“If you don’t sell your product or service, it doesn’t matter how amazingly awesome it is. You can figure out how to overcome most any problem if income is flowing.”

Fitpacking guides moderately overweight people on backpacking adventure vacations to stunning destinations to get fit and lose weight.

MO: What inspired you to launch your business?

Steve: I was a highly paid software contractor at an elite Investment Firm who was a stressed-out self-loathing mess. I sat in a cube all day enriching the already wealthy and facilitating profits for companies irrespective of their social responsibility or global stewardship. (To be fair, we also invested in excellent, upstanding corporate citizens if there was profit in it. [We were very good Ferenghi])

Whenever I went on vacation, I would go backpacking – a passion of mine. When I returned, not only was I stress-free, my clothes fit better and I weighed less. So I thought that cavalcades of others would similarly enjoy wilderness adventures and flock to backpacking trips in order to alter their body compositions. I was wrong of course.

MO: What issue does your core product help solve and how so?

Steve: Fitpacking is designed to alter body composition. You lose weight by all the energy expended carrying around all your food and equipment for a self-supporting week. Plus, you are limited to eat only what you carry on your back. There is no midnight run to the freezer to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

MO: What has been your biggest challenge as a business owner and how have you met that challenge?

Steve: The biggest challenge is finding clients. It is extremely difficult to break through the dense fog of well-funded weight loss advertising that permeates our create awareness of our service.

Perseverance is the primary tool by which we meet this challenge. While social media is a nice tool, I feel it’s rude to ask or expect our clients to do our bidding via social media … unlike pretty much everyone else in the world who see people merely as tools meant to enrich their largesse rather than as friends.

MO: What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for you/your Company?

Steve: We are expanding our selection of trips internationally. We now offer trips to France and Israel, so this is very exciting. It may not be profitable, but it is exciting.

MO: Where do you envision your company in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?

Steve: In 5 years, I would like a Fitpacking Reality Show to be manifest. In 10 years, I see Fitpacking as a household travel option, with name recognition much like Outward Bound. In 20 years, I envision a market penetration so pervasive, that aliens visit Earth solely to participate in Fitpacking trips.

MO:  Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?

Steve: I see myself as an enormous failure. I have a Master’s Degree from MIT, yet have not launched any publicly traded technology companies nor do I serve on the board of any Fortune 500 companies. Although my peers are well-respected, wealthy captains of industry (deservedly so), my car is 5 years old and I use Groupons. This should tell you all you need to know about any supposed success I might have attained.

MO: How do your competitors view you?

Steve: Competitors would view Fitpacking as a cool way to lose weight and get in shape … if they knew we existed.

MO: What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs and business owners? What do you wish someone told you?

Steve: Advice: Sell, sell, sell. If you don’t sell your product or service, it doesn’t matter how amazingly awesome it is. You can figure out how to overcome most any problem if income is flowing.

What’s the biggest risk that you’ve ever taken and how did it turn out?

MO: Do I look fat in this?

Steve: No, you definitely do not.