They Started at Their Kitchen Table — Now They Run One of Delaware's Most Successful Family Businesses - video Dailymotion

Entrepreneur

A dream, a family and a lot of heart.   Cape Water Tours began as a kitchen-table idea — but through creativity, adaptability and family teamwork, David and Michele Greene turned it into one of Delaware’s most loved small businesses.    Watch their story on America’s Favorite Mom and Pop Shops® and get inspired to start your own adventure!

Transcript

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.

They Started at Their Kitchen Table — Now They Run One of Delaware's Most Successful Family Businesses

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