Justin Smith

I rebuild messy service businesses.

The product first, then the demand, then the pricing, then the software that holds it together. I do all four myself. Right now I run operations, marketing, and sales for a multi-site outdoor recreation company in Idaho, and I wrote the platform it runs on.

Justin Smith and four Adventure Idaho guides in drysuits and helmets sitting in a raft on the Salmon River in morning light, talking through a training run.
Training the Salmon River crew. Multiple bases, one season, 44 people at peak.

What I actually do

Most operators are either a systems person or a growth person. The work I do needs both, because a demand engine pointed at an inconsistent product just manufactures bad reviews, and a beautifully run operation nobody can find doesn't survive either.

So the sequence matters. Standardize the product so it's the same every time. Build demand where there wasn't any. Price for the demand once it exists. Then build the operating system so growth doesn't turn into chaos, and so the business stops depending on whoever happens to remember everything.

Work

A raft full of teenagers and guides dropping through a whitewater rapid, paddles raised, water breaking over the bow.

Where I'm useful

Vertical software for experiential and outdoor hospitality, and the multi-unit operators it serves. The same four problems repeat across all of them: seasonal labor in towns nobody wants to commute to, capacity gated by permits or physical constraints, inventory that perishes nightly, and an operation that lives in one person's head. I have run all four at once, and built the system that answers them.

The transferable part isn't rafting. It's that booking software solved the transaction and left the operation unbuilt, which is the seam I think is worth building into.

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