Under Canvas cofounders Jacob and Sarah Dusek .

Sarah Dusek, 40, and husband Jacob Dusek, 36, run Under Canvas, a Bozeman, Montana business that offers glamorous camping, or “glamping,” just outside national parks across the U.S. By the end of next year, they’ll be in a total of seven spots, including Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Rates range from $120 to $500 a night for lodging in canvas tents Jacob designed. The tents sit on wooden decks, and they’re furnished with Casper mattresses, leather sofas and armchairs, and cowhide rugs. Bathrooms, provided in the highest-priced tents, feature toilets that flush, hot running water and showers. After burning out as overseas aid workers, the Duseks launched the company in 2009, and they’ve ridden the first wave of the growing glamping trend in the U.S. This year they expect revenue of $9 million. The staff numbers 60 full-timers and 150 seasonal employees. They bootstrapped the business with credit card debt and bank loans until late this year, when they sold a minority stake to a San Francisco investment firm for $17 million. In this interview, which has been edited and condensed, Sarah Dusek explains how she and her husband built Under Canvas with no hospitality or business experience and why she thinks the company can get to $100 million in revenue.

Susan Adams: What did you do before you started Under Canvas?

Sarah Dusek: Both my husband and I are save-the-world people. After college, I spent the next eight years working for relief and development agencies overseas. We met in Taipei in 2003. He and I both got very tired, disillusioned and burned out. We felt like our work didn’t make a difference on a macro level. That led to a journey of introspection for both of us. We moved to England where I’m from. I went to graduate school and wrote a thesis that looked at the possibility of business doing good in the world.

Adams: What did you conclude?

Dusek: I realized the most effective way to organize innovative solutions that make a difference in the world is through business.

Adams: Where did that lead you?

Dusek: We started a small property development company in the U.K. where we employed 16- and 17-year-old school dropouts who gained work experience with us.

Adams: How successful was that business?

Dusek: Very, but then the crash happened in 2008 and we had to lay off our 10 employees.

Adams: What did you learn from that experience?

Dusek: The power of never giving up is huge. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and said, “What’s next?”

Adams: What brought you to the U.S.?

Dusek: My husband is from Montana where his family farms and ranches. The Montana prairie is similar to parts of Africa where I spent time on safari in my early 20s. We launched our first business there, called Sage Safaris, an upscale safari-style bird hunting experience. Our idea was to help people journey into the out-of-doors in ways that didn’t destroy the land. We were at the beginning of the glamping era.

Adams: Was there anyone offering glamping in the U.S. at the time?

Dusek: No. It existed in Europe but not here.

Adams: How did you finance that business?

Dusek: We borrowed $40,000 from our family and friends and leased land from Jake’s parents.

The Under Canvas site outside Moab, Utah, is a short drive from two national parks, Arches and... [+] Canyonland.

Adams: What did you know about running a luxury camp?

Dusek: We had no idea whatsoever. My husband designed the tents, which we manufacture in Montana. We tried to emulate safari-style tents with large wooden frames and he created bathrooms with inlaid wood, which used small amounts of waste water. We set it up as a bird-hunting business with eight guests and we charged $1, 500 a night, including meals, lodging and activities.

Adams: How did you attract customers?

Dusek: We reached out to Orbitz and they endorsed us in our first year. Most of the business was organic through our website.

Adams: What was your revenue in your first year?

Dusek: We did between $50,000 and $80,000 in the first couple of years.

Adams: How were you making ends meet?

Dusek: We weren’t. But then we started getting phone calls from people asking us to do events across the country. Our first major contract, in 2011, was for a music festival, Escape New York, in Long Island. We charged $1, 200 per tent for a weekend and we had 150 tents at that festival. That business became Under Canvas.

Adams: How profitable was that event?

Dusek: It wasn’t profitable but it launched our events business, which is still about a quarter of our revenue. But we hankered to create access to the outdoors. That led to our national park business, which we launched in 2012.

Adams: What was your first national park location and how did you get it off the ground?

Dusek: It was seven miles from Yellowstone. We leased 200 acres of land, which we’ve since bought and started by putting up 30 tents. We didn’t know what to expect because glamping didn’t really exist in the U.S. and our prices ranged from $100 to $300 a night.

