Latest / Ben Taylor Podcast / Tytti Sirola | Bluet Floating Solutions | Founder Podcast
Transcript
- You're actually pronouncing the first name really well because people are always asking, how do you say that? Yeah, yeah, you're tied to your word. And Tiddy and you know everything. I say, I have heard all the versions. No doubt. We were working with this UK company previously and they were all saying, okay, Tiddy is calling. And I'm like, great, thanks. And this is memorable. This is memorable, yeah. hello everybody and welcome back to the founder podcast series this is a collaboration with the ben taylor podcast yachting ventures and marine industry news today we have the founder of blueit floating solutions titi sarola so welcome to the podcast thank you thank you ben just before we dive in i need to say thank you to hill robinson for providing the venue of today on board motor yacht sheargold beautiful vessel from 1987. Quite an incredible vessel. We'll also be sitting down with the captain of the vessel later on as well. So it'd be really cool. So thank you to them. Let's get on with the podcast. Gabby, I'll hand over to you. Hi to see you. Nice to see you. So yeah, the purpose of this podcast is really to dive into a bit more detail on the motivations as to why you started the business and the opportunity that you see and the experience and the journey that's taken you on. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how you came into this whole space and why you decided to start the business? i'll try the short version there is a long version and it's a very long but generally um it's about coincidence actually and i think coincidences is actually they're one of the best things you know that they happen all the time and when you take the benefit of those that's that's when miracles happen and this is actually started like a coincidence um there was my That employer I was working, a person who I was working with at the moment, was in real estate development business and project management business. And then he met the owner of Marine Tech Group, main owner of Marine Tech Group. And they were discussing with each other because Marine Tech had been having the idea of how to evolve with the floating, you know, special floating construction business. And then... They started discussing with each other because they actually met. And then I was at the moment working as a project manager over there and then sort of like jumped into my table, you know, starting to see how we could start evolving and working and developing actually the special fraud and construction business. And I sort of fell into it straight away. I just found it absolutely interesting compared to the traditional construction I was working with. I have a history in the real estate industry. I've been a real estate agent. And I've been changing business fields for quite many times during my history. I just felt it really like an own thing. And we started creating new strategy for the business and just thinking how to do it differently because they have been trying it for a while. So that's actually how it started. Then we just found a group of our team who we started thinking about. And then I also asked my former friend. who is now my co-founder also our chief engineer at chemo i asked that would you want to join me starting this crazy thing and that's what happened the adventure and then that was 10 years ago that was 10 years ago we have a 10-year anniversary here this year yeah i've been i've been doing them already over 15 years so so i sort of like started earlier with the previous company a marine tech group but a bluehead is now 10 years old wow and tell me a bit about the opportunity that you see in the floating infrastructure space specifically within marine and marina groups and and yeah the opportunity that presents for stakeholders in the space well generally when we started the company and we started thinking like what is actually the problem we're solving and it's really really simple it's a lack of land that's like the really simple and especially i mean it's such a good way to put that isn't it i mean it's really simple it's three words lack of land and that's actually what what we're trying to solve in in already in the beginning And marinas are actually a really good space because when you also think about that, because you usually have an already infrastructure, you have parking spaces, you have electricity, you have sewage, you know, water, all that. And then you are extending to the water. But usually you don't have any space on land on that point because you have, look over here, I mean, where would you build any more facilities on the land side? The only way to extend is the waterfront and the water site. And some of the nicest real estate is right there. It's either just off the land, like that waterfront kind of region, just in front of all the high-rise buildings, all the apartments and things. And that's exactly what you're saying, that you're sort of like, you're doing lower construction so that you're not building high-rise to the waterfront, but like you said, that you have really nice luxury apartments and everything, and then you can look down to what's on. I mean, marinas are really beautiful. They're really nice view. over here but then when you extend because also marinas are very traditional business of course also they're very traditional i mean everything is just how many births you have you know and that that's where the income comes pretty much but when you we think marinas so that um how you can truly bring new services new facilities and how you're gonna different each other's from the other marina I mean if you have a luxury beach club over there or you would have a floating swimming pool for example or something like that people will stay because people want more than just the electricity you know the sewage