We recently connected with Paul Hardersen and have shared our conversation below.

Paul, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Seadog Travels formed from the desire to build a unique type of company. I wanted a company with a focus, a company whose theme is instantly recognizable, and a company that can both inspire and empower people to make a better world. As I have a Navy background and I love sailing on tall ships, developing a company with an ocean theme seemed obvious. It’s a passion that has evolved into both a vision and a mission for Seadog Travels. That is: to explore and protect the oceans of the world.

Beyond that, I want to build a company that is different from any other travel agency or travel company. Our immediate goal is to build an ocean-focused travel company, However, our much bigger vision is to own and operate a small fleet of tall ships that do two things. First, offer themed, immersive, and fun tall ship sailing experiences. Second, to integrate scientific research into every sail. Doing both will ultimately fulfill our vision to explore and protect the oceans of the world.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well, I’m a bit of a hybrid and eclectic sort. I have many interests and my past informs what I am doing now. I served honorably in the Navy right out of high school. I then did the college thing all the way from undergraduate work at Iowa State to a Ph.D. in New York. I spent a fair amount of time in academia and doing scientific research, too, of which the latter was the most fulfilling. However, I ultimate decided about a decade ago that I don’t want to sit in an office doing the same thing for the next 25 years. I want to be out in the world, I want to make a positive difference, and I want to do something that is mine — and something that will attract people who want to be a part of what I am building. Preserving our planet has to be a primary effort in everything that we do and I want to be a part of that.

So, Seadog Travels is my contribution. I want the travel industry to do more and to do better. To truly adopt sustainable travel practices. To truly be environmentally responsible. To truly be a part of the solution. We can only do that by taking positive action to preserve the health and vitality of the seas and the sea life within.

This will be my guiding activity for the rest of my life, bar nothing else. That’s how committed I am to this. On the travel side of things, we are developing custom and immersive group travel experiences at sea and to tropical island and coastal destinations. We are partnering with locals at the destinations to offer truly impactful travel experiences and to help local communities grow and to preserve their natural environment. We also promote luxury and expedition cruises, we offer destination wedding services to tropical island destinations, we offer general travel agency services, and we help people buy and sell used boats. So, we are all ocean, all the time, and it’s really a great gig!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I became involved with travel through a previous company that failed. I learned all of my hard business lessons there and, trust me, they were hard — yet necessary — lessons. It’s easy to see why it failed now — the people involved did not have a common purpose, the people involved did not have the proper background to do what they were trying to do, and the company wasn’t really set up optimally.

If you don’t have the right team, you’ll fail. If you don’t know your industry, you’ll fail. If you aren’t unique, you’ll fail. You have to be strategic, you have to continually search for opportunities, and you have to be resourceful. None of that happened in the previous company — and I’ve taken all of those lessons into the new venture. I see things so much differently now.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I chose this question because it is still an unanswered question. I began Seadog Travels in the middle of the pandemic. I’ve been slowly crafting and developing the company to be ready for the time when travel has returned, which is about now and in the coming years.

Seadog Travels is being built on founder funds, which are limited, and we are working to gain enough traction so that we will receive investor interest eventually. We are pursuing crowdfunding on WeFunder and we have a goal to raise $500,000 for the first two funded years of operation. We have a fully developed business plan, we are developing our customer base, and we will continue this as we gain traction and eventually find investors who align with our vision and mission.

None of this is easy, but we need to show the traction and growth that will lead to investments. So, we continue and we will be ready when that time comes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seadogtravels.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seadog_travels
• Facebook: https;//www.facebook.com/seadogtravels
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seadog-travels
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtdQAwDOo_eNZIfjyJQMEVg
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/seadog-travels-tucson

Image Credits
Images courtesy of Paul Hardersen.