When we create anything worth selling to customers and clients, be it a product or a service, we want to be successful so we can build an organisation around it and grow it to the point we can take a step back and admire it from afar ...
A Sunseeker 75 Sport Yacht is at the top of my crazy goal list right now!
At that point, the word 'afar' should mean 'in the company of', or 'in possession of' our goal. You see, every tech founder needs a crazy goal as it can't just be about the money. You have to have something to aim for, and yes, money plays a huge part in achieving said goal, but you must have a goal to start with.
"There are many worthy goals!"
For some, it's going to be a comfy retirement. For others it's going to be about unlimited travel. Some may say it's purely about removing worry from their lives (though that'll never happen if you run a business) and others will say it's about the challenge of building something they can leave behind when they've gone.
OK, some will say it's about flash cars, expensive clothes, eating in the best restaurants and first-class seats on a plane ... and money enables all that ..., but it shouldn't be purely about your bank balance. Rather, you need to have a goal to aim for because if you don't, you could be seen as greedy and arrogant and nobody should want that.
"If you do, then you should probably get into banking!"
So, I shall lay out my goal for you: I want to buy a yacht. Not one with sails because I know I'd just tip it over in the first week and drown, but a motor yacht, which is a lot more stable. A Sunseeker 75 Sport Yacht is at the top of the list right now, but a Princess S78 or Galeon 800 FLY are under consideration too. They're all very comfortable, fast sports cruisers I could easily live on for weeks at a time, speed along the south coast in, then anchor in a quiet bay and just relax ... or do some coding.
Sounds absolutely mad, doesn't it? Well, not really. Companies buy bricks and mortar properties as their head offices all the time, so if my yacht was the headquarters of YourPCM, and I had a remote workforce, then why not? You can have a marine mortgage on these things. All I need is Starlink Marine for comms and I've got a fully connected workspace wherever I am.
Apart from me relaxing, eating amazing food and seeing the sights of the south coast, the Scilly Isles, the Channel Islands and the occasional trip up the Thames to London to meet investors, it would be perfect. So, would summer in the med, although I'd need a crew to pull that off.
"My team will always be small, so they could come join me for weekends!"
There's plenty of bunk space on these things. Load up with tons of scrummy food, tell them where to meet me for boarding and off we go. All I'd need is a captain's hat at a jaunty angle and to shout "Ahoy!" regularly. In the deepest summer, we could get the Seabobs and Jetski out and go and have some watery fun.
My beautiful little yacht is going to be called Great A'tuin after the star turtle in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, my favourite book series. It'll have a black hull, grey/silver bodywork, and gold-tinted fittings rather than normal shiny chrome. It'll look amazing in my corporate colours. Of course, my tender will be called Little A'tuin to match it's big sister.
You may now say I'm mad as a box of frogs, but you have to have a crazy goal to aim for, so why not? And it has to be detailed and visible in your mind. I can see myself at the helm, I can hear the roar of the engines, and smell the salt in the air. I can feel the sun on my face as I relax on a sunpad and read a book. It's all there in my mind and it'll be amazing for my tan. I'm also rather slim in my visualisations, so I guess I hit my fitness goals too.
"Motor yachts are expensive!"
You're easily looking at three to four million pounds for a new one (maybe even more) and there is a lot of learning and certification to be done before you're allowed to move something that big out of a marina. And, of course, there are a ton of monthly costs for berthing, insurance, fuel ... it all adds up.
But when YourPCM succeeds, my team grows and I have more time for these things ... I'm going for it.
Love, light and logic ...
STEFFI LEWIS
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Foodie, sci-fi nut, cat lover, brain aneurysm & cancer survivor, countryside dweller, SaaS entrepreneur, developer and networker.
Published my first website in 1993 for the Open University and am highly experienced with Windows Servers, SQL Server, HTML, Classic ASP, JavaScript, and CSS.
I've also worked as a professional photographer in Los Angeles, USA and been a vision mixer and producer for live television in my time.
I live in a village north of Milton Keynes with my two cats, Baggins and Gimley, and a large planted aquarium full of unruly tropical fish.
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