A surf coaching program that costs $5,000 for a single week – sounds like a risky business plan.
However, this is exactly what the crew at Surf Simply has done to a level where they’ve become a household name with surfers across the world.
Today with us is Rupert Hill, one of the four owners of Surf Simply, to tell us a little bit more about the company and how it works.
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What exactly is Surf Simply?
It’s a program that offers technical surf coaching in a luxury boutique resort environment in Costa Rica. What makes Surf Simply unique is that they have a very limited number of attendants – only 12 per week. The program has achieved immense popularity, to the point where it was mentioned on CNN and the New York Times, and it is now fully booked until August 2021, at the moment of recording this podcast.
The early beginnings
As Rupert says, he began his career in teaching in a surf school that put the focus on numbers. With around 30 coaches, they would teach a large group of students at an entry level of surfing. He says that he taught approximately 15,000 students at that time. This vast experience allowed him to learn some of the nuances of teaching at a large scale, which he was able to apply later on.
A problem Rupert realized is that most courses on the market focus on one of two groups – complete beginners or the top elite, with 1% of each group being present in the market. Needless to say, the remaining 98% didn’t have a place to go in either of the two groups and that’s how Surf Simply came into play.
The challenges of retaining great talent
As Rupert says, it takes quite a long time to come up with a surfing curriculum for one of his programs at Surf Simply. At the same time, you need at least two years to coach a surfer to become a good enough teacher to be able to function well in their role. As a result, they had to pay teachers well enough so that they wouldn’t leave after a certain time and those two years really pay off later on. The solution was to pay teachers a good salary so that they wouldn’t leave, which is a huge part of the Surf Simply price tag.
In the first couple of years, the biggest struggle for the company was convincing the cynical majority that Surf Simply was something worth their time and money. They thought that it was another course for beginners or elite professionals. However, word of mouth quickly spread to the point where they didn’t have to prove their worth anymore.
Educating potential customers with great content
One of the reasons why Surf Simply is at a place where they are is the stellar content on their website. They have a coaching curriculum that is completely free to download and print out, along with a range of videos they have published. All of this information shows potential customers what Surf Simply is and allows them to make an educated decision about whether to spend their money or not.
Over the years, there were other companies and individuals that wanted to benefit from this free information and who wanted to launch their own course similar to Surf Simply. They would even join the course and openly state that they want to open another Surf Simply, but as Rupert says, he’s not concerned.
“We only take 12 people a week out of a huge marketplace, there’s room for another 500 or 1,000 Surf Simplys to be as successful as we are, without it impacting us as a business.”
As he says, it’s like buying a ticket for a plane ride, flying across the Atlantic and thinking you could build a plane. Just spending a week at Surf Simply is not enough to grasp all the fine details to be able to replicate such a project, but he hopes it inspires people to start their own ventures.
The value of people and why not to scale
As our guest says, the people that are the biggest value in Surf Simply. If something were to happen to Costa Rica, he is confident that the entire operation could be moved somewhere else, as long as the same people were in the project. He wants to establish great relationships with everyone at Surf Simply, which is why he strives to make their lives better.
At the moment, there are 35 people in the company and everyone is wondering, with their success, why isn’t Surf Simply scaling and getting bigger? Rupert gets the same question several times every week and his reply is always:
“It’s really fun making Surf Simply better. Duplicating certainly isn’t as much fun.”
While there are some attempts at growing the company, for the most part, having money come in doesn’t necessarily equate to a better quality of life for anyone at the company.
“If my income level tripled, my happiness might go up 5 or 10%, but it wouldn’t grow 300% On that side of the bell curve, scaling wouldn’t necessarily bring me a lot of happiness.
He even supports his own employees who want to branch off and start doing their own version of Surf Simply. As he says, within a week or two, they always come back because of how good they have it at the company and don’t intend to start their own business.
Mistakes in building a business
Seeing how happy his customers are with Surf Simply, it seems like there weren’t too many errors along the way. Rupert says that his major mistake was micromanaging at the beginning of his career, which he is now aware of and does things differently. When it comes to hiring new people for his business, he says that:
“It’s much easier to teach a good teacher to teach surfing than it is to teach a good surfer how to teach”
Now he stands back and lets his teachers make mistakes and take ownership of what they do. That sense of autonomy really allows you to get the best out of someone’s talent.
