A home families can actually live in
Two bedrooms, a real kitchen, reliable internet, and a short, predictable trip to camp.
For the founder
You are not selling a trip. You are making a month possible.
The family buys one thing: “We can live in Europe this summer without work and childcare falling apart.” Your company makes that sentence true.
The company
Bring four hard things together and make them feel simple
The product is the confidence that the home, camp, workday, and people around the family will all hold together.
A children’s program worth crossing an ocean for
Not babysitting. A serious summer with friends, movement, coast, and continuity.
A workday described honestly
Designed for Eastern, Central, flexible, and shifted work—not a promise that every U.S. schedule fits.
A social life nobody has to invent
Welcome, shared tables, weekend plans, and a person who notices when a family needs help.
Summer one
Do not choose the city because one of them sounds prettier.
Run the same partner search and the same paid family test in both places. Let written costs and real reservations decide.
Premium and brand track
Cascais–Oeiras coast
€15,400family-of-four test price- Contribution margin
- 35.7%
- First-year result
- €15,627
- Break-even
- About 15 families
Lisbon access, international-family appeal, and a strong premium story. Housing is the fragile line.
Economic and value track
Porto–Foz–Matosinhos
€13,900family-of-four test price- Contribution margin
- 41.9%
- First-year result
- €23,100
- Break-even
- About 14 families
Lower housing anchors and stronger modeled economics. The brand story and exact family cluster still need to be proven.
4 Jul – 1 Aug 202718 familiesAbout 30 childrenAges 6–12
Your actual job
Own the experience. Let licensed partners own the regulated work.
You build the brand, find the families, design the month, choose the partners, set the standard, and hold the relationships. A Portuguese travel organizer handles the package and customer money. A registered camp operator runs the children’s program.
Brand, families, experience
Package, payment, traveler support
Children, staff, program, safety
The legal structure needs a Portuguese lawyer to confirm it. The strategic point is simple: do not become the camp operator in year one.
The money
Year one should prove the company and make a modest profit.
Porto currently leads financially. Cascais can still win if families value the premium setting enough and the housing bid stays inside its cap.
€263,400Cascais sales at 18 families
€15,627Cascais first-year profit
€237,600Porto sales at 18 families
€23,100Porto first-year profit
The business should not launch below a 30% contribution margin or with full first-year break-even above 15 families. A high-cost Cascais case falls to an 11.1% margin and loses about €70,260. That version is not a business.
Open the financial modelThe first 90 days
Turn a lovely idea into four pieces of proof
There is no reason to commit to a summer before these steps are complete.
Make the promise precise
Talk to families. Learn which workdays, child ages, destinations, and price points actually create urgency.
Find the people who make it real
Shortlist the Portuguese travel organizer, camp operator, housing, coworking, transport, and activity partners.
Replace the spreadsheet with quotes
Get written bids, a fixed-scope Portuguese legal review, insurance terms, and housing inventory.
Ask families to put down money
Use a small refundable priority reservation. Ten paid reservations keep the idea alive; a free waitlist does not.
The city bake-off
Ask families to choose with €250, not a survey.
Show both cities with the exact dates, schedule, and price. A compliant Portuguese merchant of record collects a fully refundable reservation. Ten active reservations in 30 days keeps a city alive; thirty in 90 days proves a real path to a cohort.
THE REAL TEST€250
fully refundable and credited if the family signs
10 in 30 days · 20 in 60 · 30 minimum and 36 target in 90The life inside the business
You would be building the summer families remember.
The work is contracts, housing, pickup plans, partner calls, and filling a cohort. The reason to do it is the table at the end of the day.
Read the founder report