Part 4: How to Fund Your Resort (From Traditional to Unconventional)

This is the big one. The stage where most projects die.

It’s easy enough to dream up your perfect resort and find a nice patch of land. But raising the money? It’s brutally tough.

I know, because I’ve lived it. At Posh Outdoors (check out our new website), we:

• Tried to raise millions from institutional investors… and got shown the door.

• Pivoted to crowdfunding instead.

• Spent 13 grueling months hunting, pitching, being ghosted, and questioning our sanity, before finally raising enough to fund our first revenue share partnership with Skyridge Glamping.

It wasn’t pretty. But we made it. And now I’ve got the scars, the stories, and the lessons to share.

So buckle up. This is The Glamping Insider’s guide to funding a glamping resort.

Three Things to Get Used To

If you’re raising capital, you need to make peace with three harsh truths. Ignore them and you’ll end up tapping out early.

1. Rejection is the rule, not the exception.
If you’re not hearing “no” constantly, you’re not asking enough people. Don’t take rejection personally. Listen to their reasons, identify areas to improve your pitch, and get back on the hunt.

P.S. Getting accustomed to rejection has all kinds of benefits. From experience, it makes it much less scary to ask a girl out!

2. Shamelessness is a superpower.
Cold emails. Cold calls. Relentless follow ups That’s the game.

You’ll have great conversations with people, and then they’ll ghost you. Have no shame in pinging them five, ten, twenty times over until you get a response.

Some of Posh Outdoors’ biggest investors only came in after months of ignoring me. Persistence convinced them I was serious.

3. It always takes longer than you think.
I moved to Canada in the summer of 2023, fully expecting Posh Outdoors to be operating by fall of that year. 

We didn’t welcome our first guests until 2 years after my arrival. By that time, I was on my second visa.

I’ve yet to meet a single operator who was on schedule with their cap raise. Work fast, set deadlines, but be ready for a long slog.

Routes to Funding

Now, let’s run through the main ways to fund your resort—starting with the easiest.

SBA/USDA Loans

Don’t mistake “easiest” for “easy.” Getting an SBA or USDA loan is a grind. But, if I was an American resident working on a project in the US, this is the first route I’d explore, for two reasons:

1. It’s a proven method of funding outdoor resorts. I’ve seen clients and friends realize their dreams through this method, particularly SBA loans

2. Securing this type of loan can fund the whole project, meaning you don’t have to piece together checks from dozens of investors

SBA and USDA loans are facilitated by private banks, but they’re backed by government departments. The Small Business Administration in the case of SBA loans, and the US Department of Agriculture for USDA loans.

Being government backed makes them extra attractive for banks, as it means they don’t take on all the risk. This makes for generous terms. You can borrow more, over a longer term, paying less interest.

Crucially, they’re tried and tested routes. These programs exist to get projects like yours into business. 

If you want to explore these loans for your project, talk to Paul Bosley at Business Finance Depot ([email protected]). He’s one of the best in the space. And tell him Nick Purslow sent you!

Local Banks

The traditional route: walk into a branch, pitch to the manager, and see if they’ll bite. It’s highly dependent on your local bank’s risk appetite and whether they can wrap their head around your business model.

My one piece of advice here is to knock on as many doors as you can. If you’re spending the time making a killer pitch deck, you might as well test it on lots of people.

Private Investors

The halfway house between loans and crowdfunding. Think small groups of high-net-worth individuals writing $50k+ checks. Great if you’ve got wealthy contacts who trust you. Less admin than crowdfunding, but more control ceded than with a bank.

Downside? These investors often want a say in how you run the business. Sometimes too much of a say. I know hugely successful operators who are being told how to do their jobs by investors who, frankly, don’t know their arse from their elbow (one of my favorite British phrases).

But, if you can find the right investors who will give you some breathing space, this isn’t an option you should write off.

Crowdfunding

Two flavors:

1. Equity crowdfunding – offering a slice of your business in exchange for investment. This is what Posh Outdoors did on WeFunder to fund our first five units at Skyridge

2. Rewards-based crowdfunding – selling perks instead of equity, like early booking access or discounted stays. We did this too, pulling in $245k of bookings in 24 hours when we opened Skyridge’s calendar to “VIPs” who’d paid $25 deposits

Rewards campaigns double as launch campaigns. But beware: if you don’t raise enough to actually open, you’ll end up with a mob of unhappy would-be guests.

Revenue Share Partnerships

And of course, there’s us at Posh Outdoors.

If you already own a business that attracts guests - say a winery, ranch, ski resort, or wedding venue - we provide luxury lodging units on a revenue share basis. We fund the units and do the marketing; you provide the land and infrastructure, and we both profit.

We’ve generated almost $100k USD per unit at Skyridge since opening the booking calendar in May, and we’d love to do the same for your business.

Sound like you? Get in touch.