NASE News

Self-Employed Expeditions

Originally from Germany, I attended Harvard College and Harvard Business School before working as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company for several years. Despite the jet-setting career, my heart was always with outdoor adventure – particularly mountaineering and ultra endurance pursuits. At the end of 2015 I decided to leave behind the business world to focus full-time on climbing and running mountains. Over time, my cumulative experiences in the mountains, as a guide, and in business morphed into me launching AWExpeditions: an expedition company for women, by women.

When and why did you join NASE?

I joined the NASE in September 2022. I was at an inflection point; AWExpeditions was a passion project that was becoming too large to be sustainable. I needed to decide if I wanted to call it quits, or go all in.

What inspired you to enter the field you are in?

That is a hard question to answer because I am in many fields. I am a mountaineer, a guide, an adventure athlete, a photographer and storyteller, an MBA, an entrepreneur, and so many more things. The reason that I decided to go all in on forging my own professional path in the mountaineering space is because I care deeply about the transformative power of mountaineering and sharing it with other women. And, thanks to my training at Harvard Business School and Bain & Company as a consultant, I have confidence in my ability to build a business.

When and why did you start your business?

The idea for AWExpeditions (or AWE for short, like the first syllable in ‘awe-inspiring’) was born in 2014 while I was solo on Aconcagua. Aconcagua is the second tallest of the Seven Summits, located in the Andes of Argentina, and my presence on the mountain as a solo woman evoked strong reactions both in other climbers and amongst the local guides and staff. That seemed both surprising and unnecessary to me. Instead of simply lamenting the sexism that I encountered, I decided to do something about it: I started AWExpeditions as a mountaineering company for women, by women.

How do you market your business?

AWExpeditions’ initial market presence grew out of my personal brand as a mountain athlete, and out of my advocacy for women empowerment. In the early days most of AWE’s marketing was via personal connections and word of mouth. Nowadays the focus of our marketing efforts still rests on social media – Instagram primarily, as well as a few Facebook groups.

What challenges have you faced in your business? How have you overcome them?

Since AWE grew out of my personal brand, my biggest challenge has been to scale the business without my own capacity becoming a bottle neck. Since many of AWE’s early guests had a personal connection to me, the expectation was initially that I would personally guide each expedition. As AWExpeditions grows, that clearly is not sustainable. It’s why I have worked hard to pivot AWE away from ‘expeditions with Sunny Stroeer’ to ‘supportive, empowering expeditions for women, by women’.

Do you have any employees?

I have one (wonderful) year-round part-time employee at this point, and several terrific expedition leaders who are in-house employees but only work specific times of the year on their scheduled expeditions. I would love to get to a point where there are two year-round full-time roles that could alleviate my personal workload more and – but to support the salaries that those roles require, AWE needs to scale more.

What’s your schedule like, what’s a typical day for you?

This is a cliché answer: I truly don’t have a typical day. Part of that has to do with the fact that AWExpeditions is not the only business I run. I also co-own and manage Dreamland Safari Tours, a large hiking guide service based out of Southern Utah with 20 employees and around 6,000 annual guests. In addition I also serve as the executive director of the Summit Scholarship Foundation, and I’m a professional adventure athlete and photographer – the latter of which is the ultimate manifestation of self-employment. To say that my plate is full is an understatement – but then I try to remind myself that other people manage to juggle kids and career; I merely juggle a few adjacent career tracks.

If you’d like to gain insight into my schedule… well. I have many weeks if not months each year where I am entirely off-grid because I am either guiding an expedition, or out on an athlete/photographer adventure like the Iditarod Trail Invitational in March. When I am at my desk, I typically work from 8 in the morning until well into the night, on whatever business and issue is the most important and urgent at the time. Unfortunately, that means a lot of task switching which is not ideal.

What’s the best thing about being self-employed?

I love being able to determine my own schedule, but the biggest perk of being self-employed is the creativity that goes along with it. The ability to direct my path, and the path of the businesses that I have my hands in, is satisfying and enriching – at least in the intellectual sense of the word.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received from a client?

AWExpeditions has lots of amazing, heartfelt testimonials from past climbers. That said, the most heart-warming compliment I have received and continue to receive is to see the mother of an adult AWExpeditions alumna sing AWE’s praise in online communities even years after her (again, adult!) daughter’s experience with AWE. If that’s not a real compliment, then I don’t know.

What’s the most important piece of advice you would give to someone starting their own business?

You should be in love with the idea of running a business more than with the idea of whatever it is that you are building the business around – in my case, mountaineering. Building and managing a business is hard, and in some ways it doesn’t matter if you’re running a guide service or a dry cleaning store (I have done both) – the desk-based and administrative elements are very similar same for all small businesses no matter the product or service that your business is built around. Running an expedition company doesn’t mean that I am running expeditions; it means that I am dealing with insurance and permitting, organizing logistics, building a website, marketing trips, training expedition leaders, and answering customer questions.

Which NASE member benefit is most important to you?

This may be an odd one but my decision to invest even just $120 in a professional membership was an important step for me affirming that I was serious about my path as a small business owner. In addition, the ability to apply for a Growth Grant and the term life insurance included with the membership were big factors in my decision to join.

Any other information you would like to share?

Running a small business is hard, it’s exciting, and it’s volatile. What’s more: our expectations shape outcomes – the validity of the Pygmalion effect has been well-established. As a self-employed small business owner I take that to meant the following: your dreams will become your reality, no matter if they’re nightmares or dreams where you can fly. Better be deliberate about what those dreams look like!