If you want to learn more about Surf Simply and Rupert Hill’s story, make sure to listen to the full podcast!
Surfpreneurs podcast is hosted by Peter Fabor, the founder of Surf Office.
Surf Office helps surf houses, hotels and villas boost their group bookings by hosting retreats with tech companies searching for productive team building experiences.
Learn more about how to become a property partner of Surf Office.
Transcription (automatic, sorry for typos)
[00:00:00] Peter: [00:00:00] Hey, you're listening. Surfpreneurs podcast where we interview inspiring surf entrepreneurs and we discuss about their businesses and ideas. Today. I'm going to talk with Rupert Hill from surf simply even. I'm not a customer. I'm a big fan of surf simply. I've been following surf simply for a couple of years, and I really admire not only what they do, but how they do things.
[00:00:23] I wrote welcome to the show.
[00:00:26] Ru: [00:00:26] Hi, thanks for thanks so much for having me on.
[00:00:28] Peter: [00:00:28] Uh, let's start with, uh, an easy question. How would you describe sir, simply in one sentence.
[00:00:37] Ru: [00:00:37] Uh, so I guess I'd say it's technical surf coaching in a luxury boutique resort environment. How's that is that one sentence
[00:00:51] Peter: [00:00:51] sounds good.
[00:00:51] The various, uh, boutique. Environment, if it in Costa Rica,
[00:00:56] Ru: [00:00:56] right? Yes, that's right. So we're based in [00:01:00] Nosara in Costa Rica, um, right by the beach here, uh, just, well, 200 yards back from the beach on the edge of the nature reserve. Um, but we do coaching projects around the world as well. We run coaching courses in, um, Peru and, uh, UK and in the past we've done them in Indonesia and France.
[00:01:19] Uh, surf ranch as well. Kelly Slater's wave pool and we're heading back there this year again, and then back to Indonesia again, actually in September. So we do these little one off weeks, but, but most of the time we're based here in Nosara.
[00:01:33] Peter: [00:01:33] Cool. Uh,
[00:01:34] Ru: [00:01:34] this podcast is
[00:01:36] Peter: [00:01:36] more about business than surfing. So I will be very direct.
[00:01:41] Uh, when I opened your website, I found that you are charging $5,000 for one-week surf camp, and it looks like that you are completely sold out for the next six or seven months. So my question is how is that possible? I'm sure that, [00:02:00] that many people asking you a similar question. That's why I'm asking.
[00:02:04] Ru: [00:02:04] Yeah. So we're very lucky to fill up so far in advance where we're actually, I think right now, a full until around August, 2021. So at the moment we're actually followed by a year and a half out, um, each week. Well, so one of the things that we. Chose to do was to limit the number of people that we actually take each week.
[00:02:26] So we have just 12 guests who work with our team of nine coaches. Um, and. You know, the area in the ocean is a limited space, and we, we think that all businesses should use that space in a sustainable way. So we decided not to go with the business model of just increasing in size and increasing in numbers and decided to increase in quality and stay small.
[00:02:49] So we've limited ourselves to 12 surfers a week. And, you know, as, as the reputation of the business has grown and as, um, experienced and competent [00:03:00] level surfers have. Um, become more confident in knowing that they'll get value out of a week of coaching itself, simply, which, you know, isn't the case at many surf schools for, for experienced surface, um, with, you know, with the demand has gone up.
[00:03:14] And, um, yeah, I mean, I think that, that people feel comfortable paying, paying $5,000 for the week because they feel that they will get that kind of value out of the coaching that they receive. And. You know, as a, as I said, when we were chatting before the show, we try to do the boutique resorts and all of the creature comforts around having a nice vacation, as well as anyone in the world.
[00:03:41] Um, you know, scale, notwithstanding, but I think it's, it's the technical nature of the surf coaching and the thoughtfulness of the program. And the time that we've spent into training up our team and making sure that the. The whole coaching system is properly systemized as an and as impactful as it can be in a five day period.
[00:03:59] You know, I think that's [00:04:00] what, that's, what really makes people keep coming back. And of course we've been fortunate enough to have. Um, you know, some great press in the New York times and, and outside magazine and CNN and various other things. But, um, but I think it's, it's that quality of the coaching and that's sort of where we've refused to compromise on that.
