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Would you trade a comfortable life in the city for a spot in a trailer park? 

Joe Griffith did – and it’s the best decision he made. 

He used his expertise as a former Bain consultant and built Wander New Mexico, now the no.1 rated tour company in New Mexico. 

A decade later, he’s an independent consultant and runs it on the side.

The interesting part isn’t just how he’s doing both – it’s how one made the other better. 

Let’s go back to San Francisco in 2015. You’re at Bain; your wife is at McKinsey. What was life like then, and what made you start questioning it? 

Joe: We were living in a small apartment in North Beach with a beautiful view looking south back over the city. A decade ago, we were paying about $4,000 a month for an 800-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment. 

Every weekend, we’d get in Zipcar and leave the city. We’d drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge and go riding bikes in wine country or hiking along the coast. After a couple of years of that, we started realizing something. 

Why are we paying $4,000 a month to live next to work if what we actually want is to be somewhere smaller with a different kind of lifestyle? 

Around that time, we got engaged and started planning our wedding in Santa Fe. The idea started forming: what if we thought about where we want to live and what our life could look like? 

This was 2016, so remote work wasn’t what it is today. 

We started thinking about tradeoffs. We had savings, and we were young. There’s something about that moment in life where you feel like you can try something and figure it out. 

So we decided to leave, move to Santa Fe, and see what might happen. 

What was the hardest part of actually getting the business started? 

Joe: Before Wander New Mexico, I had a previous attempt at entrepreneurship when I was living in Dubai. The idea was called Yalla Eats; an Uber Eats concept before that model really took off there. 

I bought the domain, made a business plan, built out the concept, and worked on the logo. I did all of that work. 

But the one thing I never did was talk to a single restaurant. I never went out and asked them to sign up. I stayed behind the computer because it was easier. 

That experience stuck with me. When people think about entrepreneurship, they ask questions like: Should I form an LLC? How should I structure the business? 

And my first question back to them is always: have you talked to any customers? 

Usually, the answer is no. It’s always easier to work on the LLC than it is to actually do the thing. 

With Wander New Mexico, I did the opposite of what I did before. I had to go out and talk to restaurants – and I was really nervous about those first meetings. 

The very first one was with Santa Fe Spirits. I sent an email and we met for breakfast. As a consultant, you’re used to walking in with slides, so I was uncomfortable without them. I ended up making this one-page brochure, but it worked. They agreed to be on the tour. 

Then I started meeting with other restaurant owners. 

Usually chefs are busy, so you show up right before dinner service. They might say, “I’ve got two minutes, tell me what you need,” while they’re still cooking. That’s when the business actually started becoming real. 

The first year was really about creating the product, building relationships with restaurants, developing the narrative of the tour, and starting the marketing. 

But the key shift was getting out from behind the computer and actually talking to people.

How has running Wander New Mexico changed the way you approach consulting work? 

Joe: Coming out of Bain, I was trained to operate with high level of polish and perfection. That mindset is useful in certain environments, but entrepreneurship is a detox from that. 

Take the meeting I mentioned earlier with the owner of Santa Fe Spirits. I spent half a day preparing for that meeting because I wanted everything to be perfect. 

But when you’re starting a business, you can’t operate that way. 

Your business won’t move at the speed it needs to move if you take the same mindset preparing for the board of a $50-billion company, then apply it to a small startup. 

You must move faster. 

Another big thing I learned is that Wander New Mexico is actually more of a marketing company that happens to give food tours. I learned a lot about customer acquisition, like how people find you, how they decide to book, and how you build demand. 

Those lessons have been surprisingly useful in consulting projects. 

The last thing is learning how to be extremely selective with your time. At Bain we used to talk about nodes for value, focusing on the biggest levers that create impact. 

Running your own business takes that concept and pushes it to the extreme. 

You learn very quickly what matters and what doesn’t. You say no to a lot of things and focus only on the actions that actually move the business forward. 

That scrappy mindset is something I definitely brought back into my consulting work. 

And honestly, it’s one of the most valuable things about having built something yourself.

What We Can Learn from Joe Griffith: 

Watch the full episode:

🚨 Chart crimes! 

Recently, I read Greg McKeown’s book on Essentialism. 

The core idea behind it is to do what matters – only what matters and nothing else. 

It’s a great book, and I would recommend it to every strategist. 

But someone thought it would be great to “summarize” the entire book.

Now, THIS is taking chart crimes to another level. 

I don’t even know if you can call it a chart at this point.