SEAMAYOR.COM - community of lovers in the sea

Dear Habrazhiteli! That significant moment has come when we can bring to your attention a new, unconditionally, revolutionary project that will shake the very foundations of the universe and radically change the landscape of the Network!

How many such announcements have you already seen? I think a lot. Therefore, I decided to put aside the idiotic-enthusiastic language of press releases and calmly tell you how the project Seamayor.com was born, and then talk to its creator, Sergey Smirnov. We have known Sergey a long time ago, since the beginning of the two thousandths, and I have always been happy to follow his progress on the seas of business and music. Therefore, when he decided to launch a new, and, from my point of view, extremely interesting project, I, in turn, decided to help him with promotion on Habré and write this post.
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The history of the project began several years ago. While it is usual, Sergey did not think about anything like that, and he was quietly engaged in small and medium-sized business, from graphic design, creating small web projects to marketing consultations for large businesses. The work of a consultant by itself implies a constant search and study of new niches. Calm such a search, which can rather be called "holding the nose in the wind", so as not to miss the opportunity if it presents itself.

And, of course, one day, she introduced herself to Sergey. Friends of the founder of Seamayor.com encouraged him to make in their company a pleasant and not burdensome trip on a rented sailing yacht on the Adriatic. Sergey, staying in full confidence that the rest on yachts, sea travel and sea fishing is the prerogative of extremely rich and very rich people, was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. The open sea, viewed from the side of a relatively small vessel, whose crew consists of close and familiar people, has made an indelible impression on him.

There is a business definition, Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean. In short, it denotes a large and undeveloped market, in which, for a number of reasons, almost no one has yet managed to gain a foothold. Seama, sea travel, fishing, diving and any other places, things, events and events became such a market for Seamayor. The author of the project Seamayor.com can tell about this best of all; therefore, the story will continue in the interview format.

What were your first impressions of the acquaintance with sea travel, fishing, regattas? Why was this niche chosen for the project?

To be honest, I was amazed at how developed this kind of holiday abroad. And, of course, I did not suspect that such a vacation is available to people with average incomes. In addition, I saw how many people around the world love to sail on the seas and oceans, go diving, sailing, fishing and other pleasant things associated with it. After some time, I realized that all of them are a huge and grateful audience, which does not have, in fact, a single convenient and technological platform for communication, exchange of opinions, discussion of what is an important part of their life.

A quick search on Google confirmed me even more at the thought that there was a great unmet demand for a resource that could unite lovers in the sea all over the world. All I saw was antediluvian local services covering one or two waters, and technologically they were terrible and made in the Stone Age. The desire to give people the opportunity to mark interesting places on the map, talk about them, publish photos, exchange views has become irresistible. Along the way, we were strengthened in our thoughts about the need to make a competent route planner with the ability to calculate everything in advance: speed, route time, fuel consumption, in general, everything that bothers waterfowl.

Where does this name come from? What audience is the project oriented to?

Now the topic of geolocation services is particularly relevant, users of FourSquare, as instituted, are celebrated in their favorite places and places, competing for the status of mayor. And lovers in the sea favorite place is precisely it. Therefore, we chose a name that underlines this fact.
Of course, we mainly focus Seamayor.com on a Western audience. The main reason for this is obvious: the entire infrastructure is much more developed there, the number of owners of their own courts is much higher, and people treat openness somewhat differently. Let me make it clear: in Russia, out of 100% of people who love sea holidays, diving, fishing, sailing, and related things, about 10% are hardened sea wolves, who regard this as a sport. Another 10% are just starting to discover the joys of the sea. And the remaining 80% are the owners or tenants of huge and expensive yachts, their friends, colleagues and acquaintances, people completely non-public and closed, far from the Network.

We, first of all, focus on the open and free communication of people who do not take this or that kind of activity associated with the sea, too seriously, enthusiasts, not professionals.

What is the model of user interaction with the service? Functional?

The site has two main sections, Places and Adventures, Places and Adventures, respectively. Obviously, in one section are added, viewed, discussed and commented places. These can be anchorages, marinas, ports, immigration offices, lighthouses, harbors, and more. Here beaches, the best places for diving and snorkeling, just a place with a beautiful view, attractions. The list of categories will expand as new places are added. By the way, there are already more than five thousand of them in the database and our team constantly adds new ones, that is, users will not come to the “naked” site, but will immediately receive a very detailed database. The same goes for adventure. This section contains all kinds of sea travel. They are divided by region and focus: professional, romantic, historical, gastronomic, round-the-world and many others.

Accordingly, you can add something to each of the routes, comment on it, discuss it, post it on Facebook or Twitter, and so on.

In the near future, we plan to introduce other functions targeted at professionals and enthusiasts of sea tourism and sailing, about them just below.

We also made a short video about Seamayor.com , here it is:



Front page:



Places:



Adventures:



Information about the place:



View photo:

What is the technical side of the project? Who programmed the site, where is it physically located, how will you cope with the influx of visitors?

We did the programming and design ourselves, I invented a concept, my friend implemented it. We periodically attract additional forces, especially during the introduction of new functions and their testing. Now we are developing an iOS application with the help of a wonderful studio from the city of Smolensk - Coalla and, I hope, soon all sea wolves will begin to check in at various points without stopping. So far, we are placing the site on the site in Germany, and in the future we are planning three separate clusters for the States, Europe and Asia. From the point of view of load balancing, we plan to actively use clouds and specialized solutions for loaded web projects.

How do you plan to monetize? What do you think about foreign investment?

There are several ways to monetize Seamayor. One of them involves interaction with the owners and operators of marinas, marinas, beach restaurants and many other places that are not hindered by an interested audience. Accordingly, we could put at their disposal certain communication tools with yachtsmen and travelers who are nearby or simply interested in the region of their location - a model close to Foursquare. In addition, we plan to introduce additional services for users according to the freemium model, when the basic functionality of the service is available to all users, and if they wish, they can purchase additional features in the Skipper version. For example, complete sea navigation charts or compilation and export in the right format of a full-fledged route plan, with depths, wave heights, radio frequencies of local services, coordinates of sites and a detailed weather forecast for the entire journey.

Well and, of course, we do not exclude the standard advertising model, when graphic advertising modules of points are placed on the site, the so-called featured places.

In terms of investment, we can now say that the project has been completely launched at its own expense and does not need serious third-party financing at this stage. However, in the future we plan to attract up to 10 million dollars from US venture capital funds and are already conducting consultations with specialists.

What do you wish habrazhiteli?

Fair wind and bright sun!