Outlier TV Episode with Mike Harris Founder of Canyons Japan
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Andrew McCombe:
Hey guys, Andrew McCombe here from Outlier TV. In this week’s episode, I’m in beautiful Minakami, Japan, where I’m going to be speaking to Mike Harris. The founder of Canyons, Japan.
All right, guys, we’re in a setting like this. I’m excited. Let’s go out and meet Mike. Mike Harris. Welcome to Outlier.
Mike Harris:
Cheers, man. Good to see you. Beautiful weather. This is typical Minakami winter.
Andrew McCombe:
Mike here in Outlier all forms of the game. You’re from an outlier place called Dunedin New Zealand. You’re six feet tall or over in Japan. You’re a redhead, and you’ve got dreadlocks doing canyoning and everything else, outdoor adventure in Japan. How did that all begin?
Mike Harris:
It really began in Dunedin; I started studying Japanese in high school. Back in the day, I was really fascinated with Asian culture. If you go back even before that, there was a show back in the day called, “Monkey Magic,” and they fascinated me.
So I started looking at martial arts. I started a little bit of karate, and then high school year got into Japanese. We had a great Japanese teacher, Mrs. Kawachi, and she really sparked out all the students’ interest. So I started there, got onto university, where I did Japanese as well combined with a commerce degree, majoring in business accounting and IT. After my first year of university, I had an opportunity through my university to do an exchange to Shizouka Prefecture, the home of Mount Fuji.
That was the first step in Japan. I came here the first time in 1992, with a bunch of mates that were studying together and loved it. Absolutely loved it. Every day was a challenge. You’re in a different culture, you’re learning the language, even though I’d had six years of language training at that stage, the official stuff you study at school, and the colloquial language is quite different. Every day was a great learning experience. And I was 19 in a new country. It was amazing.
Andrew McCombe:
So that was initially, that was for a holiday. That was for an exchange. Or had you started working at that?
Mike Harris:
That was just for an exchange. I was here for three months over Uni holidays, and the university had a connection with Lion’s Club over here. They set up a job for us and a homestay for us. I was working for three months in a guest stand with a bunch of my mates. That was a very different experience because the level of service over here is very different. A car rolls up, and you’ll go racing out, you’re bowing, and that whole thing was a fantastic learning experience. And having the homestay family who I’m still connected with today was fantastic.
At that time, I had these images of Japan, Mount Fuji, beautiful temples, amazing technology. But I didn’t really realize what amazing nature was here. And I hit my first foray at that time up into a Japanese ski resort and as a pretty avid skier from being a young fella. I went up and skied on the side of Mount Fuji. I was like, “wow!!! Japan’s got snow!” And this is in ’92 before Japan was known.
In 1998 was the Olympics when Japan was put on the map for snow. That was my first thought, “I’ve got to go check out more of Japan.”
I went back to university, finished off my degrees. And that was the end of 94. And it was like, “I want to go back to Japan.” I’ve been studying Japanese and business; I love the place.
In 94, I was working in Hakuba, and at that time, there were probably five or six other foreigners non-Japanese living in the town. It was still the end of the Japanese ski boom on this massive mountain, where they had part of the 98 Olympics. Every day it was like “powder paradise,” It was a bit of a dream of mine as a kid, to live on a ski resort. So I’d a hundred meters up the road where the gondola was, scam a ticket.
In other words, I’d ask people who were coming back down the mountain and say, “I’m a poor worker here. Can I get you a ticket?” And then just go riding for four or five hours a day and help out in this lodge at night. So dream job.
Andrew McCombe:
So initially, Hakuba, beautiful place, obviously. It’s busier these days with a lot more international tourists. How did you come to Minakami?
Mike Harris:
I was skiing one day up at Happo, the main mountain at Hakuba. I prided myself that I was quite fast. I was an amateur racer. I had these pretty long race skis and stuff like this. And one day, I pulled up at the top of this run, where they had the Olympic downhill. And a guy pulled up beside me, we both had the same race skis. He had all his gear on, his hat and his goggles and stuff like that. We were looking at each other, looking at the run, and this impromptu race just ensued. And it was like, “boom, come flying down.”
We’ve got to the bottom, and we both pull up at the same time. I pulled off My goggles; he pulled off his goggles. And it was this Kiwi dude, and his name was Chance. He was quite a famous groomer back in the day, used to groom for the Olympic courses and things like this from Methven.
He told me, “a mate of mine just started the first rafting company in Japan in a place called Minakami.” I thought, “ah, Minakami, sounds awesome.” That was the one and only time I’ve ever met Chance, but he told me about Minakami. But I had this dream that I’d love to go try to live in Tokyo, bright lights, big city.
A small town, Dunedin boy, I want to go try it out. In the spring, April in 1995, I came down to Tokyo and was there for a few weeks, living the life, going out, and partying all the time.
I thought, “this is cool, but it’s not really me.” I’ve just come from the Japanese mountains. I really loved that. And at one night, it was probably three in the morning, I had this epiphany, “Chance told me about this thing. I’ve got to go check that out.” So I rang up JTB and said, “can you tell me the name of all the rafting companies in Japan?” They said, “well, we only know of one or two in Japan. One of them was “Great outdoors.” I said, “that’s the one”. I got a phone number. I rang up this guy. I said, “mate, I’m in Japan. I’ve got a working holiday visa for the year. I’ve done rafting and lots of outdoor stuff as a kid. I speak Japanese.”
