How Eva went from being a Marine Engineer to becoming a full-time sailor in Mallorca. A lesson in mindfulness.

As you know we love to share inspirational stories on our boataffair blog. We came across this one via our Instagram channel @boataffair. We started liking her posts and then got to talking to Eva, who originally trained as a Marine Engineer but always knew there is more to this world than sitting in front of a computer full-time. So, how did Eva end up sailing the waters of Mallorca full-time where she offers charter services now?

This summer I met a very inspiring entrepreneur Rob. Rob is British, who now lives in the South of France and runs his business from there. Rob’s story fascinated me, not only because he has changed his life completely 2 years ago, but also how he realised his dreams with his venture, enjoying a new lifestyle and creating experiences for himself and others. 

| One day, he simply decided it’s enough, bought a camper van, packed his family and headed off

When we started with developing our boutique platform, one of the first questions we asked ourselves together with our developer was ‘how can we make all processes fast, easy and as smooth as possible for our clients to join and use the platform?’. Let’s talk boat owners especially. The whole process from registration to listing your boat will only take less than 10 minutes and is done in few easy steps. It took me longer to write this blog post than to list 3 boats, and I love to write fast!
 

| “We put ourselves into our clients’ shoes”

I often ask myself if hiring in a startup is an easy process and how to attract and retain talent. While I believe that having a strong founding team is a prerequisite to gain momentum and attract the attention of the market, the ability to hire talent from the outside will strongly determine the success rate of any startup. Have I always got it right? No, absolutely not.

Last week a family of five rented a motor boat with Boataffair in Ayia Napa, Cyprus. They chose Boataffair to celebrate the third birthday of their son. We are immensely happy and proud to have organised this bespoke rental and to have enabled the family to have a unique experience they will never forget. At Boataffair we value authentic experiences in a safe and bespoke manner and we want our customer to feel valued.

Trust is key for sharing economy platforms to drive adoption, growth and transactions. In 2016 and 2017 PwC reports pointed out “the biggest challenge for sharing economy organisations if this space is to fully mature: how can they build trust between individuals who may never have met each other before”.

When talking about trust, it is natural to first think about the actual transactions such as payments and committing to a rental. However, fostering trust early in the customer journey is also crucial to get to the transaction stage itself to create confidence in the community. We identify four main trust points in the customer journey in the sharing economy.

The concept of the sharing economy is increasingly on everybody’s lips these days. Propelled to fame by the likes of AirBnB and Uber new sharing economy platforms are emerging stronger than ever.

PwC research in 2016 estimates that by 2025 the sharing economy in Europe alone will be worth around EUR 80bn in revenue and will facilitate EUR 570bn in transactions. That’s an exciting development and underpins a major social trend.