[00:04:19] Um, as the businesses become more popular and I think that's what, that's, what get kind of his has made us so popular and has, is what's makes people want to book,
[00:04:31] Peter: [00:04:31] uh, You had quite a long history of surf coaching before you started surf simply, right? So it's not, uh, you started sir simply, and you'll learn all these things during this 10 years of, uh, of, of servicing play, but the already had previous experience.
[00:04:49] Maybe if you can explain how this experience influenced you to start serve simply,
[00:04:55] Ru: [00:04:55] um, well, You know, I, I was, uh, [00:05:00] teaching in the UK, um, in Cornwall mostly, um, I guess about 10 years before I came over to Costa Rica and started surf simply. And, you know, I was working for a surf school there that really did do the opposite.
[00:05:13] It sort of did the numbers game. And when I started, there was, I think three of us had a busy day. We'd have 30 or 40 people come through the surf school. And by the time I left. Which was the late nineties. Uh, there was, I think what was one day we had like 28 coaches working and we had 600 people come through the school.
[00:05:30] So, you know, I, I would go down to the water's edge in the morning with my wetsuit and my backpack with my lunch in it. And I would teach a group of 10 and then they would go back up to the top of the beach and the next group would come down and they'd go back up. And the next group would come down. And, uh, most of that was kind of entry-level.
[00:05:47] Or sort of what people would, what we would call that level two surfing sort of beginner, intermediate surfing. And, um, and you just by gate by, by, by teaching such big numbers of people, and I [00:06:00] sort of back of a napkin calculator that I taught about 15,000 people over that period, you get to really tease out what coaching techniques work, because there's so many variables in the ocean.
[00:06:11] You need a huge data set like that to actually. Notice it there's a real effect size. Um, if you kind of decide to teach people by putting their hand here versus putting their hand here or putting their foot there first or putting it there, you know, later on. So, you know, I would kind of try and AB test, I'd be like, well, I'm going to test, you know, 200 people this way and 200 people this way and see what actually works.
[00:06:36] Um, and you know, and it wasn't, I don't think it was just the time spent teaching surfing, but I think it was spending time specifically doing that. Um, and trying to sort of be a bit scientific about teasing out what are real effective mechanisms for coaching surfing and what just seem like they are, but might not actually be as effective in, in the real world.
[00:06:59] So [00:07:00] I think that was really what stood me in good stead. When I then started surf simply.
[00:07:07] Peter: [00:07:07] Where are you in contact with just, I'm just curious, very in contact with those people where the serve lesson with you. Uh, maybe after, after a couple of months or weeks asking them how the serve lesson or your coaching influenced them.
[00:07:22] Because I have a feeling that most surf schools, they just teach you, they get money from you. And after this lesson it's done, it's they, they don't care so much about the right. They don't, they're not interested to listen. What, uh, what is your progress in two months? It's not their business,
[00:07:40] Ru: [00:07:40] right? Yeah.
[00:07:40] That actually that's it that's exactly the correct question. You know, I think the reason why I started approaching teaching surfing, like that was because I had so many people come back year after year of the year. Who were then progressing with their own surfing and the classic entry-level surf lesson is that you, you basically got the emphasis on catching a wave and standing up.
[00:07:59] And that [00:08:00] actually isn't what surfing is about. The tool surfing is about, um, it's kind of the game of seeing how close you can get your board to the whitewater without getting stuck in the whitewater. You know, the technical way we talk about that is of course surfing and the critical part of the wave, but that's really what the game of surfing is.
[00:08:16] And when someone would come along and you'd teach them to catch a wave and stand up. Um, and then they would come back, you know, going all right. I've, you know, I've got really good at that. Now, what do I do next? I find myself repeatedly going all right. Forget everything that you learned in that lesson.
[00:08:29] Now I'm going to teach you how to actually move your weight around on the board to get it, to do what you want it to do, because of course, you know, you can be an amazing surfer writing. Huge. Paralleling waves on a bodyboard or on a kneeboard. So, you know, standing up clearly, isn't the secret sauce. It's just something that we do in order to surf the wave better.
[00:08:48] It's not the endpoint. The analogy always uses that standing up as like holding the steering wheel in a car it's not driving. It's just something you need to do in order to be able to drive the car. So I find myself having that [00:09:00] conversation over and over again, precisely because I was seeing the same people coming back and that, and then at the same time I started teaching.