He goes, “come up.” So the next day, I took a slow train up.
Over the next few days, I went out and did a few days of rafting with him. I just fell in love. The first trip down the river, I think we flipped three times, had these gnarly swims in grade four, and I thought, “Wow! That’s incredible.”
So I said to them, “look, I want to train up to be a professional guide.”
My experience in New Zealand was just Scouts and doing river trips and playing in rivers all the time. So he said, “Yeah! man, I’m keen to get people on board.” It was only him and another mate of his used to come up on weekends to help out. So I trained up under him.
He brought over a bunch of really experienced legends of rafting and kayaking in New Zealand to help out. So I had three or four of these legends from New Zealand training me up in Japan. That was how I got to Minakami.
Andrew McCombe:
Fantastic. And your educational background, what did you study at Uni?
Mike Harris:
I studied accounting, a bit of management, marketing, I minored in IT, and majored in accounting. But at the time, they didn’t have Japanese as an option at Otago. So I studied extra at Massey University, and Massey was the one that set up the exchange.
Andrew McCombe:
And so you’ve got that as a background, and you’ve now got your rafting expertise growing. Did you then go and work for these guys “Great Outdoors” or a seasonal thing?
Mike Harris:
Obviously, rafting is a seasonal thing. You don’t really do rafting in the snow. So over the Japan summer season, I worked rafting. Then, off-season, I went back to New Zealand, went up to Rotorua, and did a bit of rafting there. I came back to Japan, did another summer.
After this summer I went to Australia, went up to Cairns. And at that time, there was the “Japan boom.” There were busloads of Japanese tourists every day. Those couple of companies there were both full on every day. I walked in there and said, “look, I’m a rafting guide. I’m looking for a job.” And they said, “no, we’re full. We’ve got guys from around the world that want to work for us.”
And I said, “I speak Japanese.” They said, “can you start tomorrow?” So, I started training. It’s a very different river from the river we worked on. It’s was a very technical river. I started training there and a couple of weeks later became commercial.
I did the season there and then back to Japan. It was always back-to-back summers, the endless summer, and the summer gig. And after that, I went to Nepal. Nepal season is slightly different.
There is a September to December season and then late February, March to June season, in the middle of the summer the had a monsoon. I was during the spring and the autumn seasons over there, with a Japan summer in between.
When I was over there, I got invited to come up and go canyoning, and there was a bunch of European canyoning guides who were setting up the first Canyons in Nepal. I was doing multi-day trips, but in between, I’d have a few days off, and I was at these mountain resorts, and they had all this gear. They’re like, “Oh, you look strong. So can you help us carry all this gear up?” Then I was carrying all the bolts and all the gear and stuff up with them and started going down and helping them rig up these courses, bolting. I thought this is really cool. And I thought there’s a lot of these canyons around Minakami because, on my days off, I’d go scouting around the mountains up here, I was like, “this would be a really cool thing to start in Japan” Because the Tone river, the main river rafting,
It’s an epic river in spring. It’s a continuous grade in spring, four amazing sections. But in the summer the water drops. They try and save the water for Tokyo, drinking water, so they don’t release as much. I was thinking, “What adventure could I create in the summer?” When I went up with Canyon, I was like, “wow, this is it. This could be it.” In 98, when I came back, I started a little canyoning operation within a company that I actually switched to, a company called Uncle Bear.
A Japanese guy asked me to come over and manage his company. So I did. I went to manage this rafting company, and I started bringing in all my mates, rafting mates that I’ve met around the world. And at the same time, I was going to start this little canyoning operation. There’s going to be my own part of something. I started that out, and it just snowballed.
Andrew McCombe:
So when did you take the plunge to do your own thing with Canyons in Japan?
Mike Harris:
98 was the year that I started out my own small business; I was a sole proprietor. The canyoning in the summer started to get more and more popular. After a few years, I felt I outgrown this operation and this base.
I said to the owner of the company, “look, I’ve built up your raft company from a two-boat to a ten-boat company, I’ve created this Canyon thing. And I really wanna go out and give it a good nudge.”
And he said, “yeah, I totally understand that, I support the decision.”
I changed my location, which was like a little shack up in the mountains that the boys and I put together, and that was owned by my wife’s family.
We had to start really going hard at the canyoning side of things, and we focused on just canyoning. Because there were a lot more operators coming on the scene and a lot of them were doing a substandard product.
The safety standards weren’t quite there and coming from New Zealand, where the safety standards are very high level. I just got a little bit disillusioned with the whole thing. I wanted to go out and make something that’s world-class and start again.
Andrew McCombe:
And not being restricted by their current operating systems.
Mike Harris:
Yeah, exactly. That was another part of the decision. Around 2000, I had my first kid around that time, which is a good motivating factor. You’ve got a kid on the way, and think, “I have to get out there and, make a good living and, provide for the family.”
Andrew McCombe:
Were you concerned at that point, was there a bit of fear that came up because you’ve got that pressure?
