Latest / Ben Taylor Podcast / Nicolo Pasini | Pasini Yachts | Founder Podcast
Transcript
- I worked five years at Automobili Lamborghini, eight years at BMW Group and five years at Automobili Pininfarina. Do you like cars? Cars or boats? Well, actually, boats. I don't like car at all. What's the money and I buy both? Cars or boats? Would you buy a car? Nice car, nice boat. I think I'd buy a nice car. I'm a boat car. Tell me why. Because it can get me more places. Function, A to B. Quicker. Well, it was the same for sailing boats. The most expensive way to get from A to B. And I'd just chance for... For nothing. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode in the Founder podcast series. This is a collaboration between the Ben Taylor podcast, Yachting Ventures, and Marine Industry News. Before we get cracking on the next episode, I need to say thank you to Boatsters Black, who are hosting us on board our beautiful San Lorenzo. that's listed with them. Make sure you come and see Atria at the Palmer and Tash for Boat Show, but be aware of their company. They're good, they're looking after us, lovely crew, the whole shebang. So, without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Nicola Pessini. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. And I'll hand over to Gowie to start with the questions. Yeah, nice to see you, Nicola. Nice to meet you. So, this podcast is designed to share the stories. of these businesses, the founder stories, where you come from, why you're doing this, the mission that you're on. So can you tell us a little bit about where the whole idea for the business came from and what your mission is as a company? Absolutely. So Pasini Yachts was born in a very specific moment of my life when my daughter was born. I have a very long career in the automotive industry, more than 17 years, I guess. And when I was becoming a father, I start asking myself, what do I want to do in the future? So what do I do for making an impact on the world? And outside the world of work, I am truly an engineer inside. I love building stuff, but so far I build everything just for the pleasure of building, you know, without really thinking about the business. And I'm a sailor myself, so in my free time... I try to spend as much as possible time on water. And in all these years spending time on water, I realize always the same type of problems, struggles and compromises that the boat owner, they are having. So especially compromises with space, compromises with reliability and a lot of technical background that you need to have in order to be a yacht owner. And suddenly when I become a father, I realized that yacht or a small yacht are not a place for kids because the complexity of managing a yacht plus managing a kid is ending up in a disaster and you know there is this famous sentence in the yacht industry happy two times in life when you buy and when you sell it said but true and and the idea is why has to be like that why there are no yachts that offers you an experience that is like an automotive which is actually seamless, you are not a technical person, you are able to drive everything, just turn the key and go. And then I decided, okay, if it doesn't exist, I build myself. And so I put all together the wheeling of building something. My personal technical background in automotive, and plus also a small personal touch. My family in the 17th century, they were owning a small fleet of commercial sales craft. and they lost everything in a storm. Yacht, crew, payload and everything. At the time there were no insurance, so you can imagine such an accident means bankruptcy. And so my family went out from the maritime industry and so now it's a way of closing the circles back to the... Yeah. So there's a lot of meaning behind it. A lot, a lot. That's why I named this Pasini yacht like my name and that's my goal. changing the yachting experience forever and giving back the time to the owner of yachts. Could you go more into your automotive experience? Because we chatted just before this. Yes. It's extensive. So could you go a bit more into that so that we can understand the actual expertise from the automotive industry? Absolutely. It's now being applied into being a boatbuilder, yeah. So I spent five years at Automobili Lamborghini when I was the person. taking the concept of the carbon fiber monocle of the Aventador from the original idea to production. Then I was also product director of a small, quite unknown model of Lamborghini, that is the Sesto Elemento, with a lot of carbon content on. Then I moved to BMW Group, where I stayed for almost eight years. At the beginning, supporting the start of production of the carbon body of the i3 and i8, so always... carbon fiber technology as a as a driver then i'm moving to more managerial roles doing so leading a large team of engineers doing cost reduction in the production line then i i missed italy i was drawn back to Automobile Pininfarina which is a wonderful company located in Torino they are building electric cars and in that moment I was owning the responsibility for a new project that unfortunately, for different reasons, COVID is one, for example, never went to life. But in that experience, I also matured a lot of competence in matter of company organization. And then a certain point when I saw this crisis that automotive is heading right now, then I decided that that was the right moment to change direction. go back to what i really like that is uh be on a seaside and not anymore automotive and bring the best of what i learned and implementing this technology transfer from automotive to marine that that is actually not taking place uh strangely i have to say so you've been in like stealth mode for two years more or less Yes. How has that been as a founder? How have you