How to Set up a Tropical Business, Surf & Practice Yoga Daily – Part Three

1. I don’t know what else to do. Neither did we, but we looked for opportunities wherever we went and we tried a few ideas out. We did a dreamline to work out how we wanted to spend our time, then we brainstormed ideas and businesses that ticked those boxes. We came up with loads of options but didn’t get paralysed by choice. Start something, start a few things, don’t worry if it’s not ‘exactly’ the right thing, you can always do something else later on or change it as you grow.  These are both good reads if you don’t have a clue what you might do.
   https://zenhabits.net/job/  &  https://zenhabits.net/the-short-but-powerful-guide-to-finding-your-passion/
2. I don’t know how to do it. We had never worked in hospitality, had no idea how to market, create or run a guesthouse and had no idea about the surf or yoga industry. We generally didn’t, and still don’t to some degree, know how to do it. By starting really small so the financial and personal risks are small and by offering our ‘product’ really cheap we could test, learn and tweak as we went until we had built something really great. Forget perfection. Forget the business plan. Be OK with not knowing everything.
3. I might fall flat on my face. Yep, you probably will… a few times. It’s actually quite liberating to try something, to fail at it and realise you kinda enjoyed the process. But you can minimise the risks by starting lean. Don’t pay for anything you don’t have to or until you actually get a sale, start at home, start by just marketing to friends. Do something that can make money as soon as possible (rather than a complex business plan that turns a profit 3 years down the line). Do something you enjoy doing, don’t wait for the joy to come once you sell a million X’s - when you do sell a million X’s you won’t find joy there, just the desire to sell another million. The worst that can happen then, if you do fall flat on your face, isn’t really that bad and you’ve learned something along the way and probably had some fun.

How did we dip-our-toes-in-the-water with Soul & Surf?

1. We decided we would rent a 4 bed house in Kerala for 6 months and set-up Soul & Surf  whilst we were still on the road, living on a beach in Bali.
2. We designed and published a one-page test website whilst holed up in an awful hotel in Tonga. The weather was bad, the waves were non-existent, the next flight out wasn’t for another week so we launched Soul & Surf.
3. We learned what to charge and what to offer by A/B testing a load of different variations. https://vwo.com/ab-testing/
4. We took our first booking whilst surfing in Nicaragua. Which made it real and meant we really had to make this happen now. There's nothing like a sale to spur you into action.
5. We went from first having the Idea > Web Page > Sales > Opening within 6 months. Not enough time to properly work out that opening India's first commercial surf & yoga retreat was a mental idea.

• Get over your fear of the unknown, ditch your financial security addiction,  given yourself  time and space for inspiration. But that don’t mean a thing if you don’t actually do something. Anything.
• Start Right Away. Give stuff a go, embrace failure as much as success, don’t wait for perfection. Start now, the rest will follow. Figure out the simplest way to start, and, well,  just start. Don’t worry about taking a bunch of expensive courses or buying a load of expensive equipment or stock— just do it, do it small and learn as you go.
• Don’t get bogged down in lengthy plans. Does that mean you don’t need to plan? Well, you should, but don’t overdo it.
• Never Stop Learning, and Never Stop Failing. Failure is not the end of your business. It’s just the beginning.