Many say, “surfing’s far more than a sport, it’s a way of life”. Well, here is an article aimed and helping you to develop a new surf business which can direct you towards the dream life of owning a successful surf business. From developing the perfect idea to mapping out your official business plan, there are a number of points to consider before the big launch.
All the preparation is complete and you can now have real confidence in your surf business start up. You’ve planned for every eventuality you can think of and mitigated as much of the inherent risk as possible. It’s now time to press the big red button and launch this bad boy into the surf industry.
The launch phase of starting your surf business is where many start-ups fail. The pressure is on and things become real. It’s no longer just a thought in your head, or words on a sheet of paper. You’re now parting with hard earned money and it’s all on the line. Here are a few pointers to help ensure your launch phase is a success:
1.Stick to the plan, Stan
Time for a reference from Hollywood, I’m afraid. On the big day in Chasing Mavericks, Jay gets a reality check and takes a good pounding on his first wave. Most of the other guys are less well prepared and decide to bail, but Jay knows he’s ready for the big one and regardless of any natural fear sticks to his game plan.
Once you’ve spent time and effort producing a watertight business plan and developing your concept to a level where you’re almost certain it will be commercially viable. Don’t let yourself stray from the course now. At first, it’s like a new toy that you’re super stoked to start playing with it. You’re putting together the pieces of the jigsaw and it’s all coming together nicely. There may be a point when you realize how real it all is. You’ll see your money going out, but none coming in yet.
The sleepless nights start and the stress levels increase. You start thinking what boards and wetsuits you could have treated yourself to with that money. It’s natural to start doubting yourself in a situation like this, but don’t give in. Just stick to the initial plan! As the saying goes, “build it and they will come”. You should now know with almost certainty that your business model is viable, so stick to the plan and, as long as your planning was done effectively, the customers will come.
It’s also very important to stick to your core values. These should be created and developed in the business plan, so should certainly already be decided. Your core values should embody the reason for your business’ existence and should be evident throughout every single aspect of your new surf business. Again, when you were conscientiously planning, you decided on these core values for a reason. They’ve survived through the scrutiny of your friends, family and experts, so they deserve to survive the launch.
In my case, I spent more than I had budgeted and was scared I’d run out of money before I could even start operations. My natural instinct said to shut my wallet and lower the quality a bit, but my core values stated that I would be devoted to providing the very best surf holiday possible. I decided I had to stick to my values and would need to find a way of sourcing additional finance to allow me to make that happen. My method of doing this was Crowd Funding, which is another viable path to getting your own business off the ground.
2. Keep your sights on the big picture
When you’re popping up on a wave, you need to keep an eye on the wave and be aware of your position at all times. This will be the deciding factor as to whether you look for a big bottom turn or need to go straight into the barrel. You can’t just expect to look at the water directly in front of your board and be able to feel the wave and make the most of it.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day work now that you’re putting your money where your mouth is. The whole thing is new to you and you’re excited, nervous and focused. Every little detail seems (and is) like a game changer, but it’s important not to get too bogged down by the day to day work and lose focus of the bigger picture. A simple example is in website development. You could get wrapped up in a set piece of functionality, so much so that you forget the general look and feel that you’re hoping to achieve. By focusing on each element too much you may end up with a website that appears disjointed and confusing to the reader.
Before I started converting the Wagon for my business I had a vision of how the finished product would look, which was based on themes I’d seen during my research. I knew that one of my weaknesses is being overly focussed on the task at hand, and was worried I’d focus too much on each individual element and forget that I needed it all to come together and look great as a finished product. To help me keep my eye on the big picture I created a “mood board,” which is basically a collage filled with images that depict the mood, feel and theme of what you want to achieve. I kept it by my bed so that every morning when I woke up I’d have that in my mind when I started work.
3. Speculate to Accumulate
There may well be a point at which you start to think it’s all a bit too much for you to handle on your own. You feel like you need more money and some external help. After all, if you’re doing everything on your own then you’re expected to be the marketing, sales, finance and strategy expert all in one. That’s a lot to ask from the best of us.
You wonder whether it’s worth bringing in someone else for support but this business is your baby now and the last thing you want to do is give a portion of her away. It’s important to remember though that you need to speculate to accumulate, and this goes beyond the surface meaning of investing money. I’m not suggesting that you should give away half your business to the first person offering a helping hand. But I am promoting considering the potential value of bringing somebody onboard.
