STARTUP STAGE: DeepBlu aims to be the Airbnb of diving

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup?

Deepblu has been working on making diving something that more people can explore.

The company was initially founded to provide diving resources, like a Bluetooth-enabled dive computer and a platform that allows users to share their dive logs and diving experiences.

This platform now boasts more than 40,000 members, and some 300,000 dive logs (biggest database in the world) have been recorded using Deeblu’s COSMIQ dive computer as well as from leading dive computer brands such as Shearwater, ScubaPro and TUSA which all recognize Deepblu as the de facto online diving community and have integrated their devices to work with us.

Earlier this year, Deepblu launched a new booking feature, Planet Deepblu, which allows users to chat and arrange dive trip directly on the platform.

Deepblu positions itself as the "Airbnb for Diving", a marketplace where dive businesses can list their services on the platform and users can find their next dive vacation.

What inspired you to create this company?

James Tsuei, the founder and CEO, was on a dive vacation in Southeast Asia, it took him a whole month to plan and book everything.

In that time, there was no centralized dive-database on the internet, and the options had very limited visibility, and all dive-related bookings will require email back-and-forth to accomplish.

Since then, James realized this could be a huge opportunity, thus Deepblu was born.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company?

Strengths

• Compared to our biggest competitors Padi, Deepblu does not just provide a limited selection of expensive liveaboard packages but all kinds of diving experiences such as wreck diving, shark diving, cave diving and even dive experiences for physically challenged divers.
• Deepblu community (40,000 members, and 300,000 media rich dive logs )

Weaknesses

• Young startup building  a new disruptive business model from the ground up.

Opportunities:

• Wide open untapped market of next generation divers looking for FIT type online dive trip planning and booking
• Asia is the fastest growing region in terms of new divers with China having an explosive growth.  Deepblu is positioned to tap into this high growth market with being based out of the region.

Threats:

• Competing in the same space as Padi Travel, whose parent company is the most dominant player in Scuba training and certification.
• Recently seeing more and more scuba oriented online travel agency services being created.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

Customers:

Deepblu wants to solve a big problem for the diving community. This includes people who are new to diving and want to participate in the activity, with trip planning and booking.

Though a niche market, diving has a lot of financial potential. There are currently about six to eight million active divers (defined as people who make three or more diving sessions each year), and dive trips are big investments.

Divers spend an average of $1,000 on equipment and certification, and then even more money on dive shops (businesses run by dive pros  who provide training and tours), flights and accommodation.

However, information about diving whether it’s destinations or about the quality of dive operators are all very fragmented online with no central location to assist divers with their trip planning process.

The Deepblu platform has accumulated hundreds of thousands of items of content shared by its users about dive destinations including dive data, dive spot reviews, photos and videos covering over 10,000 dive sites around the globe.

With the launch of Planet Deepblu, users can now discover local dive shops and the dive experiences offered by these businesses while planning for their next scuba adventure.

They can also directly contact the dive operators through the in-platform messaging feature to learn more about their services and book their trip.

Dive businesses:

Traditionally, dive shops and operators have usually been small scaled mom and pop-type businesses with limited resource and know-how to market themselves in the digital age.

This is especially a challenge for destination-based dive operators as their customers are all tourists, resulting in the source of most of their inbound clients being heavily relied upon wholesalers and travel agents.

Deepblu’s social platform offers dive operators immediate access to a community of divers and ocean enthusiasts to engage with in terms of social media, while Planet Deepblu puts these dive business on the map for dive trip planners to discover providing the dive operators with relevant traffic to their dive experiences product pages for potential booking.

Industry:

Deepblu is also gradually changing the dive industry.  The largest age group of scuba divers are aging into their sixties, but their kids aren't following them into the sport.

Instead, young people are turning to surfing and extreme sports. However, the average Deepblu platform user is between 25-36 years old.

The launch of Planet Deepblu booking feature caters to this younger diving generation whom are accustomed to the FIT type online trip booking. In emerging market like China and SouthEast Asia, scuba diving is perceived as  a trendy sport amongst young professionals and a great way to explore the world.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

First and foremost is our existing user base from the Deepblu community whom are all avid divers and ocean enthusiasts which could benefit from our new travel platform. 

In terms of user acquisition, our growth team’s mission is to map out the life cycle funnel and design a engagement strategy around it.

The funnel is broken down into:

• TOTF (top-of-the-funnel)
• mid-funnel
• bottom-funnel

The TOTF is where we acquire new users, mid-funnel is where we convert leads into customers, and bot-funnel is where we maintain user relationship and boost retention.

In the initial stage, we will be focusing on TOTF and spend most of our marketing dollars (digital ads to be specific) in here to test the water.

Making sure everything is trackable is extremely important as a startup, so avoid as much unknown offline spendings as possible is critical. Continuous trial and error and A/B test for all the ongoing campaigns is essential in order to maximize ROI.

Once we established a flow of base traffic, before proceeding to explore more growth projects, it’s extremely important to optimize our platform extensively based on the data and feedbacks we collected from our users to improve the platform usability and conversion velocity.

Because at the end of the day, it’s still all about the product. Building a product that can live up to the promise and keep users coming back is absolutely the key to grow a business.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market?

Establishing genuine need: personal experience as a recreational diver and through discussions with other fellow divers over the time span of three to four years prior to founding the company.

Assessing size of addressable market:  Though scarce, their are industry and marketing reports published over the years on the Scuba ecosystem.

How and when will you make money?

We’ve recently launched Planet Deepblu.

By utilizing all the dive logs, reviews, and dive site information provided by divers all around the world, we created a marketplace where dive businesses can list their services and dive experiences on the platform and users can discover their next dive destination, find the ideal local dive operator and book dive trips.

We are not charging any fees for the transactions in the growth stage but our business model will be based on a reasonable commision from the booking transactions when the platform is mature and brings value to both users and dive businesses.

We also plan to expand to a wider audience as the platform matures by also moving into other water activities like snorkeling.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team, and why do you have what it takes to succeed with this business?

Our CEO's background has been in consumer electronics and being a strong proponent for disruptive innovation, with his first startup in bitcoin mining, back in 2014.

Most of our team (from our engineers to designers) are certified divers and passionate about diving.

I believe this is a crucial factor to success as diving is not nearly just a business to us but a lifestyle which everyone on our team lives and breaths.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Making the necessary pivots at the right time to find the right product fit.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

We feel that the scuba industry in general has been slow in its evolution from many aspects.

Methods of doing business in many ways still have not caught up with the digital age, which opens up opportunities for companies like ours coming in with a fresh approach.