Mike Harris:
I mean, definitely. I had a pretty easy transition because I got to test out this product within a company I was managing to see if this is going to work.
I had a pretty good knowledge about the industry, working in lots of different places over a number of years. I had a good feeling that it was going to work.
Still, there’s always that thing in the back of my mind; I’m loaning this amount of money from my family or from my wife’s family to make this happen. There’s always that little bit of fear, but you just gotta back yourself. If you’ve got the vision and see that this is going to work, you just gotta take the step and take the plunge.
Andrew McCombe:
It’s easier said than done though. Isn’t it? When at the time, there’s a lot of emotion going on behind. How is it now compared to where it was?
Mike Harris:
It’s a very different base these days, knowing we started off just focusing on canyoning. We really grew that over a number of years, but a lot of our guides came from a rafting background.
We were doing packages where we were doing the canyoning, sending the rafting customers to other operators. Still, they weren’t providing the quality that we really wanted.
We thought, “all right, we’re going to jump back into the rafting as well, just so we can provide this amazing experience.” We jumped back into that, and then a lot of our staff were like, “Hey, we’d like to work in the winter as well, we want year-round employment.” At that stage, there was no one in Japan doing year-round employment. It’s seasonal work, employ people for the summer and then let them fend for themselves in the winter.
But one of the reasons I started this is that you get to a certain age and think, “all right, I’m getting around 30. Am I going to get a real job? Or, I’m going to stick in this industry.” And I wanted to create a company that could keep these amazing people in the industry for a lot longer, maybe lifetime employment. So we thought we’ve got to do something in the winter. So we started up the winter business like snowshoe tours, ski lessons. Before any of the inbound booms, it was 18 years ago, early 2,000, but there was a need for international experts and stuff from Tokyo to have lessons for the kids.
We started doing it on a small scale, and things just grew. The snow side of the business organically was growing. The summer was organically growing. We started to add locations; we did franchises and stuff like that.
Andrew McCombe:
Different locations around Japan, right?
Mike Harris:
I had lots of mates at their stage who were running rafting companies. And I thought I could set up the canyoning business with you and your location. I think it was a good idea, but I don’t think we were ready system-wise for the franchise. We couldn’t provide enough ongoing value for those franchises. They got a lot of value out of the initial training, the setup, all the equipment and stuff, the core set up and stuff that we did, but it was hard to provide ongoing value in sales.
So we just pulled back and said, “if you guys do need help, let us know.”
That was a good learning experience. It was too early for us to jump into that franchise thing. We didn’t have the systems in place. If we were to do that now, it would be different.
Andrew McCombe:
So you’ve gone from summer to winter, you’ve gone from rafting to canyoning, you’re out in the snowshoes, the skiing, snowboarding. What else do you do?
Mike Harris:
The Japanese are very seasonal. The middle of July to the end of August is summer, and that’s when you go and play in the water. You go canyoning, you go to the beach, you go rafting, and you do these sorts of things, but the shoulder seasons are very quiet because the Japanese are so seasonal.
Therefore, we’d built up a little bit of international clientele. Some were ex-pats from Tokyo, some from overseas, but it wasn’t quite enough. An international school teacher approached us who was a customer, and said, “Hey, I’d love to bring my kids up here.” And I thought there’s a market for this. I guess, coming from New Zealand, as kids, we had this sort of outdoor education, these opportunities.
And we tried to create some programs for these schools. We started by giving them pretty much standard rafting or a canyoning product. Just getting them out there and giving them some fun. That evolved over the years into proper outdoor education programs with proper educational outcomes, and soft and hard skill learning, and stuff like that. That’s one of the big parts of our business now. I see moving forward is going to be huge for us.
On a personal level, it’s something that I love doing; it’s you just get so much out of working with kids.
Andrew McCombe:
And making a difference there, right?
Mike Harris:
When you see the kids’ faces at the start of the week and then their faces at the end of the week, what they’re saying to you, the feedback, the review you’re getting; for these people, it’s been a transformational journey. It sounds a little bit cliched, but it truly is, and as a guide or a facilitator or instructor, just to know that you’ve been a part of that process, it feels amazing. The kids get a lot out of it, but we get a lot out of doing that as well. I really love it.
Andrew McCombe:
It’s interesting on paper, it looks like you’re going canyoning or rafting or whatever, but like you say, because it’s outdoors. It’s, I guess, I wouldn’t say risky, but it’s challenging. It’s putting people out of their comfort zone. And then by default, they’re creating a transformation over the period that they’re with you.
Mike Harris:
Especially the expedition-style trips that we do, which could be multi-day hiking where at the start, the guides are very hands-on, and you’re teaching them about things, and then you’re trying to facilitate the learning. And by the end of it, they’re guiding themselves as a team. And we’re not even there. We could not see them; we were just shadowing them to make sure that everything’s safe.
By the last day, leaders appear, and a lot of the time, these people are leaders that aren’t maybe leaders within the normal school space, or maybe they’re not the smartest kid or the most popular kid, but they find the element within the outdoors.
For me, that’s really cool. And it’s still a work in progress, we’ve been doing it now for about 18 years, but we’re still learning ourselves how we can make these things better. I’m looking forward to the next 18 years of education.