experienced those two years and have you stayed motivated? Yeah, it's not glamorous as you may think. It sounded really glamorous at the start. Yes. Get a founder, raise some funds, you can build a boat. Done. Correct. Because you hit the market when the product is finished and most of the things are already done. But living in a stealth mode means... basically one thing priorizing everything else for this project because as soon as you are so since you are in a stealth mode you have still your life you have still your uh your obligation you still have your family that is uh maybe having their own routine you've got a balance correct and then you have to squeeze in this new project which is actually very interesting because if you start with a hobby and you want to become good in that hobby, then you can say, I will dedicate two hours per week, three hours per week. In this type of venture, you don't know how much time you will have to dedicate. And so sleepless night, there is a running joke that I do together with my Italian partner. Meanwhile, drawing on a 3D model. simulator we are having fun saying that it's three in the night and we are still here picking up some points and clicking faces this is actually how a stealth mode venture look like yes then of course you have also to convince your family your friends you have to convince also yourself that all this is worth because it's a massive amount a lot of commitment stay motivated it's hard And so my first investor is actually my wife that believes in me, is pushing me and is giving me actually the opportunity of dedicating so much time on this venture. Now the venture is... slowly becoming more real but at the very beginning it was not it was not given one day you'll sail into the sunset on the on a bazini yacht it's finally there uh i i have many friends uh that has a startup usually takes two three four five years because before you see the product and the more you go into hardware the longer it takes software is faster Hardware takes a lot because it takes more money, more time and also more space because 10 meters is something that you don't build in your garage. And what's the hardest decision you've had to take as a founder so far? So there is a role of founder and a role of CEO. Those two roles are actually different. It's not given that founder and CEO are the same person. So as a founder... the most important decision is actually to start so the difference between a dreamer and a founder is actually taking action so when finally decide okay i do it and then when you say i do it you have to do it especially if if you want to keep up your track record i always in my automotive experience brought things and projects from concept to production and the one i missed that because that's mine, it's bringing my name, so I cannot miss it. As a CEO, different. You run a business, and the most difficult decision is actually what not to do, because we are all from automotive, and we have the tendency of working with large budget and a lot of supplier network, very fancy names. And so when you have a restricted budget, you have a lot of time a lot of quality not that much money so you have to prioritize what to do and what to build if you wait that it will be everything perfect you will be never ready or you simply run out of money before arriving so being a seo priorization is actually the most important thing and it's hard because you want to do everything yeah so i want to i want to uncover a bit of context so what what is the vision what's the core values of the city yachts what's the mission there so the mission is to give back the time on water to the yacht owners what is the time on water so if you think about the owner experience this owning experience is basically composed by multiple contributions one contribution is enjoying the time on your yachts and another contribution is actually spending time in operating your yachts and An experience that is of today, of 2026, is a lot of experience, less maintenance. This happened on a car, this happened on a motorbike, it's happening on many things. It's not happening on yachts. And on yachts you have a lot of maintenance and very, very few time to enjoy. And if you are lucky that you are enjoying, you still have to operate a complex system. And so our mission is to simplify completely. the yachting experience and mostly the ownership experience there are so many people on this planet that has enough possibility from money point of view to own a yacht but so few are buying because most of the people they consider yacht a very bad investment for multiple reasons and the most important reason is that they don't know how much time will drain how much money it will drain And so before you really jump into something that is so polarizing, you really have to be a person that loves exactly that hobby, yachting, as you want to say. Yeah. And you described the first model that you're designing now really well earlier. Could you try and describe that a little bit to us? Absolutely. So the first model, it will solve... most of the current struggle that the yachting industry is facing so we said already the maintenance is one of the point the other point is having a lot of technical background so as a comparison if you are owning an old motorbike fixing the motorbike is part of the experience but this is a niche if you want to make volume if you want to bring your product to the masses of course the masses with a certain amount of money so to say wealthy enough so to say you have to bring something that is more easy to use seamless everybody says doing is very very hard so we decide to take an automotive approach the automotive approach is actually a platform approach This is something extremely normal in automotive since more than 20 years. I don't even