From Tour Aggregator to Community Hub: Evolving Beyond the Marketplace Model

Most B2C startups think of themselves as platforms, marketplaces, or products. But the best ones evolve into something much deeper: a community.

That’s exactly what Max, the founder of Adventuro, is working toward. What started as a platform to help people book adventure sport experiences — from kitesurfing and kayaking to scuba diving and mountain biking — is now turning into something much more ambitious: a full-stack ecosystem for learning, progression, connection, and belonging.

On a recent episode of The Levels Podcast — produced by Trophy, the gamification platform for customer growth — Max shared the behind-the-scenes details of how he’s building Adventuro’s community on two fronts: the enthusiasts booking experiences, and the instructors and guides delivering them.

If you’re a founder trying to go beyond transactions and build something people feel emotionally invested in, this episode is full of actionable insight.

Here’s how Adventuro is building community, and why it’s central to their long-term moat.

Starting With a Mission: Not Just Activities — Progression

Max’s motivation for starting Adventuro wasn’t just about access — it was about progression. Too many platforms make it easy to book a one-off tour, but hard to develop as a sportsperson.

“You end up on a kayaking tour that’s really targeted at complete beginners or families. But anything beyond that — where you want to learn, progress, get certified — it’s confusing. That’s where we come in.”

This insight led to the platform’s structure: clear activity prerequisites, skill levels, certification paths, and instructor filtering by awarding bodies (e.g., PADI, SSI). From day one, Adventuro wasn’t just helping users “do stuff” — it was helping them grow.

Building for Retention: Loyalty, Skill Tracking, and Gamification

Once the platform reached product-market fit, the team turned its attention to retention — how to keep customers coming back, staying engaged, and feeling connected between bookings.

💡 Loyalty Program

“One thing we’ve really worked on over the past six to nine months is: how do we keep customers engaged and get them to book through Adventuro again?”

They launched a simple loyalty system that rewards users with points for booking, reviewing, and engaging. Points can be redeemed for discounts on future experiences.

“It’s quite simple… but we’ve had really great feedback. It helps keep people in the loop and makes them more likely to come back.”

This not only improves retention, but also strengthens brand attachment — users aren’t just booking a one-off trip, they’re building a relationship with a platform that rewards their investment.

📈 Skill Tracking and Learning Journeys

Loyalty is one part, but progression is the bigger picture.

“We’re building out the ability to track your skills and qualifications on the site. So once you’ve done an activity or qualification, you can log it and see your progression.”

The vision? To create structured learning journeys across various sports, especially those that lack clear progression systems, like mountain biking or bushcraft.

“We want Adventuro to become more like a logbook — something you can use to track your growth across sports, not just book the next thing.”

This is more than a retention feature. It’s a foundation for gamification, where users can earn badges, hit milestones, and even compare progress across friends or local communities.

Max referenced inspiration from Playtomic (a racket sports booking app), which uses player ratings and in-app progression mechanics to keep users hooked.

“Most sports don’t have a clear scale. But we could define one — and make it fun.”

Turning Users Into Community

Beyond badges and logbooks, Adventuro sees community as inherently social.

The team is exploring whether to host this community on their platform or use external tools like Discord or WhatsApp.

“We’ve started to grow our social following, but long-term, we want more of the community to live on-platform… especially around skills, tracking, and earning badges.”

Why does this matter?

Because sports are often shared experiences. And without a group or guide, many people stall out. Adventuro wants to close that gap — not just by providing the experience, but by helping users connect with others in the same sport, skill level, or local area.

“Most people who love one adventure sport also love others. We want to support that cross-sport connection.”

The Other Side of Community: Empowering Partners

Building community isn’t just about the end users. Adventuro’s second pillar is its partner network: the guides, instructors, clubs, and schools who run the actual activities.

And here, the company is doing something special.

“We’ve got a really strong B2B community of all of our guides, instructors, activity schools. They’re super passionate — and we know most of them on a first-name basis.”

Some of Adventuro’s proudest moments have come from partners booking each other’s courses through the platform — like mountain bike coaches learning from more senior instructors. It’s a self-reinforcing network.

🔁 Referral Between Partners

Partners have even started referring overflow bookings to other centers via Adventuro when they’re full — which is a huge validation of trust.

“We’ve seen cases where one provider sends customers they can’t take to another partner. That’s community. That’s network effect.”

🧰 Partner Tools & Dashboards

To support this network, Adventuro recently launched a full-featured partner dashboard. Instructors can now:

• Manage their listings
• Track bookings
• Communicate with customers
• Edit prerequisites and certifications

“It’s probably the more sophisticated part of the platform — the bit the customers don’t see.”

They’re now exploring community tools just for providers, like a Slack or WhatsApp group to foster idea sharing, referrals, and product feedback.

“Often these partners aren’t competing — they’re teaching different sports or are in different regions. So we can actually help connect them.”

Looking Ahead: Clubs, Trips, and Local Communities

Max and his team are already laying the groundwork to go even deeper into community-building — particularly by supporting clubs (e.g., sailing or diving clubs) and multi-day trips.

“We’ve started listing club events and intro sessions — they see us as a great way to find new members.”

And on the consumer side, they’re building more multi-day sports-focused trips — the kind of experiences that bring people together in-person and deepen their commitment to the sport (and to Adventuro).

“We want to support people across the full lifecycle of their sport. Not just the first session.”

Final Thoughts

Community isn’t a feature. It’s a strategy.

And for Adventuro, it’s a natural evolution of their mission: helping people go beyond casual adventure into lifelong progression, and making them feel like they belong while they do it.

Whether it’s loyalty points, skill tracking, Discord groups, or instructor referrals, every piece is building toward something more valuable than a transaction.

A tribe.

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