From the corporate world to “Entrepreneurship” in the High Seas

Many thanks to La Nacion for publishing the note. (you can read in this clicking here)

I have worked 28 years in the corporate world, in large companies, both local and multinational. Every minute in the world of the corporations was constant learning, achievements and satisfaction and above all, valuable moments that I experienced to share the day to day with teams of very good people, and I enjoyed it very much. I started very young in an American company called Xerox, a great school for all of us who travel through it. And where one of the many challenges I had, was to develop new sales channels that were then called Indirect channels, to ensure that computer products that were only sold by the direct sales force were sold in new wholesale channels of information technology and retail And that these could coexist without cannibalizing each other. A very good strategy that was the beginning of what we now call Omnichannel. It was late 90’s, what a great transformation for that moment!

I always managed great transformation processes in the companies I worked for, being the last one to have assembled from scratch and led an excellent team of wonderful people who managed to position Oca as the number 1 in shipments for electronic commerce in Argentina. What a great digital transformation process for a postal mail that was 100% of the physical world. And how interesting was to be a speaker in almost 40 conferences evangelizing about the logistics for electronic commerce in America, in all the ecommerce days and teaching in the postgraduate course in Economic Sciences of the UBA and being Treasurer of the CACE.

Silvina Reyes vida Corporativa en el Ecommerce Day

My digital transformation

The madness of every day, and the comfort that we all have in our comfort zone, made me suppose that “Entrepreneurship” was for brilliant young people who took this path and with many successes. They are initiatives of personal innovation that allow transforming the structures and processes that govern daily life. It’s about creating the context and making it possible for something extraordinary to happen around; something that opens the doors to new possibilities that are there, but that can hardly be seen if the daily routine is not changed and the comfort zone is abandoned. And there came the moment when I thought that

I could go in search of new challenges that would make me richer. Not rich in money, but rich in time.

emprender en el mar

Time to enjoy, time to live, time to share with my family and friends, and in turn generate money, but this time for me. And as always we all say that we would like to live traveling, with Jorge we decided to travel living. At the end of 2016 we went to live aboard a boat in a paradisiacal island in Brazil and we sailed a lot along the Brazilian coast. By August of 2017 we were in Athens heading for Rio de Janeiro. They were 8000 miles, 35 ports, 5 seas. At the moment we are sailing again in Europe, now in the Adriatic. We are sailing through Croatia and Montenegro, in a few days we will sail to Sicily, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands, because we want to spend the summer in Ibiza, Formentera and Mallorca where we will meet my oldest son.

Poros hostandboat

Boatschooling

My youngest daughter has also made her digital transformation. Going to school every day like most children, today is enrolled in a 100% online education format, with the official Distance Education program available for families living abroad and want their children to keep the Argentine teaching. I am your teacher on board. And technology for her, has also become a key tool to go to school and to stay connected to her old friends and the new ones she is doing as we navigate. That’s how we implemented the boatschooling.

boatschool

Monetization

Having made the decision to live aboard a ship and with the certainty that we could continue educating our daughter under a system that would assure us its permanence in the Argentine school, then came the step of defining how to monetize.

Jorge is a professional in the nautical sector 20 years ago (55,000 nautical miles, five Atlantic crossings and dozens of high altitude navigation clinics). We decided to undertake adding your nautical experience with my corporate and online business know-how to become entrepreneurs and launch our project.

We monetize through the commercialization of sailing holiday experiences anywhere in the world.

For that, we have launched a site called www.hostandboat.com. A kind of booking but of boats that go from sailboats, motor boats, catamarans to luxury schooners. We promise a different vacation in a boat with captain on board in paradisiac places of the world. People who want to experience this experience do not need to have prior knowledge of navigation and the proposal is an unforgettable experience to go with the family, with your partner and with friends. In this way we approach nautical to people who do not navigate. And we also offer boat rentals without crew so that all those who already sail, can enjoy their passion for sailing in other destinations.

Hostandboat

Boatworking

We define the strategy, and we have a team that gives us invaluable help in the implementation of campaigns, ads, site maintenance, etc.

But we are the ones who incorporate in our trips the new partners, personally certifying the boat experiences that we add to the site in each destination.

On board, space and time are easily generated to write and for our business it is key to focus on content marketing. We love generating valuable content about travel, recommendations about the destinations we are visiting, on-board experiences, tips for renting a boat, which we upload to our blog and the social networks of HostandBoat.

Keeping in mind that we navigate and we are not still in a single destination, the digital tools are what make it easier for us to generate our income through www.hostandboat.com, from anywhere in the world and around the world. We have our mobile office in the sea, on the beach, in the marinas. On board, we do boatoffice, boatschooling and make up the crew the wireless router that connects us, the smartphones, the ipads and the notebook. And of course, I can not forget the autopilot, the digital nautical chart with the built-in GPS, the radar and when we make long trips, the satellite device that sends our coordinates to a list of predetermined people.

boatworking hostandboat

The sea and business

In the sea as in business, our learning is constant, we apply problem solving methods, we are oriented to results and the three of us who are part of this crew have responded very well as a team also in times of storm, but above all things, we had fun.

To all those who are thinking about undertaking, I encourage you to embark on these seas, and above all to be clear on the course, never forget that planning is necessary to have more chances of getting to port with good winds, but not to forget that the wind can always cut. That is, the wind can change its direction and you have to find it ready to modify your strategy. As in all aspects of life, we always have to be ready to change, because nothing is forever.

The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change and the realist adjusts the candles.

Good Winds for all

loveinthesea