in polarized times, handling contentious Civil War and civil rights narratives responsibly, creating space for civil discourse on tour, and embracing risk, naivety, and “pirate” rule-breaking as essential traits for entrepreneurial success in the tours and activities industry.
- Connect with Paul on LinkedIn
- Nashville Adventures Home Page
- See Reality XR tours mentioned
- More show notes and takeaways on tourpreneur.com
Key Takeaways
- Build the business at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, and what makes money. (01:14) Paul’s “Venn diagram” gave him a durable foundation: history, people, and profit. That alignment sustains you when revenue is thin and doubt is loud. Passion is the fuel that keeps you from quitting too early.
- Soft-launch before you quit your day job. (05:42) Paul ran free weekend tours while still working at Amazon, collecting Google reviews, tips, and proof of demand. That test period told him the market was real before he burned the safety net.
- Don’t scale because you’re bored. Scale because the market is pulling you. (08:24) Growth should follow consistent sell-outs and real demand, not ego or industry buzzwords. Expanding prematurely fractures quality and culture. Let capacity pressure, not ambition alone, trigger expansion.
- Hire for obsession, not resume, and give people ownership of their niche. (10:39) Whiskey, ghosts, coffee, Civil War. Each tour exists because someone on the team deeply cares. When guides “own” a vertical, tours stop feeling scripted and start feeling alive. Passion-led autonomy scales better than centralized control.
- Scripts kill soul. Flow state creates magic. (12:49) Guests don’t remember bullet points. They remember connection and personalization. The best tours adapt in real time to who’s in front of you. Train for mastery and improvisation, not memorization.
- Kiss babies in real life, not just online. (18:56) Chambers, distilleries, concierges, and local partners compound over time. The payoff may take a year, but relationships create backlinks, business intelligence, and unexpected bookings. Tourism is a handshake industry disguised as a digital one.
- You learn just as much from bad leaders as good ones. (23:51) Paul’s military career gave him examples of both, and he chose to study all of them. Observing what not to do is just as valuable as finding a mentor worth emulating.
- Peace Corps scrappiness beats MBA theory in early-stage tourism. (24:46) Being dropped into ambiguity with no resources trains real entrepreneurial muscle. You learn to define goals, build teams, and iterate fast. Practical improvisation outperforms abstract strategy in small tour businesses.
- Embrace calculated naivety and pirate energy. (29:42) Over-analysis can paralyze. Sometimes you must launch despite the data. Safe middle-of-the-road offerings blend into the market. Distinctiveness requires risk.
- Never step on enthusiasm when it shows up in your team. (35:26) Ben’s obsession with coffee led to a whole new tour product. If Paul had said “stick to ghosts,” that revenue and differentiation would never have existed. Enthusiasm is the signal that someone will go further than any job description asks them to.
- Technology should enhance the story, not replace the guide. (35:55) XR and innovation only work if they amplify connection and context. The human guide remains the differentiator. Tools are multipliers, never substitutes, for passion and presence.
- Use dark or contentious history responsibly. Don’t avoid it. (40:16) Difficult stories (KKK, Civil War memory, civil rights) deepen tours when handled with context and care. Public historians can challenge narratives without alienating guests. Avoidance is easier, but courage builds credibility.
- Guided tours are one of the last public spaces for civil discourse. (47:38) In a polarized world, a tour group is a rare place where strangers with different views meet, listen, and contend with reality together. That responsibility makes the work matter more than entertainment ever could.
- Your competitive edge is responsiveness and reliability. (54:15) Answer emails fast, send proposals when you say you will, and DMCs will notice. Many competitors fail at basic operational hygiene. Boring consistency wins lucrative referrals.
- Conferences turn into real business if you actually talk to people. (59:30) Paul’s XR tour launch came directly from meeting the See Reality team at TripCon Charleston. That is what networking looks like when it works.