Franziska: Ola!
Mauricio: Ola!
Franziska: I‘m here with Mauricio. Hi Mauricio.
Mauricio: Hello! How are you Franziska?
Franziska: Mauricio runs a kitesurfing school here in Tulum. I just took a lesson with him and I‘m a little bit tired. He wouldn‘t want to let me stop. He made me go out all over again and again which is awesome.
Mauricio: She did great. Really really great.
Franziska: Haha! You have to say that?
Mauricio: Yeah, no you did it really.
Franziska: So I thought I‘d quickly ask Mauricio a few questions. So can you maybe just first tell us a bit about your business? What it is?
Mauricio: Of course. It‘s a kite surfing school. We teach kite surfing, we do paddle boarding tools, we also teach paddle boarding. My wife, we create this company and we have been on for more than 5 years the company and we love what we do. Before we both used to work in an office. So we both get tired of the office and now we do this and it‘s much much better.
Franziska: How do you attract clients?
Mauricio: Okay, we have internet. Rocio did a great job there.
Franziska: On the website?
Mauricio: Yeah on the website. The website is really nice and actually she just improved it. TripAdvisor is also with us. If you use TripAdvisor, we have a number 1 record kitesurfing and paddle boarding school in Tulum. So TripAdvisor bring us many clients. Also we are in a very beautiful spot. We‘re in Ahau, Tulum. This is beautiful, we are here now. So it‘s the internet, Ahau – where we are and TripAdvisor is really awesome.
Franziska: You know the difference that I found with you guys because when I came here in Tulum, I emailed, I think there are 2-3 schools here? I emailed to just inquire, Mauricio‘s wife Rocio was just so nice. I didn‘t know anything about any school. The only reason I came to you guys was because Rocio is so great in her first email, very just very awesome. I think for a lot of business it just sets a big lesson you know if you don‘t have time, if you take the extra time you get extra customers and I brought two more friends with me.
Mauricio: Thank you so much, Franziska. It‘s totally true. That‘s awesome because she replies to you in not even 24 hours, sometimes it‘s less than 24 hours. Some people is super happy with that. That part of the business, for every person that owns a company that‘s super important. So even if you don‘t have the time, in my case, I don‘t have the time to reply to the emails. But my wife, she does it so it‘s good. It‘s good to find a partner where, like in my case I do all the work in here and she does all the work there so we were able to create this company.
Franziska: One last question is if you have one tip for fellow entrepreneurs, business owners around the world, what would you tell them?
Mauricio: Ok my only advice to you whenever you think to start a company, think about how much money I make now working in the office and how much money will I make as a kitesurf instructor? Sometimes the numbers never tell you, so what I would recommend you to do is to take the money out of the table, to take the numbers out of the table and do what you love. Do what you love for a living. Eventually, the clients come and the money comes. Don‘t see the money, don‘t see the numbers. Do what you love and you won‘t feel like working any single day of your life.