pump you know they want more than that so if you bring the services over there that's how you differentiate each other from other ones and you get people to stay and also not staying only in the marina but also staying in the city so that benefits the whole community you know the whole whole area this is where you get to the destination the resort type pitch rather than just a an isolated piece of real estate an extra bit of extra bit of bland yeah exactly into this well actually it's just a nice place to be yeah so tell us about you mentioned a couple that earlier there but like some of the use cases for floating infrastructure within marinas so floating swimming pools beach clubs any others that kind of spring to my basic utilities i mean you know like like you said that um traditional when this is a luxury marina of course over here and you have a lot of extra amenities and services over here but when you're talking about like smaller marinas they only have the general infrastructural services. People come there, you know, they just stop overnight, empty the tanks and, you know, charge for the electricity, maybe go online to a restaurant. But if you truly, for example, you don't... These luxury boats, they have... all the amenities over here but not the smaller ones maybe you want to have you know washing machine you want to go to a shower you want to go to a sauna you want to truly spend some time so that you're not necessarily just spending on a boat you're actually stepping out of the boat and doing something else also over there and like i said utility buildings can have you know pretty much everything yeah and and even waste management systems. We can even create waste management systems so that you don't have a lot of traffic taking care of the waste. There was a big discussion the other day at the Mediterranean CPL forum about the facilities that... crew and captains need as well. The context of it was a little bit around the refit, but also just if it's birthed for a long time in one destination, actually, okay, you've got the guest considerations, the owner considerations. Actually, it's also where someone, well, a crew is going to live for six months or longer. And so a recreational area for them goes a long way. It influences the purchase decisions. It's worthwhile building. Exactly. And now we've said accommodation, for example. Accommodation is really awesome. one big thing and they can also be temporary I mean you know and temporary events also can be created and facilities can be creative floating if you for example you're having looking at this event for example over here we can bring a concert stage in a floating concert stage and or you know these these are so you can because the point is that when you're doing modular, because they're modular units, you can put them on container and then you can just take it elsewhere. And if you have, think about like formula. that's going to a totally different not marina but when we're on and think about the amount of trucks and you know everything is transported with a formula circus for example i mean there's a lot of and if you're doing this similar arm you would do that on the marina side and the voting side you can just you can similarly shift it you put in a container and it just moves by the seat to the next place so it's really really easy handle yeah so who's the car core market for you guys who do you really resonate with what's the target client group um good question it's quite large actually but generally we say that we talk about real estate and marina developers and um also like marina operators because our marina operators are of course the There is a difference between developer and operator, of course, because they look at the Excel sheet differently. Someone's going to build it and say goodbye. Everyone's going to use it for a while. Exactly. And maintain and everything like that. So that's exactly where you have to have an answer to the different groups, you know, because like I said, investors look at the sheet differently. Operator wants longer maintenance and like that. but they are both our groups because investor especially when you have a new development case investor of course wants to see how long does it take you know that it's bringing profit you know if it's a profitable investment and um and then operator of course it looks how much does it cost per month because um and how also the operational cost so there is a big difference in that one that's why it's really important also to create these kind of long-lasting solutions which then are you know easily maintained um but so generally but generally because there are different facilities marina operators and marina developers is of course one but then we talk about a traditional real estate investors because um the housing side is of course a big thing housing is necessarily not maybe our target market we more talk about because hospitality wellness is more of ours so then we talk about restaurant operators you know spa operators wellness operators um they are maybe the target market for us and then i suppose in amongst all that you've got to keep councils happy local governments and all that kind of thing is that fun dimension to the business they are the stakeholder side which is very very very involved involved was a really good word actually yeah and it's um because every single country every single city has different kind of permitting level you know so and the floating construction is still so new so they don't even know what they're permitting So that's also one important thing that we have to teach the authorities. And we have to teach also a big amount of part of my work also is that I have to teach people, you know, what this means. And it's trustworthy. Yeah, and it's wider than, okay, now you can have an additional restaurant or additional couple of births, whatever it might