remember when the platform theory started flying on automotive, so it's very, very old. What is a platform? A platform is a system integrated, which includes software and hardware that are all belonging to the same ecosystem. And this ecosystem is what is, let me say, giving you the integration. and easy to use today a yacht is just a vessel with a lot of components a lot of system simply mounted on all these systems they don't speak with each other and so it's impossible to do any predictive maintenance it is impossible to have under control what's going on and unfortunately when a problem is emerging and is getting the attention of the yacht owner Then it's too late because the problem already occurred. And even your small vacuum cleaner robot is telling you, please change this filter. Otherwise, in 200 hours, I will be stuck. Thank you for letting me know in advance and not after. And we want to bring the same approach to the yacht industry. And a couple of players have tried to build boats like this, that fully integrated system and all that kind of thing. What do you think your advantage? advantages compared to others that have tried and failed well the the integrated platform is something in marine industry very new there are many attempts of exchanging the power train from a petrol engine to an electric engine but that's not a platform you simply change an engine with another engine you don't solve any of the problem that are already present on a yacht so all the problems related to reliability and maintenance stay there so changing engine or changing motor doesn't give you any advantage when your toilet is clogged for example so just changing the power thing is giving you only an additional point of attention because traditionally electric motors means a bit less range and so you add to all the existing problem also the point of attention take care about the range what we are doing actually is creating an electric and electronic platform water and air all integrated that is a proprietary that works all together and solve actually real problem then accidentally we are electric so we are not an electric yacht company but we are in a yachting company that is creating yachts for everybody easy to use And then electric. Let's convince you that the market's ready for this kind of thing. So a lot of traditional boat builders say, well, we know the market really, really well. Yes. They're not really willing to explore this kind of space that you're talking about. What makes you convinced that the market is ready for this stuff that will be demanded? It's worth building. Absolutely. So before convincing the other, I would have convinced myself that this venture makes a lot of sense. So what we did is... performing a lot of interviews more than 200 interviews with with different type of clients there are clients that actually are yacht owner and they are not happy with their yacht then we interview people that are wealthy enough to buy yacht but they don't buy and we try to understand why they don't buy and then we interview some people that are currently yacht owner and they want to change it and they are looking for a new one And so from all these interviews, we actually made a list of all the common problems, all the struggles, because we believe, coming from automotive, that the technology push is the wrong way. The market pull is the right way. So we have to listen to the client and make a product that is actually solving real problems. It's not that we found a technology solution and now we have to convince everybody that this technology solution is the right one. And that's actually a mistake that a lot of startup founders make is that they build a product and they think everyone will come and they make assumptions about what the market wants and needs. So the way you've gone about it in terms of validating the pain and the technology before actually launching is very sensible. It could potentially save you a lot of headache down the line. Absolutely. So you've seen a lot of sales. What's typical for testing that product market fit? Yeah, I mean, I think the smarter ones or perhaps, you know, the second time founders that have already kind of had the experience before. Been there, done that, done that again. Like definitely validate and have as many conversations as possible with potential customers before starting to build even. And whereas some perhaps, you know, slightly less experienced founders might kind of stick their head in the sand and just build what they think the market needs. And then they launch and I was surprised by the results. That's normal in automotive because automotive sector is very saturated. There are actually much more cars than people. That's why we are in this problem right now. And so having the great idea of the new car and hoping that somebody will buy is actually a fail that nowadays doesn't exist anymore. So what we do in automotive is spending a lot of resources in understanding the client, understanding the customer, planning the customer journey. So when you purchase a luxury car, you have a complete customer experience that starts from the born of the desire of a product and is ending not with a sale or with a purchase, depends, but is ending when you finally will sell your product at the end. What happened in the marine is that... You want a yacht, you buy like a house, so you go in a place in which they have a listing, you see some pictures, and you say, yeah, I wanted this. Then you buy, and then you are, I don't want to say abandoned after the sale, but almost. So you have relatively very, very less contact with a company that actually produce the vessel. You have a lot of contact with a local dealer, yes. You have a lot of contact with a retailer of spare parts. That's for sure your best friend