[00:09:07] Uh, the British junior team or helping out with the coaching over there who were kids who were really, really good surfers. And that was all video coaching. And that was approached in a much more logical way, but it became really obvious to me that there was nothing to connect the entry-level surfer to a point where they could even paddle out and begin being video coached in the way that they, the junior competitors were that I was working with.
[00:09:32] So I guess to put it in a nutshell, that was kind of the. The entry-level 1% and then the top elite 1% that was sort of coaching in place with both of those two groups, but the 98% in the middle, which makes up most of surfers. Uh, there's really nothing for, and so that certainly has been the project of connecting those two groups together.
[00:09:53] Um, yeah.
[00:09:56] Peter: [00:09:56] It makes so much sense. That's my, [00:10:00] my question is why nobody else is doing it, or at least, I don't know many surf camps or which are targeting this intermediate surfers that almost all surf cams, they focus on entry-level. Beginners and then on pro surfers, exactly what percentage of the market and why there are no more focusing on this 90, 98% of the market.
[00:10:29] What's your explanation?
[00:10:32] Ru: [00:10:32] Well, I think, well, I mean, first of all, I, you know, I'm slightly surprised as well. You know, every year I sort of, I'm expecting there to be another like 10, 20, 30 similar business models to pop up and they don't pop up. And I'm, I'm sort of, I find, I do find that quite surprising, but I mean, the reasons why they might not, I suppose, is, you know, number one, it is a huge amount of work, actually putting together [00:11:00] a curriculum and a syllabus and training the coaches.
[00:11:02] I mean, It takes us two years to have a, uh, an experienced surf coach and a good surfer begin incessantly. It takes us two years to get them to a point where they're trained and they can teach our whole program. So if you're, if you're running like a seasonal business and most of your coaching team is only staying with you for two, three years before they go on and do something else, you know, you're never, ever going to get your team able to coach.
[00:11:29] Um, you know, a curriculum approaching something which is going to connect those two groups because it just takes too long to train someone. So one of the first challenges for us as a business was to make sure that we paid the coaches a salary, which allows them to say, all right, I'm a professional surf coach.
[00:11:46] This is what I'm going to do for the next 30 or 40 years. And that then allows us to train them. So that was a business challenge. And that's, you know, where most of the money in that. Package fee that [00:12:00] people pay when the $5,000, when they come to stay with us, that paying to have coaches that are professional career surf coaches.
[00:12:07] So that's a really big part of the puzzle. I think another part of the puzzle is that, you know, as I mentioned before, a lot of surface who are, who were experienced surfers, who were in that 98%, who's been surfing for five or 10 or 20 years. And, you know, I'm pro-level surfers, but can paddle out on their own comfort and would feel out of place in a most conventional entry-level.
[00:12:26] So school classes, you know, I think those people are very cynical on the whole that a surf school will bring any value to them. And I think they're right to be cynical because mostly if they sign up for a lesson, they're going to go away a little bit disappointed. So, you know, the first two, three, four years of service simply I was constantly fighting this battle, trying to convince people that there was some value in coming and getting coaching.
[00:12:50] And, um, you know, I would even sort of saying to people come along and, you know, we'll do a video session and if you go away and you know, there's nothing helpful in that and know you don't have to pay for [00:13:00] it. And those people told their friends and, you know, they always went away happy and they went away having learned a lot.
[00:13:06] And quite often having had their minds blown at the heart, particularly at the concept of how much you have to move your weight around and your stance and the difference between trimming and carving turns, you know, that's something that you just don't learn intuitively by spending time in the water.
[00:13:19] So. People would kind of learn that stuff and go away and tell their friends and the momentum got going. And then. At a certain point, I find that I didn't need to have that conversation with people anymore. They were, they were already confident in service, simply his ability to deliver that product before they were getting in touch with us.
[00:13:36] And then, you know, the scales really went the other way until we got to the stage we're at now where. As I said, we're sort of booked out a year and a half in advance and we have a waiting list for each week of between usually 150 and 200
[00:13:49] Peter: [00:13:49] people. And I think a big part of the success is also the content you've created the content on your website.
[00:13:58] It's. It's [00:14:00] it's amazing. You publish regularly a podcast. You have really many video tutorials, a lot of articles. So even for someone who is not your customer, um, your website is very, very useful, so you can learn a lot of things. And without. Actually visiting, sir, simply, how do you see this as a, as marketing?
