I spent years scaling tech startups — navigating funding rounds, product pivots, and everything in between. If there’s one lesson that stuck with me, it’s this:
You have to run lean, and ROI has to guide every decision.
This isn’t just a startup principle, either. It’s a survival strategy, and it applies just as powerfully to destinations. Whether you’re leading a small tourism bureau, running a museum, or trying to put your town on the map, the strategies that help startups grow fast and smart can help you do more with less.
In the startup world, “lean” doesn’t just mean cutting costs. It’s about focusing resources only on what creates real impact. Every dollar and every hour must serve a clear purpose.
Imagine a startup with a small team deciding between:
I always picked the second option because it’s measurable and tied directly to growth.
For destinations, this means asking tough questions about every marketing effort. That beautiful brand video might win awards, but does it lead to hotel bookings? That brochure in a visitor center three towns over — is anyone picking it up and acting on it?
A lean approach forces you to prioritize efforts that lead to “heads in beds” or real visitor spending. It’s less about trimming for the sake of cutting and more about concentrating on what actually works.
ROI (Return on Investment), is a simple concept: how much money you get back for the money you spend. When I worked in startups, we tracked this obsessively with metrics like:
Startups cut anything that doesn’t deliver a positive ROI.
At one tech startup, I was responsible for building the growth engine that had to compete with a legal industry giant — a company with massive brand recognition and deep pockets. On paper, we shouldn’t have been able to keep up. But by focusing relentlessly on ROI, we did.
In just twelve months, I grew organic traffic more than 1,200%, turned a handful of Google rankings into a plethora of high-value positions, and built an engine that drove over $3.5M in closed revenue directly from search.
I didn’t try to win on volume. The market leader still had thousands more rankings. But our keywords were worth four times more on average, because they were the ones that converted. That’s ROI in action. I proved that with the right focus, a smaller player can turn visibility into real dollars and compete far above its weight class.
For destinations, ROI is about linking marketing to real-world outcomes:
If you’re reporting impressions and likes instead of dollars and visits, you’re looking at vanity metrics—numbers that look good but don’t pay the bills. Switching to ROI-focused reporting makes sure your limited resources are fueling growth.
A product—or a destination—that no one knows about might as well not exist. In tech, we say done is better than perfect because an imperfect product that people can use is more valuable than a perfect one no one sees.
It was common practice to release a basic version of an app or software to start gaining users and feedback, rather than waiting a year to make it perfect. You have to start somewhere. The faster you start getting feedback, the faster you can validate (or debunk) assumptions and move toward paying customers.
Destinations fall into the “perfection trap” all the time: spending six months crafting the perfect campaign or redesigning a website before publishing any content. Meanwhile, travelers are searching for “best weekend getaways near Chicago” or asking ChatGPT, and your destination isn’t showing up.
Distribution means making sure your stories and information appear where travelers are looking:
If your charming mural walk or hidden hiking trail isn’t findable online, visitors will never know it exists. Even a simple blog post or Google Maps update today beats waiting for a full, polished campaign six months from now.
Most destinations think of marketing as a funnel, which is a straight path. Someone hears about your town, decides to visit, has their experience, and then… the journey ends. They slide out of the funnel, and if you want another visitor, you start all over again—new ads, new campaigns, new spend.
That’s expensive. Acquiring a new visitor almost always costs more than bringing back someone who already knows and loves you. Startups know that retaining and re-engaging an existing customer is cheaper—and often more profitable—than constantly chasing new ones.
A flywheel flips that equation in your favor. Think of a spinning wheel, where every visitor you attract gives it a push, and the momentum carries forward. Instead of losing all that energy when a visitor leaves, the flywheel turns them into a growth engine:
Every repeat visit or referral costs you less than the first one because the relationship is already built. That’s the beauty of a flywheel: it compounds. Over time, you spend fewer marketing dollars to get more visits because your existing visitors are doing some of the work for you.
Startups thrive this way. They want a user who renews, upgrades, and tells their friends, because retaining and growing an existing customer is cheaper than buying attention from scratch.
Destinations can do the same by:
Funnels spend. Flywheels save and compound. For a small destination with a tight budget, this is the difference between marketing that drains resources and marketing that builds momentum year after year.
The companies that break through—whether in tech or tourism—aren’t the ones trying to be everything to everyone. They’re the ones that own what makes them uniquely valuable, even if it seems small at first.
I worked with a logistics company going up against giants like UPS and FedEx. Competing on speed, price, or reach was nearly impossible—they were outspent at every turn. But we discovered the thing their competitors couldn’t replicate. They actually answered the phone.
When you called, a live person picked up. Not only that—they would personally track your package if there was an issue. Sure, they had great technology and an extensive carrier network. But their authentic advantage was human connection and availability.
By leaning all the way into that, they built loyalty their competitors couldn’t touch. Their customers didn’t want “cheapest” or “fastest.” They wanted someone they could reach and trust.
Destinations win the same way. You don’t need to be the next Nashville or New Orleans to attract visitors. You just need to be the only you.
Those details are your authentic edge. And authenticity has a double benefit:
Lean into the experiences and quirks that make your destination memorable. Authenticity is what turns a first-time visitor into someone who tells everyone they know, “You have to go there.”
Startups and destinations aren’t so different. Both are fighting for attention in noisy markets, and both survive by focusing on what works.
The destinations that thrive are lean, ROI-driven, and relentlessly authentic. If you want your destination to compete with big cities, take a page from the startup playbook:
Growth doesn’t come from looking bigger.
It comes from acting smarter.
