Crowdfunding a Micro-Resort
By Isaac French
What is the number one excuse I hear time and time again when folks come to me telling me how much they wish they could develop their own Live Oak Lake but can’t?
Money (of course).
Eeeeeverybody thinks it just can’t be done unless you have either
a rich uncle, or
tons of previous experience and the ability to easily get a big loan from a bank
I don’t buy that.
Today I’m going to give you a case study of someone who leveraged the power of a bold vision and modern crowdfunding techniques to raise over $650,000 in just a few days.
That person is Tanner Cummings.
Tanner was part of Cohort 1 of the masterclass, and has been an inspiration from day 1. A year ago, he and his wife Melissa found a fantastic little plot of land in North Georgia. It was wooded, and had a 50’ waterfall on it!
The only problem: zoning didn’t allow for multiple structures (it was zoned agricultural).
Not easily dissuaded, they went ahead and bought it, just knowing and believing this had to be the place based off what they felt.
Looking back, they could’ve made an offer, gotten the tract under contract with a lengthy due diligence and additional option period, and then sought to re-zone (which I would usually recommend), but they just went for it (they got a fantastic deal) and it panned out!
After the close, they tactfully read the Comprehensive Plan of the county they were in (Pickens) and notated all the parts that matched their dream to build a micro-resort.
Tanner and Melissa approached the issue from the perspective of how to serve their local community vs how to extract as much as possible… and it worked!
After several meetings with the commissioners over 3 months, and multiple transparent pitches, they were able to win them over, and the land was successfully re-zoned.
This in and of itself is such a cool story, but it gets even better, hence the intro to this email.
Over the last couple weeks, they’ve raised north of $650,000 through pre-selling stays at their micro-resort!
As I outlined in my X post yesterday, here’s the playbook they used:
Test meta ads campaign to target customer avatar geographics/demographics, and find efficiency
Scale the campaign over 2-3 months
Collect thousands of email leads from people who paid $50/each to become “founding members” and pre-purchase 2-3 night stays a year in advance (these deposits alone paid for the entire ad campaign, which they scaled to $250k, so CAC was ~$0).
On launch day, open pre-bookings exclusively to founding members at discounted rates (~$600/night vs $800). These folks don’t hold equity—they simply get the luxury of locking in their stays early at lower rates.
Pure brilliance, in my opinion.
And they’re not the first ones to do this either… Kristie Wolfe raised over $400k last year for her Moon Pass Lookout, and somebody else just closed on almost $2M!
Yes, this is the Wild West of finance, and plenty of folks will scream foul. Yes, bad actors have and will exploit this.
But that doesn’t mean everyone will. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least consider this route.
Legally (though I don’t know for certain and you should consult an attorney for advice), I’m pretty sure Tanner and Melissa can use this money however they wish so long as they follow through on their promise to deliver the experience they advertised to their pre-booking.
But obviously there’s a ton of risk here…
And they’re going the safe route: not using any of it during construction.
But it gives them a massive advantage in raising the both the equity and debt needed, traditionally. They sold out 83% of the first year at an ADR of $640!
And of course, they’re also earning interest on it until they need it.
They broke ground yesterday!
A few of the founding members invited to participate in groundbreaking
Have already said this, but here it is again:
If you have an inspiring vision, the ability to communicate it, and the conviction to bring it to life, you’ll become a magnet for everything you need: capital, guests, on and on. The universe conspires for those with a mission