It’s All About the Experience: Park Hill’s Jim Chesebro aims to be memorable with his new company, Tentiko
A Q&A with Editor Erin Vanderberg
Tentiko is in the business of creating experiences through activities, workshops and tours. Tell me about the process of growing your business?
I had the idea of creating a marketplace for local, authentic experiences a couple of years ago. It struck me that there was a big gap there for several reasons. The economy and shifts in cultural norms meant that people are buying fewer “things”. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I was buying less “stuff” and so were the people that I hang out with. And the reality is that we get a way bigger value out of dollars spent on experiences because we are creating memories.
I was also influenced by Rachel Botsman’s book “What’s Mine is Yours” and the collaborative consumption movement. Basically, the premise is that we have all of these barely used assets lying around the house and that we can sell access to those things (car sharing, AirBnB, etc.). I loved those ideas and starting thinking about what other under-used assets people had that they could sell to make a second income. I started thinking that they could sell their knowledge, passion and expertise in the form of “experiences” that they could craft for other people to buy.
That’s about as far as I got with the idea before running it past my co-founder Cyd Crouse, who started helping me answer the question of “How to make it happen?”. We agreed that it was an idea worth pursuing and we’ve been working on it since.
What were you and the rest of the team doing before this? Was it daunting starting a business like this (web/experience-based)?
I was in product marketing with Digital First Media and Cyd was doing some consulting and living the good life on Curaçao. But our history working together goes back to the late 1990’s. Cyd was the founder of a startup called ccgenesis. I was a customer of theirs when I was managing our e-commerce at Gaiam. I then joined Cyd at ccgenesis. She left to work with Whole Foods Market and I went to work for Corporate Express, but we reconnected in 2007 when she brought me back to work for Gaiam (she’d returned to be President of Gaiam’s direct division). We reconnected to pursue this project in late spring of 2012.
I see that Park Hill’s Jonathon Stalls of Walk2Connect is one of your guides. Where do you find your hosts and do you think that the model will self-generate new hosts?
We found Jonathon through a referral. Sometimes you get lucky! We love word of mouth but we also have an experience curator that is working for us. His job is to help us uncover those individuals and experiences that make our neighborhoods and city unique. Working together, the experience host and our experience curator come up with ideas, craft the experience and then get it up on the site. We have already seen people reaching out to us directly because they found us and want to host an experience. We had a great experience for Valentine’s Day – our guests designed their own cards and learned to work an antique letterpress. Then they worked the letterpress to create their own cards. In that case, we reached out to a few local letter pressers until we found the perfect one.
Is this program happening only in Denver? Tell me about your connection to the city.
We are focused only on Denver. We think that this is scalable, but we want to get the model right before we try to grow beyond our city. I’m originally from California, but fell in love with Colorado and the Rockies when I came out to school in 1990. During grad school at DU I fell in love with Denver-proper (and my future wife) and made the decision to stay in the city. My wife and I have been Park Hill residents since 2007. We’re raising our family here because we love the ‘hood, the schools, the businesses, old homes and the trees! What a neighborhood! You’ll catch my family riding around Park Hill most weekends on our yellow Schwinn Twinn tandem, our giant yellow trailer in tow and my boy racing his bike alongside.
We office virtually. Cyd still lives on Curaçao and comes into town for a week or two every month. Those of us that are Denver-based are working out of coffee shops and borrowed office space for now.
What have you learned, who have you met… what are your Tentiko experiences?
We have learned that Denver is a deeply connected place and that it is growing and evolving on so many fronts – beer, spirits, crafts, fashion, art and food – to name a few. We have met many amazing people – like Chef Mark DeNittis, founder of II Mondo Vecchio-Salumi, or Mark Overly, founder of Kaladi Coffee, then there are the great crafters – like Jaime and Amber from Fancy Tiger, Stu & Nicky from Ink Lounge and Britt & Ava from Banshee Press. It has been inspiring to meet people who are living their passion and happy to share it with the people of Denver.
Why the name Tentiko?
When we were coming up with the company concept we kept using the word “authentic”. In Papiamentu, the language spoken on Curaçao, the word for authentic is outéntiko. Outéntiko seemed like a mouthful so we shortened it to Tentiko which still sounds a bit like authentic. Anyway… we liked it, bought the domain and ran with it.
Finally, talk about logistics. How does it work?
Once we find somebody that wants to host an experience, we work with them to nail down the details and insure that it will truly be an awesome experience. We work on copy and photography and then get it up on the site. We manage the marketing and transaction costs, etc. The host keeps 80 percent of the price. Most of our experiences are about $40, but some can be more expensive if they are considered premium and have higher costs for the host – for example, making porchetta (Italian pulled pork) with Chef Mark DeNittis where you go home with 6-7 pounds of meat.
Our guests book through the site. We keep them updated on the details as it gets close to the day of the experience. The experience can be hosted at a business, a public place or somebody’s house. We see a mix.
Learn more at Tentiko.com or by calling 855-TENTIKO.