I was down in Tokyo the other day. I was in a meeting, talking about setting up a summer camp and some outdoor education. And one of the ladies said, “I went with you guys when I was a kid when I was 12 years old, I went up there, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.
And I still remember it to this day.
Having these people really affected on a really cool level makes you feel like you’re making a difference in the world. I enjoy that part of the job. And even on the normal tours every day, we try to add elements of that. The normal tours for normal customers, it’s about getting people out of their comfort zone and get them to try something they haven’t done before. And they feel a real sense of accomplishment at the end of that.
Our company’s motto is – refresh the world through outdoor adventure experiences. It’s about refreshing those people who maybe come from an urban environment where every day there’s sort of the grind. They get out, you put them into nature, and you say, “you have this connection with nature.”
“You have this connection with yourself, with other people, this amazing fun experience.” Life’s about having fun. You’ve got to have fun sometimes. And then you learn stuff about yourself; you learn stuff about nature, other cultures. That’s what we say is refreshing. We believe that, and you can see that in all our staff and the way they react and interact with our clients and our community as well.
Andrew McCombe:
And speaking of staff, you originated by yourself, you’ve now got how many staff?
Mike Harris:
It’s grown. It’s got about 150 staff now. It changes throughout the year. In winter, it’s about 150 because we have so many ski school locations now, and in the summer, we’ve kicked it at about 50, in two main locations.
We do a lot of tours all around Japan. We take Japanese clients overseas as well, but our main thing is our base here in Minakami and our base in Okutama, which is just out of Tokyo.
So about 50 to 60 in summer, depending on the year.
Andrew McCombe:
So from going from being a sole trader to a large company, let’s be honest, how’s that transition been for you?
Mike Harris:
It’s a learning process, and you make mistakes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes over time, and I guess the one that hurts the most is, you start a business with your friends, and maybe you have fallings out, and you never intend for that to happen. And the differences in where you want to be or what you want to be doing.
For me, money isn’t a high priority. And for some of the other business partners, money might be a bigger priority.
So you have things like that happen along the way. When you are running it with another mate or two other people, you’re doing a bit of everything, but as things grow, you’ve gotta be delegating and getting systems in place, get management skills and people skills.
I think we grew at a reasonable level but not exponentially. There was a bit of time to do that, but you can’t do it by yourself. It’s all about the people you put around you and learning. Even today, I’m always reading books, going to seminars, doing stuff online, podcasts, and talking with other people who have got more experience, continue that learning process.
Andrew McCombe:
How important is self-reflection when it comes to that? Cause you’re going through journeys yourself. It’s kind of like canyoning, I guess, you start at the bottom, level one and you move up to level 30, or whatever you’ve got. How do you self-reflect on that process as you’re going? Is there a natural process, or how does that work for you?
Mike Harris:
Originally that was probably one of my weaker points. I just wanted to go forward. Without reviewing things enough, but some of our staff would then say, “Wait a minute; let’s have a little bit of look at what’s going on here.”
I learned to go through that review process a bit more and take things into account and say, okay, “What’s the situation now with our staff? What’s the situation with our community? What’s the situation with our customers? What’s the situation with our environment?”
And put some real measurements into place and some feedback systems into place to get some good snapshots of where we are and then say, “okay, well, where do we need to move forward?” It’s a strategic process.
Andrew McCombe:
So as far as yourself personally, what do you think your flow is in relation to running a business?
Mike Harris:
I really like adventure tourism. I enjoyed the challenge. Tourism has different challenges. Running a business has different challenges, and running a business in a different country has even more challenges. But I enjoy those challenges.
The thing I like the most is going out and developing new products. Going out there and seeing an opportunity, and then putting it together and seeing that evolve. I probably liked that more than I liked the internal side of the business.
Even though with an accounting business background, I think my strengths are going out and developing stuff, seeing the opportunities, and doing new things. As an entrepreneur, as a businessman, you’ve got to realize your weaker points and maybe bring other people in that have those strengths to create a better team.
Andrew McCombe:
So would you say you’re working more on the business these days than in it?
Mike Harris:
Yeah, definitely. Over the last couple of years, I have been bringing in some other people, outsourcing some things. Last year, I brought in a COO. The idea is to have a lot of the internal stuff done by the COO. And that’s something that I’m probably not so good at that. I’ve created a lot of relationships and connections and put a pretty good strong network in Japan at lots of different levels now. It makes sense that I utilize those networks and spend more time developing different ideas.
That’s probably my forte anyway.
Andrew McCombe:
So in relation to those networks, like you are new to Minakami, brand new, you’ve been here 18, 20 years now.
You’ve got family, three kids. I guess, Minakami on its own, I’ve been here for 24 years, and it’s a real outlier for me. And it’s just where we are. I probably shouldn’t be as much as it maybe is, but it appears to be that.
Andrew McCombe:
How well were you received when you first arrived?
Mike Harris:
When I first arrived here, I was 21, young, dumb, whatever. I was a little bit oblivious to some of the things because I was just having so much fun. But there were definitely some signs.
