Job profile! Whale Watchers in New Brunswick, Canada: Flexibility as a Business Strategy

The tides in the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada, have the highest rise in the world and are unpredictable – something like David Welch's business strategy: Fundy Tide Runners are called Companies, with which he offers whale watching for tourists. And the name is program!

An adventurous business model?

Somehow I had imagined whale watching to be calm and contemplative, maybe even a little meditative in harmony with nature. But far from it: Speeding across the water at 12 knots in the fog on a Zodiac, in pursuit of the next whale surfacing to breathe somewhere in the waters off St. Andrews by-the-Sea is pretty adventurous – and is therefore a perfect match for Dave.

Because be Business-Model is even the purest whale watching: “Mother Nature is a capricious mistress. And she has a million Tricks in stock. You can only theoretically guess what the whales will do next - for sure you can't be."

The Perfect Setting for Entrepreneurs

What he is describing sounds like the perfect attitude towards life for an entrepreneur: of course you can think of a lot Background appropriate and all sorts Strategies figure out. You can't really be sure what's going to happen because the market is unpredictable."

Dave therefore does what is best both as a whale watcher and as an entrepreneur: He reacts flexibly. For example, when he races to another spot with his Zociac at lightning speed when a whale is reported there over the radio.

Flexibility as a competitive advantage

Dave sees his great advantage in this agility - in every respect: There are other whale watching providers in St. Andrews - including catamarans and fishing boats. But Dave, he says, can react much more quickly to the unforeseen with his Zodiac inflatable boat.

Among other things, because he hardly expenditure has: “You need a crew for a catamaran, for example, I can steer the Zodiac by myself. So it costs me little!” he explains his businessConcept.

Foundation from the gut

Before Dave founded his company in 1995, he had a good job with the government in the capital, Ottawa. But then he saw a whale watcher in British Columbia in western Canada with a fast and agile Zodiac inflatable boat and spontaneously thought: "That's me - I want that too!"

Dave admits that at the Idea especially turned on the boat. In just a few hours, he had made the instinctive decision to quit his job in Ottawa. He resigned five days later. Without a business plan and a false bottom.

No risk, no fun!

The company location was also fast found: St. Andrews by the Sea was the birthplace of Dave's father, so there were many contacts. Since then, Dave has been doing what he Fun makes: He heats the water with a Zodiac. And pretty much successfully: He has won several prizes so far.

Quitting a secure job with a government agency to do something as adventurous as whale watching, German Whale watching, to do with a fragile motor dinghy: unthinkable for many Germans. David Welch has found his dream job on Canada's east coast, in St. Andrews by the Sea.

No one has gone overboard yet!

A formal Vocational Training Dave doesn't have anything for his job: He partly read his knowledge and partly learned it through observation and experience. But that's pretty good: During the preliminary meeting, he can tell us details about the life of the whales that you might think he's a marine biologist.

And Dave can also operate his Zodiac inflatable boat as if he had never done anything else. He counters critics dryly: "Up until now, no tourist has ever fallen overboard."

Originally media manager

Dave originally trained in media management and also worked there. He later ended up in the administrative organization of the Canadian government in the capital, Ottowa.

When he met a whale watcher with a Zodiac inflatable boat in British Columbia on Canada's west coast in 1995, he quickly switched to founding his company Fundytiderunners.

Starting over is becoming increasingly important

The colleague from BC helped him a lot when Dave told him he wanted to copy his idea on the other side of the country: "I wasn't a competitor - he explained everything to me." Nevertheless, it was all "a lot of work". But it was worth it: To this day, Dave is the only one offering whale watching with a Zodiac rubber dinghy on the east coast.

This involves the ability to get a new one every few years Job to start is not a shortcoming for the Canadian, but an important and necessary skill: "I've tried quite a few jobs in my life, I'm already over 50," he says and is convinced: "To do a job all your life, maybe that worked for our parents. But today it doesn't work anymore."