After more than two decades as Royal Marine Commando Sean Taylor returned to North Wales to set up his own business.
It brought him full circle to his first job among the trees of the Conwy Valley where he he worked for his dad as a lumberjack.
He set up a high wires business among the forests near Betws-y-Coed. Tree Top Adventures started off with a mobile military office, a shipping container, and a chemical toilet in 2007.
When the chemical toilet started stinking after a month Sean knew he was on to a winner.
"We opened in April," recalled Sean, "and by May the chemical toilet was quite smelly. I always say that that was a smell of success as we had so many people turning up."
These days Sean has an easier way of judging the success of his business... he meets with his team and gets a helicopter view of all the Zip World sites.
In the next few years, Sean says the business will have a much larger footprint in the UK, more world class products and double the visitors numbers.
The company was valued at £45m two years ago when the investment arm of Lloyds took a minority stake in the adventure business.
Lloyds Development Capital assisted in the buyout of the two other shareholders, amicably Sean adds, while also providing a cash injection and additional expertise to expand the business further. Sean kept his holding in the business and has plans for building the Zip World brand.
And, however big the Zip World brand gets Sean says the business will not leave Wales.
"As we as we speak, I'm in Zip World base camp, which is in Llanrwst and I went to school about 200 metres away," said Sean.
"I'm born and bred in the Conwy Valley. I went to school in Llanrwst until I left and joined my father's lumberjack business, which in the 80s was quite a brutal, brutal job.
"So, I joined the Royal Marine Commandos to escape in 1984 and had a pretty amazing experience for 20-odd years.
"I was in a parachute display team, I was a jungle warfare instructor, I played rugby in the marines, I was a ski instructor, abseil instructor, and a combat instructor ... which comes in handy on a Saturday night in Llanrwst in the square, well it used to.
"I had a great, great career and made many lifelong friends, saw places, and took the rough with the smooth. I went to some fairly unsavory places as you can imagine but also some great places.
"I left in 2004 and went into private security, also in some unsavory places, and I called time on that in 2007."
It was then that he returned home. During his time in the armed forces, he always planned to eventually come back to North Wales, as despite all the places he has visited he never found anywhere better than the Conwy Valley and Snowdonia.
Tree Top Adventures was founded in 2007 and had been going well and winning awards, but after six years Sean was looking to expand and it was while playing a game of rugby that he spotted his next opportunity .
"I actually saw the site when I was playing for my local club against Bethesda in a cup game. I looked up and saw Penrhyn Quarry.
"We won the game, got drunk together, and on Monday morning I went to see the managing director. He said this is a crazy idea, but if the planners allowed it we could go for it."
Sean created the fastest zip line in the world and says the company got a cult following straight away.
The zip line was followed the next year in 2014 with Bounce Below at the Slate Caverns site in Blaenau Ffestiniog, another Iconic site and another world class product.
Sean persuaded his then partners to buy out Tree Top Adventure and to rebrand it as Zip World Forest and invested heavily into that site.
It meant in a few short years they were suddenly a major employer in the community. And it also coincided with North Wales' stature as an adrenaline sports destination grow, being name-checked in media titles across the world. In 2017 North Wales was listed as one of the top 10 regions in the world for travellers, and last year the tourism economy for North Wales was put at around £3.2bn.
This year the three North Wales sites were joined by Zip World Tower, in Rhigos near Aberdare, in South Wales.
"We just thought they needed cheering up in South Wales," he joked.
"It's a bit of a cliche but what we've done for slate in North Wales, we've done for that with coal in South Wales."
The target of making Zip World a world leading adventure brand is definitely achievable Sean said.
"There is three ways that we can grow," he said.
"We are looking at bringing in accommodation, self-catering accommodation, but creating a real wow. Everything for us has to be a wow.
"Then we are developing our existing sites, adding more products as that's in our DNA.
"And then we are looking at new sites. We're looking at a site in Scotland, at sites in three national parks in England, and one south of Dublin in Ireland."
Sean likes talking to people - not phoning or emailing but actually getting in the same room as someone, which he says is one of his keys to success. He has built relationships with councils and is very enthusiastic about his relationship with the council in Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is home to Zip World Tower.
He's now engaged in talks with councils in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Devon is the leading contender for the next Zip World site and the first outside of Wales.
He said: "It's very important to me that Zip World continue to make a positive impact to communities we operate in, after all the teams we recruit come from those communities and we want to have great relationships."
But Sean is not having to go looking for these sites, they are coming to him. He says he has four or five expressions of interest a week. These are from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the Mediterranean, and the Far East.
Sean says he has a duty to maintain the brand and think about the people that will take on Zip World after him.
"We don't want 35 Zip World sites in the UK," he said.
"We want to create probably eight to 10 world-class destinations in key regions of the UK, the prerequisite being iconic areas you get a wow in.
"I'm incredibly confident of where we're going. We offer something different from an amusement park. And, I think it's generally a pleasurable journey to get to us, which helps.
"Having that world-class experience, and having a great team with the pure focus to keep you safe and give you a great time."
He says that the company has grown quickly and Zip World is now a big fish in a small pool. Sean believes they have a great relationship with other tourism providers in the region, adding that 80% of Zip World suppliers are local.
"We're passionate about keeping the money in the local community," he added.
"We're not the finished article, I accept that. We've got things to improve, things we need to do differently, but you know, I think everyone is learning all the time.
"I'm hugely honoured, as a Welshman, to be in my town, that I grew up in and went to school, and now run an organisation that I'm very proud of.
"In the future, I don't ever see it not being based in Wales. We'll have new sites outside of Wales, but our HQ will always be here, we will always be regarded as a Welsh company."
More of the interview with Sean Taylor can be found on the BusinessLive website here .
