These Argentines left everything to create the “Airbnb of the boats”: today they have users all over the world
Silvina Reyes and her husband created HostandBoat, a global platform that allows to rent boats with or without captain to take different vacation
From Kaštel Gomilica, Croatia, the Argentine Silvina Reyes speaks by phone withiProUP. She listens quiet, happy and carefree.
This good mood has its reason: after 28 years of working in companies such as Xerox, Uol, Telecom, Garbarino and OCA, the 49-year-old Systems graduate decided to leave the corporate world to become an entrepreneur.
The decision was based on a series of fundamental factors: having a better quality of life, being the owner of her own time and making money for herself and her family, instead of doing it for other brands.
Silvina, who lives without a fixed place, sailing around the world, is co-founder and owner with her husband hostandboat.com, a platform through which anyone can rent boats with or without captain around the planet to take a vacation different
At the same time, boat owners can obtain money by making this vehicle available to interested parties.
Little investment, maximum profit
Hostandboat.com was launched at the end of 2016. The business idea arose based on her experience in eCommerce at OCA and her husband, Jorge González, who is a professional sailor.
“I did a market research and found that there were very few similar collaborative proposals that were available for very specific areas, such as the Mediterranean,” she reveals.
“It was thus that we thought that this venture could be profitable, because we both had the necessary knowledge to carry it forward, so that it could allow us to fulfill our dream: to generate income while we navigate the world,” says Reyes.
Specifically, they invested just $ 3,000 to launch the business: the first version of the platform was assembled and the rest of the money was used for the digital marketing campaign with the aim of publicizing the service in other latitudes, such as Latin America, through Google and social networks, and segmenting the audience well to get more than anything friends of their friends.
Then, they added u $ s5,000 more to register domains and perform various procedures. “In Argentina and Brazil the nautical population is very large, so there was the opportunity to take advantage of this business inspired by ventures such as Airbnb, in fact, our proposal was to create” the Booking.com of the boats “.
“Six months after the launch, the business was already profitable, so we decided to change the website for a multilanguage platform developed from scratch, for which we invested another $ 3,000,” says the entrepreneur.
A different holiday
As the boats can be rented with captain, who also acts as a tour guide, since he knows the destinations like nobody and offers advice to his guests.
According to company data, 50% of tourists choose this option, while the remaining percentage decides to manage it on their own.
“There are also many people who know how to sail but they hire it with crew on board to enjoy the life of the sea without having to work and deal with the issues related to the ship and navigation,” says Silvina.
In this regard, she adds that those who hire this type of service are between 25 and 70 years old: “There are the youngest who want to have an alternative vacation, even the elderly who have already traveled a good part of the planet and seek to explore new options.”
According to the businesswoman, the firm works in a stable manner throughout the year, since it takes advantage of the summer season of both hemispheres. This detail also allows them to optimize the budget in digital marketing.
With respect to costs, the passenger does not pay any commission, but the owner of the boat does.
This fee is not fixed but can be between 10% and 20% depending on the country and the method of payment.
“At this point we differentiate ourselves from Airbnb since the guests do not have to pay anything,” she clarifies.
With respect to the rankings, the most frequent clients are, in order of importance, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, who seek to go to the following destinations, also ordered by relevance: Angra dos Reis (Brazil); The Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.
Within this last zone, the most requested is Greece, Croatia and the Balearic Islands.
Beyond those destinations, there are also boats available in Indonesia, Italy, the Virgin Islands, Majorca and Menorca, Malta, the United States, Montenegro, Panama, the Azores, Curacao and Uruguay, among others.
“The average cost per day and per person on the boat, including accommodation, trips, meals and the captain is 150 dollars,” says the entrepreneur
Next steps
Silvina prefers not to reveal how much she bills with this business, but the numbers should be encouraging given the future plans. Hostandboat.com started with a fleet of 20 boats of friends and today there are more than 150.
“We do not want to have thousands of registered because we are interested in knowing the boats and the personalized treatment”, explains Reyes.
Today, the minimum requirement for boat owners is to have a unit of at least 38 feet in length. “There are many people who want to join our platform to make their boat profitable and live sailing,” she adds.
Reyes is happy with his new life away from the offices and ahead of iProUP who have several projects with Hostandboat in the folder.
Command the startup also showed that there is no age to undertake.
“It is a myth that entrepreneurship is something only for young people, on the contrary, the work experience of the past is a very important value when launching in their own business,” she concludes.
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