00:00If you had said, we want to run water taxis, then this business wouldn't exist anymore.
00:07Let's talk about business in nautical terms. If you're going to take a boat from point A to point
00:11B, you better know how to get there. But if you're going to launch a business, you can't know where
00:16point B even is. The best you can do is get out on the water and see where the wind and tides take
00:21you. How'd I do? You got it. That's David and Michelle Green, owners of Cape Water Tours.
00:28They had to make some hard decisions to keep their boating business afloat, but now it is a family
00:32business and a local bucket list item. I'm in Lewis, Delaware, the very first town in the very first
00:38state. So you could argue this is where American business began. And today we're going to learn
00:44how it continues to thrive. My name is Jason Pfeiffer. I'm the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine
00:57and with CLA, we are meeting these entrepreneurs to understand what it takes to build meaningful
01:02businesses that last. All aboard, mateys. Excuse me, this is your captain in training
01:09speaking. Does anybody on this boat have something to celebrate today? Is it anybody's birthday right now?
01:16It is customary here at Cape Water Tours that the birthday person gets to drive the boat. So come on down.
01:23Come on up. So how did it all start? With David, a serial entrepreneur who is obsessed with what's
01:30next and eager for a new challenge. We're having dinner and she's like, what's wrong? And I'm like,
01:36I'm bored. Had a run in with a good friend of mine who was working on a feasibility study for a water
01:43taxi between the towns of Lewis and Rehoboth. And so I went on Craigslist the next day and typed in water
01:48taxi and one popped up. Two days later, I went up and I bought it. And what did you think about this
01:53grand plan? Uh, I shouldn't have been all that surprised, but I was. Yeah, this one kind of spun
01:58out of control a little bit. So the original opportunity that you saw was a water taxi. There
02:03was a need for it to get between the towns of Lewis and Rehoboth. It can take an hour to an hour and a
02:08half. As if you use the canal, it can be done in 40 minutes. And it's one of the most incredibly
02:14beautiful rides that you'll take in the state of Delaware. So you get into this business and then
02:19what happens? We were told that there would be a dock built in Rehoboth. It actually didn't get
02:25built until 2021. Oh my gosh. In the short term, we had to try to figure out a way to sustain the
02:32business. I never forget the call. Hey, would you be interested in doing an eco tour or where you take
02:36people out and you talk about the environment and what you're seeing, birds and animals?
02:41It didn't take us long to realize that people wanted that more than they wanted the water taxi.
02:46The most important thing that you did here was not be attached to the original idea of the business.
02:52If you had said, we want to run water taxis, then this business wouldn't exist anymore. But instead,
02:59what you were open to was, what do people want from us? And you listened and you were responsive
03:05extremely quickly. They quickly grew from one boat in a canal to a fleet, offering everything
03:10from sunset cruises to dolphin watching and even murder mysteries. And as they grew, they added
03:16captains, including an ornithologist and even their daughter. Hey, Leah. So great to meet you.
03:22Good to meet you.
03:23So you are the daughter, but also the captain.
03:26Yes.
03:27So you grew up in this business. Tell me about that.
03:30I did. I watched my dad make his dreams come true. I watched him take risks.
03:34I watched everyone think that he was crazy and he did it anyway, because that's what motivates him.
03:40What do you think you learned as a kid growing up, seeing all that, seeing people say,
03:46this is crazy. And your dad just saying, we're going to make this work.
03:49I learned that when you take a risk, but also bring the people that you love into it,
03:55it can get you so much further. It just grows into something more than we could have ever imagined.
04:00So it was really inspiring for me as a kid. And it was really empowering for me to know that
04:05I could do anything with the right support system. Tell me more about what that means for you.
04:10As a woman, it's really easy to fall into the self-doubt and the negative self-talk.
04:16So I have to keep proving myself, not to everyone else, but also to myself every single day.
04:24And that's what keeps me from giving up on myself or thinking negatively,
04:32or thinking that I'm not good enough to do the job.
04:34Oh yeah, because you're a captain.
04:35Yeah.
04:35And after talking to a real life captain, I got one step closer to being a skipper myself.
04:41All right, Jason, it's time to complete your training. It's all yours, brother.
04:45I've been waiting for this.
04:46Take it away.
04:47I've been waiting for this.
04:51All right. What do I do?
04:53Turn towards me.
04:54Okay.
04:55For real.
04:58You know what makes you a great captain and a great entrepreneur?
05:01You're willing to let somebody else sit in the captain's seat.
05:04Even with a decade on the water, the Greens are still learning, still adapting,
05:09and now looking to make the business leaner, smarter, and more sustainable.
05:13If you think back to how the boat was used in the early days, to how it's used now,
05:18how radical a change is that?
05:20Wow. Night and night and day.
05:21Yeah, well, the first thing that comes to my mind is just the number of tours that we offer.
05:26How did you make the business more profitable?
05:27It's kind of difficult in this business because there's only so many hours in the day,
05:31and we are a seasonal business, but we're just trying to figure out what trips to put at what
05:36time so that the boats are moving all the time.
05:39How'd you do that?
05:40Well, I think having a robust reservation software has helped because we can run reports
05:45and look at analytics and numbers and see what days of the week or what times of the day brought
05:51in the most people. So just kind of using historical data and applying what works and what doesn't.
05:57Yeah. Embrace technology. I mean, there's some incredible stuff out there for business owners.
06:02The way some people think to expand is to just keep buying more stuff.
06:07You might've thought, well, we just need more boats. And if we have more boats,
06:10then we'll have more business. But the smarter way to do it is to say,
06:14how can we maximize every moment and squeeze as much value out of everything that we already have?
06:23And it sounds like that's what you did. You thought about how to maximize
06:27every second that that boat is sitting in this water.
06:30We're trying.
06:32You know, there's an old saying that building a business
06:35is like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down.
06:39But it's also like being on a boat because you can get pretty far out on your own,
06:43but you'll only stay afloat with the help of others.
06:47Well, I guess you need this captain's shirt back now, don't you?
06:50Actually, I've decided to promote you to junior captain.
06:53Yes.
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