If the business goes well and grows sufficiently, at some point you’ll need to bring in additional support, so why not make that move early and give the launch an added boost, after-all the second opinion could be very valuable at times. It’s absolutely crucial that if you decide to do this, you choose the right person and take them on the right terms.
You’re unlikely to have the budget to pay them a salary, so your bargaining chip will be a share of the business ownership. This will of course provide your crew with additional motivation to work hard and develop the business over the long term.
4. Manage your Motivation
You’ll have good and bad days in the beginning. That’s the nature of being an entrepreneur and is a part of the inherent insecurity that comes with being self employed. On bad days you’ll wonder what the hell you’re doing. We’ve all had days when we’ve been super pumped for a great surf only to stack it on the first wave and ding your board.
If you let the stress mount up you’ll have less clarity of thought, causing your decision making to suffer. But this isn’t the time to make dumb decisions. To maintain motivation and avoid stress build up envision the image of how the business will look when it’s a success. Think of the amount of surfing you’ll be able to do and the fun you’ll have once you make it all a work smoothly.
When I first started to draw up the architecture plans for the Wagon I was so excited to start the conversion and desperate for the materials to arrive so I could get cracking. I expected it to be heaps of fun and super rewarding work. How wrong. It took brutally long days, plaining pieces of wood, bashing my fingers with hammers and driving back and forth to the builder’s merchants. Some days I’d work a sixteen hour shift and could barely see any real results, while other days I’d feel like I’d damn nearly finished it in a matter of hours simply because the work was more visible. Every so often I had to drop the tools and go for a surf just to remind myself of the kind of lifestyle I was building and warrant all the grueling work.
5. Monitor Your Money
Money is unfortunately the lifeline of your business and you need it to survive. It’s like energy in surfing. If you paddle too hard and too far without having a break you’ll feel like jelly on the wave and won’t have the power to shred.
During the launch the money traffic is only going one way. I got to the point where I would purposefully avoid looking at my bank balance because I knew it would make me feel sick. I’d bury my head in the sand and just keep working. I figured that there were items I simply had to spend money on, so checking my bank balance the whole time would only serve to increase my blood pressure and reduce my hours of sleep. I did this part wrong. It’s certainly wise to stay on top of your financial status so you can be well prepared when things start to slip and catch yourself going over budget.
Crowd Funding has completely changed the way in which businesses can gain start-up capital these days. You can pre-sell products, sell a portion of the business or simply ask for charitable donations. There are a number of very popular sites, and each of them has their merits and will provide a great platform for you to generate additional funding. Of course, you can’t expect to just set up the campaign and people will pay. Just as with a website, you need to get the message out there, and this is where your marketing skills come to play and you’ll be thankful that you make a conscious effort to develop those skills before the launch.
6. Endorse Outsourcing
As mentioned before, getting help from other people and spreading the workload a bit could be a good move, especially if you don’t think you’ve got the required level of expertise in a specific area online. If you want to get into big wave surfing it can be a wise move to get a tow in to your first big ones. This way an experienced tower can help put you in at the right speed and place and you don’t use up all your energy paddling.
These days getting paid help for a low value is very easy with the help of freelance websites. You can post an advertisement in a matter of minutes and within 24hours you’ll have dozens of experts from all over the world pitching for your business. This can be great for outsourcing tasks such as SEM or setting up your Google Adwords PPC campaigns. It’s amazing what prices some of the guys offer and the level of service you can get. You can view their results on independent tests, which indicate their skill levels in different areas and compare this with their hourly rate to find the best value. It can be worth reading customer reviews to and checking one of them to be sure it’s all legit.
If you don’t have enough money to hire one of these guys then here is a cheeky trick, but beware of karma coming back to bite. If you post an advertisement for a task such as SEM and request that applicants send you a detailed plan of exactly what they will do for you, they will often analyze the market and provide findings in this report. You can then pretty much use their plan as a “how to” guide and just do the work yourself.
Once the business is launched, the game has only really just begun. The next step is to keep the business running, keep it competitive and continue developments.
But we’ll save that for another time.
Editor’s Note: To learn about the author of this article and his own surf business, check out Wagon Surf Adventures here.