[00:14:24] Do you get a lot of clients because of the, because of the content or you get more clients because of the recommendations of the previous clients.
[00:14:35] Ru: [00:14:35] Well, first of all, that's very kind of, you, you know, we put a lot of work into getting all of that content out of that. And I think like most people who produce content for the internet, I always feel like I'm on the back foot.
[00:14:47] And just when you feel like you've produced something fantastic, you know, it feels like 72 hours later, it's been lost in the great social media feed. And you're kind of, you feel like you're back to zero again. So, so thanks very much for saying that, but, um, yeah, I [00:15:00] mean, we. We feel like there's so much value in what we do here.
[00:15:06] When people come and stay with us. And as I said, training people to be a coach takes such a long time that we know that even when we're trying to fall over ourselves, to impart all the knowledge that we have, it still takes a lot of time to teach someone how to teach or to, or to teach a customer.
[00:15:24] What's going to be most impactful for their surfing. So we're not concerned at all about any kind of intellectual property or giving stuff away. Um, for free, you know, so we have our tree of knowledge, our coaching curriculum up online for people to just download and print off and use themselves. Um, and you know, we, we put some videos up there or they they're a bit old now and working on some new ones.
[00:15:44] And I know that podcast, we try to talk about, um, you know, a lot of technical surfing issues and a lot of science stuff, and try to approach it from a slightly different angle to the conventional surf media. Where they're perhaps a little more skepticism. Um, and [00:16:00] yeah, I mean, it's, I think. Having a voice while you're where you are, you're out online and you, and you try to just show people, look, I'm an informed, thoughtful person.
[00:16:10] Um, and then people have that confidence in you to go ahead and spend some not insignificant amount of money to come and spend a week of their week of their life with you. So, you know, all of that stuff that we put out there is just to let people see who we are and then they can make a decision about how confident they feel about investing their time and money.
[00:16:30] Peter: [00:16:30] I'm sure that there are many people who see our website and then see our price list and they, then they research more and then they decide to too. To copy it, maybe in the way that they become customers, they come, they come to visit and they will even tell you that they want to replicate serve simply in an, in zip, in a different location.
[00:16:54] I'm sure that you have these type of experiences. So how do you, how do you deal with that? Do [00:17:00] you, do you help people to replicate it because you are already open with the concept, with the content on your website, you share almost everything. And I think this is a, this is very common thing for you. I'm sure that there are at least one or two people a week telling you this.
[00:17:19] Ru: [00:17:19] Well, we, we, we don't get quite that many, but we have quite a few over the years when they'd
[00:17:23] Peter: [00:17:23] be done.
[00:17:28] Ru: [00:17:28] Yeah, but we have people who were very open and they come and say, look, we've booked to come and stay with you because we want to do something similar and we want to see how it operates. And they're always, they're always, you know, so far they've always been really nice people that we've ended up becoming friends with and, you know, we try and be supportive of what they're doing.
[00:17:45] Um, you know, not in a way that we're giving so much of our time and energy that it's detrimental to. Uh, to our business, but, you know, we always try and be supportive because it's like, why not really? I mean, we only take 12 people a week out of a Mo of a huge marketplace [00:18:00] that there's room for another, you know, 500 or a thousand serves simply is to all be as successful as we are without ever really impacting, you know, us as a business at all.
[00:18:10] So, you know that old saying it's like worrying about overpopulation on Mars. We're just, we're just not really worried about, um, you know, other surf simply. Type businesses popping up. And the other thing is, you know, it's like, like it's so hard to do. Uh, the analogy that I used when I was speaking with the guys at people in the company, and perhaps this sounds a little conceited, so I apologize, but just to make a point it's, it's sort of like, Getting on a plane and flying across the Atlantic and landing on the other side and going, yeah, I thought I might build a plane.
[00:18:43] So I got on a plane and now that I've flown on one, I reckon I could build one of these things. You know, there's, there's so many moving parts and I know how many moving parts have to be perfect in order for the whole of the serviceability machine to work. Um, and I don't think that someone could [00:19:00] come and spend a week with us and then go away and.
[00:19:03] And, uh, and replicated, although hopefully they go away thinking, yes, at least now I know what I'm aiming for. Um, but as much as I can give people my time, I, I, I'm always happy to jump on Skype with people and let them bounce ideas off me. And for what it's worth, I share my experiences with them.