Adams: How did you finance the Yellowstone project?

Dusek: We ran up a couple of hundred thousand dollars of debt on our credit card.

Adams: How did you find customers?

Dusek: Our website was a big draw but we also got business through TripAdvisor and we listed on other referral sites like Booking.com and Expedia. But even now, 60% of our bookings are direct.

Adams: How did the first year go?

Dusek: Amazingly. We paid all our credit card debt, we covered the lease and ended up with a profit of $50,000. We realized this could work on a much larger scale. The next year we took on a hotel management company, Lone Peak Hospitality in Bozeman, to operate the camps. We paid them a percentage of revenue, between 10% and 12%. We bought the company out last year and Mark Jones, who ran the company, is now our COO.

Adams: How do you and your husband share responsibilities?

Dusek: My husband is our chief design officer. He’s responsible for refining our existing products, he heads up all our new products and he’s the genius behind our tents, our bathrooms and our water systems.

Camping in comfort: Inside a tent at Moab.

Adams: How does the plumbing work in the camps?

Dusek: In a camp with 150 people, we use the same amount of waste water as one residential house. We have a proprietary system that’s completely self-sustaining but we have to get variances because we don’t meet traditional codes. We work with a fantastic engineer in Bozeman who helps us battle the regulatory authorities.

Adams: How did you expand beyond Yellowstone?

Dusek: We immediately doubled the size of Yellowstone and in 2014 we launched Moab and Glacier.

Adams: How difficult is it to find locations?

Dusek: Very. We focus on finding private land and we started with lease-to-own agreements. We now own all of our locations. Two or three times a year we go off on long road trips with our two children to scout out locations.

Adams: What have you learned about buying real estate?

Dusek: The kind of real estate we buy is raw, beautiful, untouched, undeveloped land. Often the people own it because they love it and they want to protect and preserve it. The transaction becomes a relationship-building exercise. We have to convince someone to trust us with their baby.

Adams: How do you avoid having sellers raise their prices when they see you assembling a parcel?

Dusek: We usually deal with one land owner and often they don’t want to sell for any amount of money. Then it becomes a journey of trust and communication.

Adams: What has been the most challenging part of building the business?

Dusek: Being underfunded and bootstrapped is incredibly stressful. We didn’t come from a business background. I didn’t know venture funding existed. We were only able to get bank financing and we loaded up with debt. For the first time, this year we closed a funding round for $17 million with an investment firm in San Francisco, Spanos Barber Jesse & Co.

Adams: How did that deal come about?

Dusek: We have a great business model and we’ve been profitable from day one but to grow at the speed we want, we needed an equity partner. We shopped around and turned down various offers, including an offer to buy the company. The deal we struck lets us control the business. Spanos Barber has a minority stake and we’re creating a board where it will have one seat.

Adams: How quickly do they want a return on their money?

Dusek: It’s a normal six- to seven-year time frame.

Adams: What were your reasons for turning down the other offers?

Dusek: The venture world and the Wall Street world are not friendly to businesses who have bootstrapped and become profitable. We were looking for a company that would help us achieve our goals in the most cost-effective way possible, who would be helpful and not dictatorial. In a lot of the scenarios we looked at, we’d be dictated to and I’d be driven by someone else’s whip.

Adams: What challenges are you facing now?

Dusek: We have 60 full-time employees and 150 seasonal workers. But Americans don’t generally want to do manual labor and housekeeping jobs. The program we use to recruit overseas students is under threat. College students can come in and work for three months on a J-1 visa. There’s a bill in the Senate that would cancel that program entirely.

Adams: Have you abandoned your save-the-world vision?

Dusek: We see ourselves as preserving the environment and creating access to beautiful landscapes without seeing them overdeveloped and destroyed. We create opportunities for people who wouldn’t otherwise experience the out-of-doors. To me, that’s having an impact on our culture.

Adams: How big do you want Under Canvas to get?

Dusek: We think there’s the potential for 40 or 50 locations, minimum, in the U.S. and there are international possibilities. I think we should be able to do $100 million in revenue in the next five years. Do I think the company could be worth $500 million? Yes.

Adams: Which do you think will be more valuable – your business or your land?

Dusek: No question, our business is where all the value is.