Making about $3,000 a month running scavenger hunts

Over the last few years myself and my wife have built and grown our Scavenger Hunt business to a sustainable size, bringing in a passive $3,000 a month.

We create cryptic, self-guided adventures in urban areas with a special focus on ‘hidden-gems’ and local favorites (quirky coffee shops, hidden bars, lovely markets etc..). We want people to experience a city at their own pace while enjoying all the benefits a tour from a local might have to offer. Customers complete the trails via their favorite messaging platform (currently just supporting FB Messenger - ugh, I know - but expanding our offering to SMS, WhatsApp and our own Web App soon) and can compete on global leader boards or challenge friends.

The $3,000 a month is made up of our 16 (to date) ‘public trails’ we have set up in a few cities around the world. Each trail brings in its own share of regular income with customers paying on a ‘per team’ basis. We still spend our time answering the occasional support query, fixing software bugs and dreaming up new features but individually, these trails run themselves.

The rest of our income is from our work producing custom trails for corporate clients, small scale events and a few unique experiences (even marriage proposals!). We really love working on these custom projects and have started to pivot to this being the core product we offer.

During COVID however, our business took a nose dive and we were forced to make some quick decisions. We revamped out internal trail building tool and spun out a version for the public to use. This happened around Easter and we were overwhelmed by the response. Within the first few weeks we had over 450 personal trails made by people in Australia, The UK, America and even Iceland!

This opened up a great new business model but ultimately, due to our work perfecting our trail builder, it has meant that we are now in a position to onboard ‘Trail Creators’ from cities all around the world with a revenue share model! We want to offer those who are knowledgeable and passionate about their local area a fantastic passive income stream, just like we have managed to create! Once you get the hang of it, it takes about a week to put together a good trail and once launched , all that’s needed is a monthly check to see if everything’s running smoothly, the rest pays for itself (my apologies to those who view passive as zero work).

Our dream is for the platform to provide a sustainable monthly income to many many creators around the world and from all walks of life. If you like the idea of getting creative and are a sucker for a cryptic challenge, drop me a message or check out the platform (https://urbanhunt.co) for yourself.

Thankfully as lockdown has started to relax (for now) we are almost back to normal operating levels (it’s a great way to enjoy the outdoors while staying safe) and have already had considerable interest from a few past players who now want to build trails. We’re trying our best to keep this business self-sustainable, have no outside investors (we answer only to ourselves) and would really love others to join us on this journey.