[00:19:20] Peter: [00:19:20] I have a feeling that big part of.
[00:19:23] This working machine are definitely people. Is that that's correct. Maybe if you can share more about how, uh, you said that you, you pay them better than regular service schools. So they stay after, they don't stay only for a couple of years, but they stay for 20 years. But what are maybe other differences?
[00:19:45] How you, how you treat your employees or people who work with you.
[00:19:51] Ru: [00:19:51] well, you know, I think that you're right, that the team is the most important thing. I mean, we've just finished building this new facility, which I'm [00:20:00] really proud of. Um, but moving from the old resort to the new resort and when we run our satellite projects as well, it's always a very poignant reminder that it's, it's the team.
[00:20:11] It's the people like you say that actually are, what, what has a lot of value in if, if you know, If that was some kind of natural disaster that meant we can operate here in Costa Rica or on is anymore. I feel pretty confident that we could pick the operation up and just move the people to wherever we were going to be next.
[00:20:26] And it would work just as well. Um, and you know, I'll try and answer your question without going off on too much of a tangent, which I find myself very tempted to do because it's a really good question. And there's lots of it. There's, one of the oldest scientific studies. That's our longest-running scientific studies that's ever been done.
[00:20:46] I think it's based out of Harvard University and it's actually a multigenerational study following. I might have some of these numbers wrong, but I think it's like two or 400, um, young men who, who. Graduated Harvard [00:21:00] back in the forties or fifties, and then at the same time, Oh, sorry about that. But background noise.
[00:21:05] Um, and then at the same time, uh, uh, a group of young guys who were sort of some of the poorest parts of Boston, and they were trying to track all of these variables in their life to see what things tended to correlate with a happy life and a successful life. And. They would measure a successful life by several metrics.
[00:21:21] Like self-reported happiness, financial success, not being in prison, the longevity of relationships and those kinds of things. And there was only one signal that really jumped up clear above everything else, which was the quality of the relationships that those people had with the people around them.
[00:21:38] And that tended to make them healthier, happier, earn more money, um, you know, all of those things and. Learning about that. Um, and, and the huge amount of, of literature that subsequently been sort of come, comes to light, which supports that made me think a few years ago, you know, what's, what's really important in my life is the quality of my relationships with the people [00:22:00] around me.
[00:22:00] And, um, you know, we spend most of our time with the people that we're working with. Um, you know, that you don't usually choose them now is a business owner. I'm fortunate that I do get to choose them to some extent. Um, so you know, the quality of my relationship with those people on a personal level is very important to me and, you know, the best way in my opinion.
[00:22:24] To have good quality relationships with people around you is to just be an instrument of making their life better. So, you know, for entirely selfish reasons, I try to make sure that everyone that I'm spending all of my time with, which is all of the guys that surf simply has the best quality life that they possibly can because for nonbusiness reasons and for non-altruistic reasons, you know, that that's going to give me the happiest life.
[00:22:48] So. Yeah, that's a really important thing to me personally, outside of business, but I think it has the happy knock-on effect that everyone feels appreciated and, um, [00:23:00] you know, and, and enjoys where they work. And, you know, we, we try as much as we can to not have a, um, a sort of triangular classic hierarchy at the business.
[00:23:10] We have myself and Jesse and Harry and Danny, the four owners. And then we have a team of about 35 people. And it's pretty much like a flat organization. Um, and you know, anyone can bring ideas forward and. I don't think anyone feels above or below anyone else, you know, and I think that's a much more sustainable social environment.
[00:23:29] And I think from what I've been told, that's very difficult to do once you get over about 40 employees. So I don't know if that scales, but, but at the size we are, it seems to work well.
[00:23:39] Peter: [00:23:39] So you are, uh, uh, you, you gave me a hint for another question. We have a Facebook group serve printers, clap where. Um, we discuss, uh, ideas about certain businesses that are around 120, uh, [00:24:00] surf entrepreneurs.
[00:24:01] And I, I mentioned there that we are going to record an interview with you and ask people if they have some fan questions or they should ask. And there was a, there was a very obvious question. Why serve simply is not scaling. Why you don't try to open more locations. Why not try to franchise the business?
[00:24:26] And I guess it's related to what you said before, but, uh, I'm curious to hear more.
