27 Jan From Missing Soup to Annapolis 2019
Well, David and I set sail for the Caribbean in August 2016, two months later than we had planned. Due of course, to equipment failure, additional repairs, and parts that were difficult to source. But I don’t even remember leaving the dock to set sail on this adventure, having suffered a concussion the night before. But that’s another story.
I love to cook. And our galley (boat word for kitchen) was well stocked with everything recommended by Carolyn in her cookbook and on her website. But getting food for cooking was another story. We were constantly trying to figure out how to provision the boat, because marinas are not usually in the ‘downtown’ or core of the cities, towns and villages we were staying in. Not to mention the challenges of grocery shopping when we anchored out and had to dinghy into wherever we could tie up and walk to a grocery store. When was the last time you checked the weather forecast before heading out to do grocery shopping? Well, for us on a sailboat, it means finding out what direction the tide is running, how high are the winds and what the likelihood of rain is. Dinghies are not cars – they’re subject to wind, waves, rain and current.
So the Fall of 2018 finds us in Freeport Bahamas, at Ocean Reef marina. It’s 4:00 pm and I decide to make a tuna casserole for dinner. I find the cheese and butter in the top loading fridge. The flour’s in cupboard No. 1 (more on that later).Tuna’s in cupboard No. 2. And no mushroom soup.There’s supposed to be two cans of mushroom soup in cupboard No. 2. I can’t make tuna casserole without mushroom soup!
“David, help!”, I call. “I can’t find the mushroom soup. I swear I saw a can just yesterday, but I can’t find it now.”
David emerges from the V-berth where he has his office. While I start making the cheese sauce, David starts looking for the mushroom soup.
“Sheila, help me pull up this rug so I can check in this bilge locker. It’s probably in here”. Nope.
“OK, move this over there so I can lift up this floorboard”. 20 minutes go by until we find the mushroom soup. Disaster avoided.
The next time we go grocery shopping, I buy four cans of mushroom soup. Two go in cupboard No. 2 so they’re readily available, and the other two I decide to stash under floorboard No… Oops. And there are more cans of mushroom soup. Urghh!!
David often does his own thing. We still have the business back in Toronto. Mostly, things go well. David focuses on processes, accounting and such, while I support sales and marketing. And since our offices are in different cabins, I don’t really know what he’s up to. So surprise! He’s fed up with being my “find it guy”, and with my, “I can’t find ___, can you look for it please?” As I do almost all the cooking, and he likes to eat and keep me happy, he was pretty good about looking for whatever ingredients I needed. It works for us. Or so I thought. Apparently, he was growing tired of him being the “find it” guy. His solution? He writes an app to manage inventory on board, and create shopping lists. Hmmm….
Years ago, I downloaded The Boat Galley’s provisioning spreadsheet. It was rather a hassle managing all the different locations on board. Fridge, freezer, multiple cupboards, storage behind the cushions, what’s in the wine locker, what’s under all the different floorboards. And if I moved something from one location, like from under floorboard No. 6 to cupboard No. 2, or ran out of all-purpose flour in cupboard No. 1, the question was, was the rest of bag behind cushion No. 1 or No. 2. Hmmm…or was there a rest of the bag.
So, an app to manage inventory, what we have on board, and its location seems like a really good idea. David specs it out in great detail. As a Chartered Accountant, checks and balances are right up his alley! After many lengthy discussions, we realize that we might be onto something. Slowly it morphs into a viable business opportunity and when we arrive back in Toronto, we decide to move forward. We set up an incorporated company and meet with a team of marketing professionals who will bring our vision to life. It was eye opening to find out how much building a custom app would cost.
The plan is to show it off, soft launch, at the February 2019 Miami Boat Show. David heads back to our Freedom 40/40 sailboat, Full Monty, in the Bahamas. I’m due to fly out February 14th (yes, Valentine’s Day) to Miami where David will join me and we’ll look at launching “Pantry in Paradise”.
I will admit we had some setbacks, things did not go according to plan, and we were unable to launch the app at the Miami Boat show. But perfection takes time, and we want to get it right. We were able to gauge interest which was all positive. I think our charted course is in the right direction!
At the Annapolis Boat show, we are going to show off a demo version of the app, highlight the key features, and are working on our sales pitch (under 5 minutes long!) Hoping everyone is as excited about this new app as we are!!!
This boat show will be unlike any other boat show we have ever attended. It’s not about dreaming about a new vessel, or the latest and greatest technology. It is time to see if our vision will become a reality!