We’re rafting down the river, and there were rocks being thrown at us. The local fishermen didn’t like what we were doing. They were like, “what are you guys doing? This is our river!”
A lot of the locals looking and saying, “what are you guys doing? That is dangerous?” There was definitely a bit of anti adventure tourism at the start.
But there were a few key people that were the support for us. They were the bed and breakfast owners, so smaller accommodations. The large hotels are used to mass tourism, massive numbers, and things like this.
They saw us as small operators, a couple of boats and a handful of people, but it wasn’t tourism what we did. There was definitely a lack of understanding. (Andrew: Because what was, what was the main tourism here before) Hot spring tourism. In the eighties over the bubble, especially large companies would bring up all of their staff, 300, 500 staff would go to these massive hotels, and they’d have a big piss up at night, enjoying, singing karaoke, and drinking. That was their idea of tourism. That’s what filled up all the demand around all these hot spring areas in Japan.
At the end of the eighties, the start of the nineties with the bubble burst, those glory days were over. Tourism was on a steep decline. And that was when adventure tourism came into Minakami. But the large operators, the large hotels, had this idea of glory days coming back again. They didn’t want to believe it. But the smaller operators said, “we can see the potential in this.” And some of them have been overseas. They started to support us, advertise us, do packages with us, help us out with local connections. If we wanted to put the rafts into the river here, they’d talk to the landowner or find out who that is for you. So those guys were really the key, they were our local connections at the start, and as things progressed, we started to hang out.
I met with a few of the younger crew around town. There was this young businessmen’s association or the young people’s association. I started doing some things, helping them out with some of the festivals. One of the turning points was when they said, “Hey, we want to do something where we raft from Minakami all the way to Tokyo Bay.” And we said, “yeah, that’s possible.” A bunch of the outdoor companies, by that stage, there were probably five outdoor rafting companies in town, got together. So, we started training them for rafting in Minakami.
We did this five-day journey, down to Tokyo with them. And every night, we were sitting around the fire, drinking, and talking about Minakami. They got to know us, we got to know them, and they said, “these guys are awesome. They really are thinking about the future of our town.” That was the turning point. Those guys were the sons of key business owners in town. They had a lot of influence. A lot of the things are controlled by all the older generation, but they were saying that, “Hey, look, these guys are awesome. Let’s support them.” Now all of those guys are in the city offices, having all these key roles.
After that, we thought we could now we could join the tourism association. All these doors started to open. Going out and drinking with these guys, and having this epic journey with them was the turning point.
Andrew McCombe:
So back in that time where you weren’t really accepted to now, the turning point, you are feeling part of the community. For someone who’s starting a business, they can be pretty daunting. They could pull a pen pretty quick on that. Couldn’t they?
Mike Harris:
I guess, the thing was, I had this vision. When I first came to Minakami, it felt like this is like Queenstown, it had this potential to become something awesome.
Because I had this vision, this is where I want to go; this is where the town should be going. There’s a word in Japanese, Gungko; it’s pretty hard-headed.
Other people would say, “no, you can’t do this; you’re going to get shot down here.” But my mindset was just, “I’m going this way!” People will have a shot at you and stuff like this, but they sort of bounce off. So I just kept on finding the way, there were a lot of blocks in the way, but I kept moving forward.
I see what needs to be done and just go for it.
Andrew McCombe:
Have you always been like that or only since it came to Canyons.
Mike Harris:
Good question. I didn’t realize I was Gungko, hard-headed. Possibly from back in the day, when I was a kid, I used to go out and do all sorts of stuff. I would pick flowers in the neighbour’s garden and go sell them up the road to another.
When I was six years old, starting off doing businesses, set up little carwash businesses, I set up a lot of parties. I remember in Dunedin back in the day, I convinced the local kid of the Catholic church to give me the hall because I was going to do a church event. I brought in a big sound system and charged people ten bucks to come.
So I guess I’ve always had these ideas. It’s like, “let’s try this; let’s go out and do this.” And then people would always tell me, “Oh no, you can’t do this because of this and this.” I said, “well, let’s find a way to make that happen.”
Andrew McCombe:
So you became a part of the Minakami community. And obviously, it is a beautiful spot for cameras and the outdoor adventure, what else can you do here?
Mike Harris:
Yeah, I guess those are the main things. The big theme for Minakami is water. The actual original Japanese characters for Minakami mean the water from above because it’s always been the water source for Tokyo.
70% of Tokyo’s drinking water comes from up here. It’s full of these amazing rivers, the Tone River, the second largest river in Japan, all these beautiful waterways, canyons, five massive lakes in upper Minakami.
The outdoor adventure is the big thing. It’s probably got the largest menu of activities in Japan, the rafting, the canyoning, the hiking, the mountain biking, paragliding, lake canoeing, pack rafting, river boarding. There are two national parks here, and Gorges is the second largest national park in Japan, and Oze is the highest marshland in Japan. The natural assets are just incredible. There are nine ski resorts, and a lot of them are quite small, but the quality of snow is incredible.
Everyone knows about Hakuba and Hokkaido.
Andrew McCombe:
It seems there’s a lot of history here too, and a lot of culture and hospitality as well.