will be. But not with a company that actually built the yacht. I feel like you're going for the Apple approach where it's intuitive. It's the slowly open box and all these kind of things around it. So you've got a really nice journey to the technology. And the technology is so intuitive that actually... a non-boater can start enjoying boating and they can start to just behave in a recreational way rather than thinking what's going to break what do i need to fix and do that maintenance yeah an example from from my daughter for example so if you give to a three-year-old kid a piece of technology very complicated for sure damage will happen kids of today they have tablet they have phone Because they cannot do anything wrong. They cannot do any damage. I mean, they can be addicted to the product itself because it's done so well that creates addiction on kids. And the same happened with the technology. So if the technology works well, it's becoming invisible. People will be addicted to boating. I hope so. I hope so. I just can't stop boating. Yes, correct. Because you will enjoy your time on water. our ultimate goal and to spread it as much as possible in a way that we are planning the customer experience. So what Apple did is not designing a product and then try to convince, brainwash everybody that that's the right product to buy because that doesn't work. They built actually something that is one million times easier to use than a competitor. And people, guess what? They bought it because it's easy to use. Then, of course, there was a technology enabler for that. In that case, it was the screen with multiple touch points. That was the technical enabler for Apple. For us, the technical enabler is the integrated electrical and electronic platform proprietary. So this is the technology enabler. But if you have the technology, but you don't know how... it will be used from the user point of view, then you're halfway. That's why you need the idea, but you need also the execution, otherwise it doesn't work. So do you see Bassini Yachts being more of a technology company rather than a boat builder, where you can kind of supply it to other boat builders? How are you balancing that? That's an interesting point, because at the very beginning we... We run on bootstrapping. So I rely on a lot of my old suppliers from automotive for a little favor, a little calculation, a little design. And so far, it's a good way to start. Correct. Bootstrapping, I mean, I'm not, I cannot finance by myself because it's pretty, let me say, capital intensive. Yes, thank you. And so what happened is that meanwhile presenting the idea. A lot of suppliers that they are actually acting as a supplier because they are a supplier, they say, oh, wow, you can sell this idea. Why don't you sell the platform instead of building a yacht? So there was a moment in which we had a doubt. Shall we do the platform itself and just try to sell it? But this idea went away pretty quickly out of a simple reason already inspired by automotive. So all the previous attempt of changing platform in an existing architecture was a fail because there is a very let me say connection between the geometrical architecture of a product and the infrastructure and so if you try to apply a new infrastructure on an existing architecture then you will have something that is not compatible. And so it was very clear that we have to design a platform and we have to design a yacht around the platform first. And second, since this industry is not ready for a platform, it will be extremely hard to bring this platform and go all around and convince that this platform is actually something good. It will be a technology push. We don't want that. We want to build a yacht. that is let me say it is a better product thanks to the platform show to the world that the reason why the yacht is better done is because the platform and then in that moment we will be able to sell the platform to everybody that is actually interested there are more than 3 000 yacht boat makers all around the world it's impossible nobody knows how many are there outside and so i'm pretty sure that as soon as we will have this platform integrated, there will be plenty of shipyards that they want to build their own yacht based on our technology. And our platform is designed to be licensed towards third party entirely or in a modular way. So it shouldn't be in electric. And so, Nicola, I've got a closing question for you. Absolutely. When you look at the boats around us and around the industry, what's one thing that you think will be really, really outdated over the next five years? I think the maintenance program, it will be pretty outdated. Out of date. Looking after it. Yes. Because we want to bring something that will have a maintenance program, like a car. And so, if you notice... Everything that is belonging to the automotive industry today is going on very, very long warranty time. A lot of peace of mind programs. And so the role of the single workshop is becoming less and less important. And the manual skill of the people working in such a workshop is also getting less and less important because... The cars, they don't break down anymore. And so this we are wishing for the future of the yachting industry to go in that direction. Super. Nicolo, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much. The thing comes to market. Thank you. Thank you so much. Everybody, if you enjoy content like this, make sure you're following here to see plenty more of it. This has been a collaborative podcast? Collaborative podcast. Let's go with that. The Founder Podcast Series. And we've been filming on board a beautiful boat. provided by Bootsers Black. So thank you very much to Dan. All being well. We'll see you again on the next episode. Goodbye for now. Bye. Bye.