Previous PostAs the saying goes, the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life are they day they buy a boat and they day they sell it. From maintenance and repairs, to accessorizing and fueling up, boat ownership is a costly endeavor.
Now, thanks to the advent of a startup that’s shaking up the recreational boating industry, anybody can set sail with the swipe of a smart phone. Boatbound is the first fully insured “pier-to-pier” boat sharing service that makes vessels ranging in size from kayaks to yachts accessible to an unlimited range of consumers. Think of it as Uber meets Airbnb – at sea.
Rickenbacker Marina president Aabad Melwani was introduced to Boatbound founder Aaron Hall through a mutual friend and immediately knew he wanted to be part of the company’s growth because he had wanted been waiting for a platform like this. Hall had been building Boatbound in the San Francisco Bay-area and saw the Southeast US, and particularly South Florida, as a logical territory for expansion.
As a marina operator Melwani saw an opportunity to recruit other marina owners and marine industry partners to employ and promote the Boatbound model. Having watched hundreds of boats sit in storage most of the year (the average boat owner only spends 14 days a year on the water!), Melwani understood the benefits of Boatbound first-hand: boat-sharing gives consumers expanded access to the water; allows boat owners to defray the high costs that come with ownership; and offers marina operators an opportunity to create new revenue streams by providing ancillary services such as retail and fuel sales.
The start-up has since caught the attention of Brunswick, one of the largest companies in the marine industry, which views Boatbound as a natural entry point for future boat owners. “The long-term health of our industry requires us to make boating even more accessible and affordable, especially among younger boaters,” explains Brunswick Chairman and CEO Dustan E. McCoy. ”Boatbound offers an innovative way to provide those interested in boating with actual boating experiences, which we believe will translate to boat ownership down the road.”
For Melwani, what makes Boatbound special is that the platform democratizes boating by making it accessible and affordable to a much wider range of the public while giving owners the security of knowing that the renter will be vetted and their vessel w fully insured. And as an entrepreneur himself, he loves the fact that Boatbound has spawned its own brand of entrepreneurship in the “sharing economy,” much like Uber, by allowing owners and small rental companies to market and rent boats that would otherwise be sitting idle and rapidly depreciating.