Mike Harris:
Definitely, going back 500 – 600 years, this village was here, this was one of the old routes travel over to Niigata it was called Ichigo back in the day. That’s a part of the attraction of living in a place like this. It’s got such a deep history. Just up the road from where I live, There are some ruins, a village that was there 3,500 years ago. When the pyramids were being built, there were people living here, so especially coming from New Zealand, where there’s only 600 to 800 years of history of people inhibiting the country.
There’ such a rich culture. For me, that’s really cool. Sometimes, I’m out exploring in the mountains, and I’ll find an old road marker or something from hundreds of years ago that no one actually knew about. The exploration here is really cool.
Andrew McCombe:
And obviously, you have become more part of the community, not only family-wise, but you’re now part of the tourism body themselves. They’ve accepted you, and you’re now.
Mike Harris:
Yes. I guess I’m sort of a director of the tourism association. I’m helping them out with inbound. I guess tourism is always a double-edged sword. If you bring in too many tourists, it can lose its feel to authenticity.
For me, it’s about bringing in the right target markets, the right type of people, people who really appreciate culture and nature. It’s not just about going down and getting drunk in town. We’re trying to grow in a nice organic manner, and we don’t want to have a hundred times more customers, we’ve got a target, and we’re slowly moving towards it. So, yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
So just on that authenticity, how important is that in business? And like, have you seen some other operators come and go cause they’re, you know, playing a short game or how does it, how’s it been?
Mike Harris:
Yeah, I think authenticity is everything. Your customers can feel that. If your staff isn’t being authentic, your customers can see right through it. And for the community as well, they can see if you’re actually walking the walk. The quality of the product you’re putting out there, how you involve the community and work with the community.
And how you look after the environment that you’re working in are really key things. I’m lucky, having experienced New Zealand and New Zealand’s one of the leaders in the world for sustainable tourism. And in Japan, the international industry, the tourism industry is quite young. They only started the ministry of tourism like 15 years ago. The universities have only been bringing tourism courses over the last 10, 15 years as well.
In a way, Japan is still at the beginning when it comes to tourism. Even though they’re creating some great results at the moment, they have to be careful that they play the long term. You mentioned other operators. There were many other operators here 15 years ago, but aren’t here now because they’re dissonant for short-term games. And you can see they’re just in it for the money.
Of course, you have to think about money, but that’s not the reason you do things. Japan’s at a real crossroads at the moment. They’re gonna move forward with tourism, for example, in Japan, there’s no legislation or regulation for adventure tourism.
You could go out and start a rafting company tomorrow. A lot of overseas guides were coming over here and doing backcountry tours or powder tours. And a lot of them aren’t qualified, and there have been fatalities. There have been accidents. Japan realizes that there’s a problem now, and I’m working with the central government at the moment to create some solutions around this.
Andrew McCombe:
So it’s an interesting point. So maintaining your integrity has really raised your profile and your reputation, what I guess not just locally, but nationally and internationally, isn’t it?
Mike Harris:
I’ve been sort of saying the same message for the last 20 plus years. So I’ve been saying the same thing the whole time. I was beating my head against a brick wall, but if you beat against that brick wall long enough, sometimes you’re going to make a hole in it. And then that hole becomes bigger.
So finally now the messages are falling upon the right ears, and there’s actually been action happening. I can see a little light at the end of the tunnel. For Japan, it’s really important that they create that sustainable model and play the long-term game because everyone here overseas has this image of Japan being very safe, high quality, amazing service. And that’s true for some of the products here and especially in tourism, but for others, there’s a large gap.
What’s been happening, especially in the adventure tourism industry, is that many operators have been coming and flooding the market because there are no barriers to entry. You don’t have any safety standards; there are no regulations here. All they do is they come in, dump the prices lower, and then other people come and dump their prices lower than that. It’s this downward spiral.
People in the market perhaps don’t know, especially these days, with OTAs, online travel agents, just pushing, “Oh, everyone’s awesome.” It’s hard to differentiate. The buying power in the market has really changed the game a little bit. And even though there are reviews and things like that, a lot of customers don’t know if this is safe or not. There really needs to be some things put into place in, and the government’s actually working on that now, so, better late than never.
Andrew McCombe:
And how do you find… You’ve got your own business, a very successful business in a beautiful place. Still, you’re now working on the whole country as far as the consultant to provide growth and outdoor adventure for the whole country. How do you separate the two?
Mike Harris:
I do a lot of work with the ministry of environment if I’m out there as a brand ambassador. I’m over here going around, and assessing different rural areas and different operators and giving them feedback about how they can become a more sustainable business.
I think it helps the Canyons brand. Because the guys that are the leaders in the industry are going out and sharing that knowledge now. Our company vision is to become the world leader in the outdoor adventure industry. And we start by doing that in Japan. I get a lot of enjoyment out of helping other people to become better because if the whole level of the industry goes up, it’s better for the country, it’s better for everyone.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, I say a rising tide, floats all boats, doesn’t it? So you must get to meet some pretty powerful people?