[00:24:35] Ru: [00:24:35] Um, well, you know, I think that the assumption that you want to make a business bigger, um, shouldn't just be taken. As, as, as the baseline assumption of all businesses. I mean, if you work backward to, you know, what is it that you as an entrepreneur actually want out of life?
[00:24:54] You know, it is one of your goals to have the biggest business that you possibly can or the most profitable business that you possibly [00:25:00] can. And that's not a bad goal. It's a perfectly legitimate goal, but I think it's worth just asking yourself if that is what you want. And if that is what you want, like, why do you want that?
[00:25:09] So I think the question shouldn't be, why aren't you scaling surf simply? I think the question should be with businesses that are scaling is why are you scaling? Like what, what do you want, what do you want to achieve by scaling? Um, you know, and. That, that question I do get asked like every week, a couple of times by the guests.
[00:25:28] Um, and you know, the truth is it's really, really fun. Making surf simply better. Um, duplicating surf simply isn't as much fun. So, you know, we're working on a ton of projects right now to do with VR coaching and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into augmented reality coaching, which has been amazing.
[00:25:49] Um, You know, we're building a whole kind of, uh, uh, version of our tree of knowledge, which will sit online with company videos, which, which people will then be able to access. [00:26:00] Um, we're involved with some discussions with a couple of, uh, I actually, I'm not sure how much I can say about that, but a couple of companies have approached us wanting us to put together curriculums for them.
[00:26:12] Um, and, and again, those are great opportunities that kind of. Look a little look and feel a bit like scaling. And we're thinking about those very hard because you know, just having money come in again, it doesn't necessarily equate to everyone at Surf Simply having a, a much better quality of life. Um, but yeah, just, just to go back, it's, it's really, really fun.
[00:26:34] Making surf simply better. It's it's not so much fun doing all of the just let's try and duplicate as much as we can. You know, one of my big financial goals for the business is to have everyone who works here across that, um, salary threshold, where a lack of money is not something that negatively impacts your life.
[00:26:56] So having more and more employees doesn't actually [00:27:00] get me closer to my financial goal. If anything, it might get me further away. Now there are more people that I want to try and get across that salary line. Um, you know, also just selfishly. I'm so proud of what we do. I mean, it probably comes across in my, in, in me talking about the business and, you know, I'm, I really am proud of, of what the coaches do and what the entire team does it.
[00:27:22] Um, and that's what I really enjoy. And I think if we scaled and got bigger, I haven't seen many businesses that have held onto something. Um, like what we have when they've, when they've tried to roll it out. Um, so I wouldn't like to lose the pride that I feel in what we do. And, um, yeah. So I guess the short answer is there's not very much upside, um, you know, financially I'm, I'm, I'm not very wealthy, but I have fairly simple tastes as long as I get to go on all the surf trips that I want and buy the surfboards I want and the gadgets that I want.
[00:27:59] I'm, I'm [00:28:00] pretty happy. Um, I think that if my income level like tripled, my happiness might go up. You know, it's 5% or 10%, but it wouldn't go up 300%. So I think I'm on that side of the bell curve West scaling wouldn't necessarily bring me a lot of, a lot of happiness. So if someone came along and gave a really good reason why we should do that, well, then I'm not ideologically opposed to it.
[00:28:24] There's just no reason for me or any of the team to do it. No one thing that I do for the, for the team here is. Make sure that they don't have that same limitation imposed on them. So any of the team can at any time go away and run one of these satellite weeks that we do around the world. Um, and they're free to even go and start another service certainly with, with my support.
[00:28:47] Uh, and that's how we ended up doing these little satellite trips everywhere. And, um, you know, and I say to them, you know, if you want to kind of spread your entrepreneurial wings and, and, and kind of take this thing and run with it, I'm very happy here in Nosara and kind of [00:29:00] doing this at this scale, but I'll absolutely support you in everything that you do.
[00:29:03] And we even have a, a sort of a, uh, a franchise, you know, back of a napkin kind of template of what it looks like, which is. Really in favor of them being able to go and make it a financial success. You know, there are not many financial limitations put on them and people tend to go away and they'll run a week or two.
[00:29:21] And they're like, you know what? I love working in the Sarah. That was a lot of fun. It was a huge amount of work over here. We get paid. Well, we get 17 weeks off every year. Um, so, uh, you know, we're going to keep doing this, so that's been the pattern. So I guess, I guess we're pretty happy. Okay.
