How I Run a $10M Tour Business in 25 Hours a Week

You are currently addicted to being the "hero" in your tour business, and that is exactly why you are working 70 hours a week while your growth has stalled. If the operations collapse because you took a four-day weekend, you don’t own a $10M business; you own a high-stress, low-margin job that occasionally lets you wear a CEO hat.

When I was scaling to $10M in revenue, I realized that my presence was actually the biggest bottleneck to our expansion. I had to transition from the person who fixes the problems to the person who builds the systems that fix the problems. Today, I run that same machine in about 25 hours a week of focused work. This isn’t about "lifestyle business" fluff or sipping mochas on a beach; it’s about high-leverage engineering.

Here is the framework for how to reclaim your time without sacrificing a single dollar of organic growth.

1. Radical Auditing: The 80/20 of Your Schedule

Most operators spend their days "firefighting." An unhappy guest, a guide who called in sick, or a broken booking link. This is reactive work. To get to 25 hours, you must move to proactive work.

I start every quarter with a "Time vs. Value" audit. I track every single task I do for one week. Then, I categorize them into four quadrants:

1. Low Value / Low Joy: (Admin, basic emails, simple scheduling). This must be outsourced or automated immediately.
2. Low Value / High Joy: (Chatting with guides, some social media). This is a trap. Limit it to 2 hours a week.
3. High Value / Low Joy: (Financial modeling, contract negotiations). This is your job until you can hire a COO.
4. High Value / High Joy: (Product design, high-level partnerships, strategy). This is where your 25 hours should live.

If you are doing $1M+ and you are still the one answering customer support emails at 9:00 PM, you are stealing from your company's future. You are worth $500/hour in strategy; don’t do $20/hour work.

2. Eliminate Your "Decision Debt"

The reason you feel exhausted isn't just the hours; it's the "decision fatigue." Every time a staff member asks, "What should I do about this refund?" or "Can we give this influencer a discount?", it drains your battery.

To run a $10M business in 25 hours, you need to eliminate decision debt by creating a Company Playbook. My rule is simple: If I have to answer the same question twice, it becomes a documented SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Your goal is to reach a point where your team only comes to you for "Level 5" problems—things that could structurally threaten the company. For everything else, they should have:

• A clear refund policy they can execute without permission.
• A "Service Recovery" budget (e.g., $100 per guide to fix a guest's bad experience on the spot).
• A hiring rubric so they can vet talent without your final "vibe check."

3. The Three Pillars of a 25-Hour Week

You cannot scale to eight figures on your own back. You need a structure that supports your absence. I focus my limited weekly hours on these three specific pillars:

1. Talent Density: I spend a large chunk of my time recruiting and mentoring. I don’t want "yes-men"; I want people who are better at their specific job (ops, marketing, sales) than I am.
2. Organic Engine Maintenance: Since 99% of our revenue is organic, I spend time reviewing our SEO health, content pillars, and conversion rates. I don't write the blogs; I set the direction.
3. Strategic Innovation: I spend at least 5 hours a week looking at the market 12 months ahead. What is GetYourGuide doing? Are there new flight routes opening to our destinations?

4. The "No-Meeting" Culture

Meetings are where productivity goes to die. In my business, we don't have "check-in" meetings. If it can be an email, it’s an email. If it can be a Slack message, it’s a Slack message.

When we do meet, we follow these three rules:

1. No Agenda, No Meeting: If the organizer didn't send an agenda 24 hours prior, the meeting is canceled.
2. The 15-Minute Default: Most things can be solved in 15 minutes. We don't book hour-long blocks by default.
3. Decision-Centric: We don't meet to "discuss." We meet to "decide." If we aren't at the point of making a decision, we aren't ready to meet.

By reclaiming the 10-15 hours a week most CEOs spend in useless meetings, you’re already halfway to your 25-hour goal.

5. Automation as Your "Silent Employee"

At $10M in revenue, the sheer volume of data can be overwhelming. You shouldn't be manually moving data between your booking engine (FareHarbor, Rezdy, etc.) and your CRM or accounting software.

Here is the stack I use to keep my workload light:

• Automated Review Collection: This isn't just a "thank you" email. It’s a sequenced trigger that filters for high-SAT scores before asking for a public review.
• Dynamic Staffing: A system that automatically notifies guides of available shifts based on real-time booking spikes.
• KPI Dashboards: Instead of asking my manager for "how we're doing," I have a live dashboard (using Looker Studio or similar) that shows me my margin, booking velocity, and CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) in real-time.

6. Managing Your Energy, Not Your Time

The 25-hour week only works if those hours are "Deep Work" hours. If you are checking your phone every 10 minutes, you aren't working 25 hours; you're distracted for 60.

My Daily Protocol:

1. The Morning Lockdown: 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM is for high-leverage work only. No emails. No Slack. Deep focus on projects that move the needle.
2. The "Sweep": 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM is when I handle the "in-box" tasks—responding to the team, clearing blockers, and reviewing reports.
3. The Afternoon Disconnect: After lunch, I am largely unavailable. This forces my team to solve problems independently. It also gives me the mental space to think about the $50M version of the company.

What I’d Do Next

If you are stuck in the "Founder Trap"—working 60+ hours just to keep the lights on—you need to stop doing and start engineering. Scaling to $10M requires a completely different version of you than the one that got you to $1M.

You need to ruthlessly cut the tasks that don't scale and build a team that doesn't need your permission to breathe.

If you want to see the specific blueprints I used to automate my operations and scale 99% organically while working less than 30 hours a week, let’s talk.

Book a strategy call here to audit your operations and reclaim your time.