Mike Harris:
Yesterday I was at an event with the minister of tourism, and I’ve had lunch with him a few times. It’s good that they’re going out and listening, saying, “Hey, we don’t know everything. How do we get to the next step? What do we need to do?” The wheels turn pretty slowly sometimes, but eventually, it’s going to work. I’ve got quite a few good connections now within a central government, at the industry level, around all areas of Japan. Japan’s done a lot for me, so it’s time for me to give back a little bit as well.
Andrew McCombe:
So how important are relationships when you look back historically on your journey from here when you first started to now and now where that’s evolving too. For an entrepreneur, an outlier that’s out there and looking to grow, how important is that?
Mike Harris:
Relationships are everything really. You don’t want to burn any bridges; you want to try and do right by everyone. I’ve made mistakes, especially with mates, and doing business with things in the past, which is one of my biggest regrets. But you can’t keep everyone happy all the time, but you can keep most of the people happy. One of the keywords is the integrity, sort of stick to your guns.
This is what I’m about, and your core values shouldn’t really change over that time. I think if you can do that and keep those relationships, they’ll come back to you later on. Those people that you treated right 10, 15 years ago, those kids you took out on those adventures, later on down the track somewhere, that’s going to come back. I believe a little bit in that sort of karma effect; you do good things, and good things come back around. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been in Japan for too long, and become slightly Buddhist, but I think that translates across all countries.
Andrew McCombe:
And, um, Canyons is a large company, it’s growing, it’s got many things that you’re operating and doing and then new products coming on, et cetera. What other businesses have you started throughout the years?
Mike Harris:
Last year was a big year. We brought in a COO here. A lot of the internal stuff has been sort of managed by him now. It gave me a lot more free time, and at the same time, I’ve got three kids, but my oldest son is now rafting in New Zealand, and my two other kids are at boarding school in Nelson. When the kids go, we’ve got all this extra time, running to sports events. Because of those two things, there were a lot of things I had in mind. I’d been traveling around Japan with the ministry of environment or tourism, especially over the last three or four years, seeing all these rural areas.
It made me aware of a lot of opportunities out there. In terms of, there’s a need for this, and there’s no one really fulfilling that need. Last year I started out a luxury travel company focused on luxury adventure travel. Taking high-end clients around to listen about different parts of Japan, but with more of an adventure focus. I’m definitely adding some cultural elements, but more active, cycling, hiking, rafting, kayaking, surfing, other ways to see Japan. Part of that was my business partner from New Zealand, and he has a lot of context in the luxury business cause he worked in the helicopter business for quite a long time. So he used to live in Japan.
Mike Harris:
He worked for tourism, New Zealand. So we got together. It seemed like the right idea. We started that last year. At the same time, one of my mates from long time who was the owner and editor of a magazine called “Outdoor Japan,” which is about adventure and tourism. And he said, “look, I’m sort of looking to step up my game, and I want to bring a couple of people on board.” I said, “I’m interested. You’ve got a great platform to tell the stories.” Out of all these locations I was going to, I was like, “how do I bring more customers to this little rural town?”
Because no one knows about it. “Use this platform for it. And where do they book? They can book through this agency. It doesn’t have to be us, but, they can book through his agency, and show the people this amazing place.” I had the “Outdoor Japan” bought into that had the travel agency called Acordo, which means sort of a pathway, an ancient pathway.
Then I was talking with the minister of the environment, saying, “Hey, what do you think could be done here?” And it might be in a small town where there wasn’t really any accommodation, or there wasn’t any nice accommodation. So it’s like camping in Japan, glamping is starting to get big around the world.
But I didn’t know enough about glamping. So I started learning about it because I wanted to start a glamping location. I found the second biggest glamping manufacturer in the world, called Lux Tinton, a Dutch company. I brought those guys in, I learned a lot about glamping, and I started a new location.
Andrew McCombe:
You got the sites and the equipment you’re bringing in too?
Mike Harris:
Most of the time, we’d run our own site here, but that’s more for us to learn about the ins and outs, so we can give better advice to our clients, but at the time we’ll be selling them the gear, all the equipment, the tents, giving them some advice on how to run the operation. Another mate of mine who’s a builder, Burkey, another guy from Dunedin. He’s been working construction over here with his own construction company and building luxury and high-end homes. We’re working on that at the moment.
Andrew McCombe:
And so you’re also a DJ, I believe.
Mike Harris:
I started playing music about 23, 24 years ago in Japan. I was going out to parties, and sometimes the music sucked. And so I guess learned it myself. There was actually a guy in town who’s a local butcher. He’s also a techno DJ, has a pretty epic techno studio here, a recording studio. I learned from him, and then we started doing events together and, it was a good way to let off some steam and party.
Me and him and another guy started up a series of events here. We started off small, maybe 30, 40, 50 people. By about year five, we were getting 600 to 800, sometimes over a thousand people, sometimes every month. Bringing in international artists and they became a lot of work, but I really enjoy music. I still play a few gigs in Tokyo, do a few gigs up here. Music is a large part of my life, I’m not a professional, but I still love it the same.
Andrew McCombe:
There’s a lot of variety, but it all seems to integrate perfectly with what you’re doing. Do you find that a lot of entrepreneurs try to get ahead of themselves too quickly and branch out and do too many things too quickly?