[00:29:37] Peter: [00:29:37] So for me, the answer is that you are kind of testing, uh, scaling in this way that you allow your employees to start another.
[00:29:47] Serve simply location, but they are so happy with, uh, with, uh, the current location working for you that they don't want, so they don't want to move. And yeah. And the second thing is that you [00:30:00] are basically scaling the business, but not in a traditional way of opening more and more locations or real estate, but, uh, Online, uh,
[00:30:10] Ru: [00:30:10] this
[00:30:10] Peter: [00:30:10] augmented reality, it's a, it's a perfect example of, of scaling what you do and, and give access to more people to try serve simply without traveling to Costa Rica.
[00:30:24] Ru: [00:30:24] Well, actually, I mean, it may come to that at the moment. Are. Driving force behind that is that we just want to have fun playing with what you can do with technology and coaching. I mean, it really does just come from that. We, you know, when, when you can play with stuff for fun, rather than because, you know, you're trying to meet a financial goal, it's a lot more enjoyable.
[00:30:47] So at the moment, we're not putting any, um, financial targets on any of these projects. We're just kind of just playing with them to see how, how well we can coach basically.
[00:30:58] Peter: [00:30:58] Uh, I'm on the [00:31:00] R three advisor profile and yeah, five-star review, five-star review looks like that. Um, people, people really like serve simply.
[00:31:10] I don't see any negative reviews or any negative things about serve. Simply you have articles in New York times. Uh, so my last question is what, uh, uh, looks like that you have done. Many things well, but what do you haven't done? Well, what do you think that you could do better? Or if you start again 10 years ago, what would you do differently?
[00:31:37] Ru: [00:31:37] Oh, wow. I mean, you know, the old answer to that question when you ask anyone as well. If, if I hadn't made the mistakes that I've made, that I wouldn't have learned the things I learned and I wouldn't be where I am now, you know? Um, You know, I, I, I guess the one thing that I regret was when I first [00:32:00] transitioned myself from becoming a, um, uh, like a surf coach to being a manager of people more than I was just coaching people surfing.
[00:32:10] I. You know, like most new bosses, I micromanage people horribly. I'd be looking over their shoulder. And I was so obsessed with making sure that the coaches were all coaching, you know, as well as I wanted them to that, I was kind of really looking over their shoulder and picking holes in what they were doing every day then.
[00:32:29] And some of those guys that were there early surf coaches, et cetera, assembly. Um, what were guys that I had worked alongside before? So, you know, I've been their coworker and now suddenly I was their employer. And like, I'm still really good friends with them now. And some of them run their own surf coaching programs and, and like, they were so patient with me, uh, you know, they could have had every right to just tell me to F off at any number of occasions and they were, they were just so patient and so wonderful.
[00:32:58] So I'm very grateful for that. And [00:33:00] what I used to think was that you know, I could shape a coach into being brilliant. Teacher, you know, I could, I guess I could, I could shape a good surfer into being a great teacher. Um, what I know now is that rather than trying to shape people, you just want to employ people that already have that.
[00:33:22] So, you know, now I spend much more time thinking about who I'm going to employ, knowing that that's a much more effective way of building a great team, rather than trying to train people that aren't a good fit. Um, One of the sayings that we, you know, we always throw around what we're thinking about, who we're, who we're going to take on as a new coach, it's much easier to teach a good teacher how to teach surfing than it is to teach a good surfer, how to teach.
[00:33:49] If you, you might, it might have to rewind that inherit a few times, but. Yeah. So I, I, you know, I guess I would micromanage people less. I would put more time into just employing good people and then I [00:34:00] would stand back and I would let those people make mistakes, let them take ownership over what they do and let them feel like, you know, surf simply is their business and they are the master of how they conduct themselves each day.
[00:34:13] They're not beholden to someone else. Um, cause if people don't feel that ownership. I'm not sensible. It's one of me. You never really get the best out of our, of someone who's really talented.
[00:34:22] Peter: [00:34:22] Yeah. This sounds like a perfect amp of the interview. Thank you for accepting the invitation to this interview and sharing your story.
[00:34:32] And hopefully we can meet once an in-person, maybe in Masada.
[00:34:39] Yeah. I'd love that. And thank you so much again for asking me about it. So it's very flattering. And, uh, and for, you know, spending 40 minutes of your day wanting to hear my take on the world. I'm very grateful. Thank you.
