Boat Building Business Success Stories

[Ike]

I am looking for success stories to post on my web site New Boat Builders Home Page, at http://newboatbuilders.com. I am not looking for stories about how you built a boat. I need stories about how you started a business building and selling boats and how it became a successful business. I want these to be not only an inspiration for new boat builders, but an illustration of how to be successful. If applicable, include mistakes or pitfalls and how you overcame them. They are to be examples of how to succeed at starting a boat building business.

Each story will be posted on its own page. The pages will have the same format as all of my other pages on my site, but will contain no ads or banners. I will also post a link to your web site if you have one, your e-mail if you wish, and name and address of your company. In short, a one page web site all about you.

Success Stories will be added to the menu, and the index page. This will take viewers to a page listing the stories in alphabetical order.

I am looking for a one to four page (8 ½ X 11 page) description that contains the following. I don’t want advertising copy. I want an honest story in your own words about how you did it.

Who? Who are you? Is it just you or are you a partnership? Who are the people involved in making you a success?

What? What is it you make, what makes it an attractive product? Please, no trade secrets. What is it about this product that made your company successful? What is the form of you business, sole proprietor, partnership, corporation (limited or otherwise). Why did you pick this form of business?

Where? Where are you located and how did the location play a part in the success of your business?

When? When did you do this and did the timing of the start of your business have an influence on its success?

How? How did you get started? How did you finance it?

Why? Why did you pick boat building? Why did you pick the type of boat you make?

What the future looks like for your business.

Please include a photo or two of your boats or yourself You can e-mail them or give me a link where I can download them, or e-mail me for and address to send them to by regular mail. I will post them on the page.

[DanishBagger]

Nice idea! I hope you will get some – I, for one, will be reading them with interest :-)

[safewalrus]

I would hope Gamage doesn't see this thread



but other than that sounds a great idea, as Danish said will make interesting reading

[Ike]

The question came up on another forum which will remain nameless, about whether or not my site is a commercial venture, and whether posting this is a conflict of interest.

Here's the answer with a reference to the other forum deleted.

My web site is not a commercial venture. It is a free site for people starting out in the boat building business. I have some google ads and amazon ads on which I earn a very small commission if someone clicks on the ad and buys something from them. They are all boating related and I make just barely enough to pay the site fee.

That is exactly as it should be. I am not "selling" anything, although I do some occasional consulting work. There is no conflict of interest here, especially since the pages for the boat builders will have no links to anything except their company's site if they have one.

As I said these stories will be there as inspiration, and lessons in what to do or maybe in some cases what not to do. The site is focused on building standards in the USA, with links to Canada and the EU, but it also has an section on business. How to run a business successfully and legal issues boat builders need to know. Hopefully the stories will expand on that. No one will be paid for their stories, and I won't be paid to post them.

Fair enough?

[gamage]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

I would hope Gamage doesn't see this thread



but other than that sounds a great idea, as Danish said will make interesting reading

"Nahi werani werani"

[Trevlyns]

NOW look what you've done, Mike

[safewalrus]

Yeah, that's torn it! We'll be full of spurious rubbish about how he could have but the nasty people wouldn't let him - sorry Ike didnn't mean to call him in!

[artemis]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

Yeah, that's torn it! We'll be full of spurious rubbish about how he could have but the nasty people wouldn't let him - sorry Ike didnn't mean to call him in!

I bet his real name is "wellydeckhand".

[longliner45]

wellys was ok ,,he got a bad wrap,,,was singled out by ass wipes,longliner

[Frosty]

I dont think that people would freely give information like this. Firstly there would probably be some serious money borrowing involved that Im sure would be most interesting and necessary to make the story feasable,-- yet is/was personal.

And if you had spent most of you life struggling to make ends meet with tremendous personal and family sacrifices but ending in succes? would you tell every body on a 4 page write up how to do it??--and why would you.

A story like that would not answer everything and would fabricate more questions. Certainly not satisfy the un succesfull.

Quite likely encourage hatred and jelousy, roumers and lies.

Publically explaining how you became succesfull ????????

Are you the inland revenue?

Why would'nt one write a book and make more money?

[DanishBagger]

Frosty,

I don't see those problems – how many career portraits have you seen in the papers? Quite a few, I'd guess. Nobody is asking for trade secrets.
Not everyone is capable of writing a book, and if I dare say so, not all stories will be interesting enough through, say, 200-300 pages.

Edit: P.S. Working as a journalist, I never pay to interview people about these things - otoh, I'm the writer on those things. But, and this is the crux, people do want to talk about themselves if approached properly.

[safewalrus]

Danish looking at these pages the main problem appears to be getting them to stop!!

Longliner - totally agree mate, Welly was a pretty good guy! got a lot of bad press tho' some of it of his own making but not I believe maliciously!

[DanishBagger]

Yup, Welly was nice – I liked him :-)