be. It's also, well, there's an economic impact of this. It's more traffic in the area. It's opportunity for local employment, all this kind of thing. so a government needs to be educated on that and see it understand it and support it exactly before a floating solution appears at the on the coast and and because the traditional it's a big environmental issue because traditionally There's a lot of cases which are marketed as floating construction or floating solutions, but they're not floating, they're built on piles. And we consider them not floating, they are built on water, but they don't float. And we always want to correct these things because it's a big difference, because we consider them to be fixed construction. It is a fixed structure which you have to do, and it is environmentally totally different thing. Our solutions are floating, so they are truly... also design in a different way and then also permitting wise they're handled separately because um it is of course when you do a pile construction project it is you know you have environmentally more heavier you know to the environment exactly yeah and um and you cannot take it anywhere it's generally floating construction you can shift it also you can literally just move these things around you can actually but you have to yeah This is where it goes, people also then refer also to boats. So this is also, so it's not fixed structure, it's not pile construction, it's not fixed construction, but it's also then not a boat. So it's in the middle. So if you want to move it, you also have to take into consideration already in the beginning in the design. So you cannot just, if you have a 3,000 square meter. solution you know and you have pools and buildings and everything it's not that you just you know detach a change and then take it away you have to maybe take something into consideration but yeah possible and what's the just in terms of pros and cons fixed not floating solution compared to a floating solution what are the big things that that's pro floating rather than something that's actually fixed the seabed well yeah there's there's a lot but I would maybe go back a little that was a good question because saying that i don't think that you have to build floating just to build flow you know that's just because it's a cool thing so also there has to be a reason to do a floating construction so generally we're not overriding traditional construction i mean it has a place you know the land construction landfilling power construction they all have their reason to be there because every side is so different and that's why where we actually go back that you have to study the location very heavily in advance and that's when you choose the method. So you're not choosing straight away that I'm doing piles but you're also not choosing straight away that it's a concrete pontoon structure. So it's really about studying the location and then choosing the right structure and then we come to the benefits because it might be costs. you know pile construction is really expensive you know land filling is really expensive yeah they're both also environmental you know things that the benefit comes from environmental issues that you truly do floating it doesn't you know affect and need any big yeah it's pretty it's pretty wild i think i was out in um i in florida and saw a big uh i'm gonna say a dredging vessel if there's a better term for that but literally just sucking up a load of sound transporting it to where it needs to be and then dumping it down. You kind of start to think about the seabed and go, what's actually happening there? Exactly. It's not great. No, but this is the thing that, and that's why you have these environmental permits and you really have to then also, this is like, it's a comparison thing. You have to compare that. Is it worthwhile and is it needed to do that? Or would the floating construction be an option and you could actually go into that one? So it is, we think it's like in any normal, when you think of land construction, you don't choose. the method of construction without doing like knowing what's beneath or are you going to use also like piles or do you need to you know build on you know just still plate or something i mean you have to sort of like study you do have to do a ground survey as well we do a water site survey so that's why you choose but what you're just saying that it's really heavy and if you have like doing that on a coral reef no you're not doing that on a coral reef so there's has to be solutions to take the environmental into consideration And in terms of geographies, we're here in Palma, Palma International Boat Show. I know the Balearics are an interesting region for you. Why is that so attractive for the floating solutions? Look around you. I mean, many boats, many marinas. And you think about when we are up in the northern Europe and in the colder countries, the boating season is really short. Especially in Finland. I was there a couple of months ago and I was like, how long is the season here? Because the sea has frozen over. Yeah, you're not boating. Not for very long, but then as soon as it's in season, everyone goes. Everyone pushes it to those from May to August, September, extended maybe over there. But everything happens in that really, really short season. why this is interesting because of course you have a season throughout the whole year of course it's not a high season but you can do that throughout the year and people are you can actually you know so in every marina you have action you know pretty much throughout the years and also in the on the islands and the coastline is so developed you know already there's no space they can't go as you said like limited by land exactly so i definitely see an opportunity to create more of an activations around the coastline here on the island yeah yeah and Islands especially, like