Mike Harris:
I guess, I probably did that with the franchise thing, and you get a bit too excited. You have this image, and then you can see how everything works in your mind, but maybe you can’t really translate that, so all that staff can understand that or the people following you can understand that or keep up with you. Because you start one thing, it gets going, and then you jump onto the next thing. A lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, are guilty of that. But I guess, after a while, you got to learn to keep it at a pace where everyone can keep up.
Andrew McCombe:
Yeah. So what advice have you got for the entrepreneurs? You starting out, you know, like who were you working for? You decided you want to do your own thing? What’s the top five things they could focus on from the start?
Mike Harris:
It is important to have a really good product, know your market. And say, “this product is going to be bomber for these guys? It’s going to solve those problems?” I think one of the big things is that you just got to really back yourself, go out there and do it. Yeah. It might fall flat, but you never know unless you do it. Sometimes it’s about timing. You might be too early; it might be too late, but I think you just gotta get out there and give it a shot.
If it doesn’t work, then you’ll learn something from it anyway. For industry, it’s getting the right people in. Especially at the start, get a really good core crew that can share that vision with you. At the start, definitely, it’s really talking a lot about the expectations, “how are things going to grow? What’s going to happen in five years? What do you want out of this? What do we all want out of this?”
Andrew McCombe:
So pre-planning potential challenges and stuff?
Mike Harris:
Definitely. Because things happen. Especially if you’re starting things out with mates, talking as much as possible about stuff at the start, “what happens if this happens? What if someone dies, what happens if you want to leave the business at this stage? What are your expectations? How much do you want to be earning from this business? And this many years, do you want to be in the business or out of it'”, all these scenarios are good to talk about. One of the reasons we do it is to have fun and to love the challenge of it.
So it’s gotta be keeping that spark, keeping that passion. And I think having open conversations with the people you’re working with and making sure that they have the same passion is important. Being really frank and honest with each other is important.
Andrew McCombe:
Have you still got the passion?
Mike Harris:
I definitely still got the passion. I think for me it’s the adventure tourism, going out myself and having adventures. I’ve been going out and doing some expeditions to push the boundaries to remember what it feels like to have that feeling of, “am I going to come out of here alive?” So far, so good. For me, it’s also about this community, and it’s about all these people around me. It’s not just for me; it’s not just for my family. It’s for everyone around me, that’s involved in this as well.
Andrew McCombe:
It’s a good point. You become bigger than yourself, haven’t you? In many forms. Canyons itself, and then on a global internet or national and global scale. Did you ever think that was gonna happen at the start?
Mike Harris:
Maybe you have these aspirations, but you don’t think I’d be sitting here having lunch with the minister of tourism, asking me what they should do. So, it’s definitely come a long way, but as I see it, if you stick to your guns, you’ve got that integrity. Keep at it; things don’t happen overnight. It’s going to happen in two years, we’re going to get there, but it’s not always the way it happens. Sometimes it’s a bit of the grind. If you do something long enough, you become an expert. If you studied long enough, you work at it, you’d become an expert and good things can come from that.
Andrew McCombe:
When you go through challenges, how do you personally overcome them?
Mike Harris:
I’m a pretty sort of positive. The glass is way over half full. You’ve got also keep physically fit, eat well, just to be the best version of yourself. Because if you’re the leader, you’re the one that everyone looks up to. If you’re the gloom and doom, that’s the end of everything. You’ve got to just be the best version of yourself. So looking after yourself is a big part of it,
Andrew McCombe:
So health and wellbeing, food, good sleep, and good people around you?
Mike Harris:
Yeah, definitely. Surround yourself with good people, continue learning. Getting back on tracks, self-checks, ”
Andrew McCombe:
So what about the future? What’s the next 20 years with hope for Canyons and Japan tourism?
Mike Harris:
I think it’s going to be really exciting time, obviously, Japan last year, rugby world cup this year, Olympics, masters games coming up, Japan is on everyone’s lips around the world. It’s the destination. There’s a lot of support coming from the government. So there’s going to be a lot more rural development going on in Japan. It’s going to become more and more international, which is going to create a lot of challenges because it’s been such a homogenous society for so long. But it’s also going to create a lot of opportunities for international businesses to move in Japan and do things here. A lot of investment opportunities. It’s going to be a really exciting time over the next 20 years.
we’re testing the market, trying different things out. And I can see some fun times ahead. Some interesting challenges that hit at the same time. I’m looking forward to the next 20 years.
Andrew McCombe:
Will you ever move back to New Zealand?
Mike Harris:
It’s hardcore. I love New Zealand. Every time I go home, I drive around the country, I say, “this place is absolutely incredible, but they don’t have snow like this.” So for me being scared, loving the mountains, loving the snow, and loving the challenge of running a business in a different environment. I think Japan is going to be my home.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, Mike, thanks for coming on the show, mate, you’re officially an Outlier, and it’s time to go and have a Saki.
Mike Harris:
Cheers, man.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, there it is, guys. I hope you’ve enjoyed this inspiring outlier TV episode with Mike Harris for more videos, resources, and information. There’s an outline.tv or connect with us on our social media pages below I’m Andrew McCombe, and here’s to living the outlier life outside of the comfort zone. I’ll see you soon.
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