I Know A Guy Tours: A Six-Figure NYC Tour Business Built Around One 'Guy'

About this episode

Adam Guy discusses building a successful solo private tour business in NYC, focusing on niche marketing and personal branding.

Adam Guy runs I Know A Guy NYC Tours, a solo private tour business he started after quitting a 25-year fundraising and marketing career during COVID. Mitch and Adam unpack what it actually looks like to refuse the standard playbook of growth, hiring, and operational scale, and instead build a six-figure business around one person and a defined niche. Adam stays in New York City. He runs only private small group tours, half day or full day, averaging about three and a half guests. He's raised his prices five times in four years and has zero plans to open a second city. The conversation digs into the mechanics that make this work. Adam treats the pre-tour phone call as marketing, drops a handwritten welcome kit at the hotel before the guest arrives, posts personal stories about guests on Facebook every day with a four to five week delay, and writes guest personas before he writes copy. He breaks down his actual numbers: 252 tours, 88 percent margin, 75 percent of business from word of mouth and social, an SEO channel that grew from 1 percent to 11 percent. He explains why he says no to food tours, comic book tours, and a second city, and how he refers those guests out without…

People in this episode

Host: Mitch

Guest: Adam Guy

Topics covered

• tour business
• entrepreneurship
• marketing strategies
• private tours
• business growth

Keywords

• private tours
• New York City
• business model
• marketing
• word of mouth
• pricing strategy
• guest experience

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: I Know A Guy NYC Tours, Trip School

Places: New York City

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