you just said, that island especially because the land is even more limited over here on the island. So then, you know, you have really many opportunities to do and it's not just the marinas, but also then, you know, to the community, you know, like hotels, you know, housing. There is a, in Asia, when we go further around to Asia, the floating infrastructure is really a big thing over there. They're studying it heavily over there because the population amount is massive and you have to somehow. decide how you're gonna, you know, solve the problem. Lack of land. Lack of land, again, that's just, there we go. So, and in islands, that is usually a problem over here. And it's sort of like really funny. I mean, you have, for example, over here, I mean, this is a really, really beautiful island and you have beautiful, you know, mountains and hills over there and everything. But for some reason, people want to come here to the waterfront. They don't really, it's the same in Finland. We are in a big country, you know, a land, not as population, but we're a long country. People don't, everyone is saying over there in Finland as well, that why do you... floating because there is so much empty space. Well, people are not moving to the middle of Finland, to the woods. They want to come to the urban areas, urban waterfronts where people are, and that's why we think about this extension. And in terms of the future of floating solutions, what kind of materials, technologies are enabling new opportunities in building these? This is such an evolving industry, especially LAM. When we started, there was really not that much when we started, but nowadays it's really well done. The floating infrastructure is looking all the time at new solutions. For example, we have now a patented new system for the floating infrastructure because the problem was that the sizes were enlarging all the time, so we were needing to have a structure. The old solutions didn't work because the traditional thing is that you build on a pier. You cannot build anything on a pier. A pier is a pier. So that's a different thing. So floating infrastructure is actually a technical solution which requires capacity, load capacity and rigidness and everything. So there's a lot coming in on that side. Like I said, there's companies who do it from steel. There's companies who do it from concrete. There's aluminium, plastic. And I think that there's space for everyone. because the locations are so different yeah and there's so much to do so much to do i mean if you look at the you know the globe as itself i mean i mean how much how much 75 or how much is it water space in the whole earth yeah yeah i think about two-thirds but i mean most of it's the pacific exactly yeah i'm gonna go there but still if you start counting the coastline amount of the coastline i mean it's just the business is really big and it's very large opportunity but but like i said that there there are systems we're talking really infrastructure solutions so it's like waste management and it's energy solutions because also water is a really big opportunity for energy yeah for sure and so i have a closing question for you okay which is essentially anybody involved in building a floating yes floating solution is that a good word floating solution that's like a reward so anybody involved in building these kind of floating structures what is the consideration that you would really advise them to consider first what should everybody be thinking of don't consider it being as simple as it sounds that's that's first first thing because um it is truly a engineering solution it's not it's it's a full system what you're doing so it's not that you can really lose a lot of money by doing bad quality we talk about that Sort of like we talk about that don't save with the infrastructure because it's it's like when you build on land It's a similar thing you want that you want the foundation to be well-made because then then you have a stable building and you don't have some robustness you have some longevity Exactly these are five years. Yeah, I'm still there in 20 exactly So it's the same especially on floating I mean we have I always say that we are not allowed to have a single project to think Because if it sinks, we're out of business. So that's sort of like, and that's why we designed these unsinkable solutions. And it's really important that that's somewhere you don't want to save. Unsinkable solutions. Is that a tagline? That's a good one. Unsinkable solutions. So don't save on that one because it's about quality. It's about trustworthy. It's about, you know, people... don't want to be seasick, you know, whether it's about conformities, you know, it's like I said, it's a full solution and you just have to take everything into consideration. Water is a moving element. When you're on a boat, people sort of like allow it, allow the movement, you know, you're sort of like, but if you're having a floating restaurant or you're having a floating home, you, I don't think. Lots of broken guts, isn't it? Yeah, so it's sort of like, it's a different unit and do it properly, really, really. and choose the right partner for that because when doing it properly you're going to have a long -lasting solution which everyone's going to enjoy and most of all it's going to bring profit you know and long-lasting benefits Titi, thanks for coming on the podcast. Pleasure having you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Everybody, if you enjoy content like this, make sure you're following here to see plenty more of it. This has been part of the Founder podcast series, a collaboration between the Ben Taylor podcast, Yachting Ventures and Marine Industry News. Thank you again to Hill Robinson for providing a spectacular venue on board motor yacht Sheargold during the Palmer International Boat Show. All being well. We'll see you again.