Humans of Metstrade featuring Gabbi Richardson
What attracted you to working in the marine industry?
I grew up in Majorca and was surrounded by the marine industry from a young age. A lot of my friends' parents worked in yachting, and I was employed for a season on a superyacht while at university. I trained as a solicitor at a shipping law firm in London focused mostly on commercial maritime, handling a few yachting cases but mostly bulk cargo claims and other shipping matters.
When Yachting Ventures was founded, I moved back to my roots in the superyacht sector but then gradually expanded to include marine businesses focused on leisure and B2B markets. This was what connected me to Metstrade when we partnered with the show to launch the first Startup Pavilion in 2023.
Tell us about your business
I was working for a tech startup in London on accelerator programmes to assist entrepreneurs in moving their ideas through to marketable products. Yachting Ventures initially launched as one of those programmes, focused on a gap I had spotted for startup support in leisure marine and yachting.
We worked with mentors in the industry, such as successful entrepreneurs, to coach new founders about how to start a business. Over time we realised the support those founders really needed was in marketing. Typically they were engineers who knew how to build their products but didn’t know how to sell them or raise investment. We saw a lot of great products and great founders fail for those reasons. Yachting Ventures has pivoted now to work only with startups that already have a product, so we can focus on the marketing aspects.
We help startups to hit their value proposition, figure out what parts of the story they need to keep and which bits to drop. When it comes to messaging and communications, we encourage them to focus less on the technical details when they are pitching and look at the business more from a holistic perspective. We also educate on how to build a growth narrative, highlight milestones, and identify what is newsworthy. Oftentimes startups think they've got nothing to talk about, but they do have things to say. It’s also important that they've got a consistent brand presence going out, especially if they're raising investment.
Yachting Ventures has a community subscription, which provides startups with access to free promotional work, mentorship, access to our events, networking and education. Our marketing capabilities include PR and communications, some social media management and branding work. Then we have event collaborations, such as the one now in its third year with Metstrade, where we take a space and build startup pavilions.
This year we’ll have an expanded presence in Amsterdam with 15 stands in what will be known now as Metstrade Startups in hall 7, plus a further 10 booths in the newly launched Superyacht Startups within hall 8. Take-up is going well, and we are at 90 per cent capacity already with startups applying from all around the world.
What interesting trends are you seeing in the industry?
More startups are positioning themselves as having AI incorporated into what they're doing, whether that’s through their manufacturing process or the actual product itself, if it is software driven. Sustainability, electrification and greater transparency in manufacturing procedures are also notable trends.
From a comms and marketing perspective, the need for founders to build their personal brands and for them to be authentic on social media about things such as the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is a must now. It’s no longer about company profiles but adopting a people-led approach, which is cool.
What are your three top tips to get me from my brilliant idea to a marketable product?
Tip 1: have as many conversations as possible and don’t keep your cards too close to your chest. Ideas are cheap and it’s all in the execution. People are often scared about someone stealing their idea but that’s not going to happen. It takes a lot of energy to move an idea to being a product; the more conversations that you can have, the more chance you can have of figuring out if your idea is viable and can be improved. Networking and making the right connections are also keys to success.
Tip 2: maintain momentum. Prioritise progress over perfection. Startups struggle with this but remember things don’t have to be perfect before you launch. If you are managing expectations and communicate with potential customers and partners the stage that you are at, then people will have empathy for you.
Tip 3: don’t underestimate the importance of professional branding and assets. We see so many founders with websites that look like they were built in the 1990s and it puts people off straight away. It’s not expensive nowadays to build a good website using drag and drop solutions or by finding freelancers on places like Upwork. There’s no excuse for not having a well-designed logo that stays sharp across multiple platforms. The first thing someone is going to do is Google you and when they do, being able to read your story and appreciate a consistent, smart brand image is an important first impression.
As a Young Professionals Club member yourself what importance do you place on this initiative?
I think it’s important that young professionals think about entrepreneurship and get inspired by talking to other founders and listening to the journeys. They must collect some of their own experience prior to launching a business. I moved around quite a lot before starting my business. My network was crucial to achieving my career steps. The Young Professionals Club is a great way to facilitate that networking, which is so important in the marine industry.
Young professionals should consider going to work for a startup, because they get much more responsibility compared to working for a big corporate and an accelerated learning curve. It’s not for everyone, being an often messy and scrappy environment. But if you are interested in starting your own business, going to work for a startup is a great way to get that experience and provide the affirmation that it’s not that hard. Founders and entrepreneurs are often put on a pedestal but if you work with them, you realise that they are just normal people.
If you decide to work for a startup, try to negotiate some equity as part of the deal, because the salary will probably be lower than in a corporate. Speak to the founder during the interview and ask what their plans are for exit to get a feel for the likelihood of equity converting to something tangible later down the line.
What's the importance of Metstrade to your business?
It’s the largest B2B leisure marine event in the world. If a startup is building a B2B product, they must be at Metstrade. It’s great to attend as a visitor, but having a physical presence, especially if you're looking to partner with like corporates or look for distribution, adds credibility that you’re more of an established business. The leisure marine industry can be risk averse when it comes to partnering with startups so a physical presence can serve as validation of your credentials.
Which Metstrade zones and activities do you most look forward to?
It’s hard to leave our startups at the show – everyone comes to me – I literally don't move! However, I am looking forward to getting over to the Metstrade Stage in hall 13 for our startup pitch competition, which is also in its third year. It’s a high energy event where we usually have five startups pitching to a lineup of investors to raise funding.
One of the best ways to learn how to pitch and to story tell is to watch others pitching and hearing the questions of the investors. There’s also networking afterwards. So even if founders are not pitching themselves, they can mingle with investors afterwards.
Further information
To read more about this year’s startup activities at Metstrade, held in partnership with Yachting Ventures, please visit www.metstrade.com/zones/startups
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