Not mentioned in the article: the market which this person was trying to enter is saturated with competition. These tour operators are bombarded with pitches for these things every day, and of course every one of them wants a cut of their hard earned revenue. It's a bad deal for a small business owner. They take all the risk, invest all the capital, while some SV firm comes along and kindly offers to scoop all the cream (margin) off the top.
So, this business failed due to a combination of lack of knowledge of the market and were not addressing a truly burning need for customers.
So, this business failed due to a combination of lack of knowledge of the market and were not addressing a truly burning need for customers.