Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ryan Seeloff. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I had the idea for Destination Brevard for a couple years prior to starting it, while I was a photographer for our local newspaper Florida Today. Being out in the community every day, I saw that local businesses needed help with marketing themselves, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. Over time I came up with a basic idea of what I could do and as this was just as social media was starting to explode (late 2009/early 2010), I began to put a plan together.

At the same time, my mom was going through her second (and last) bout with cancer. The evening of Valentine’s Day 2010 I received a call from my stepdad while out eating with my wife and our kids that I needed to come over to the hospital ASAP. That night in what turned out to be my last conversation with my mom, she mentioned that I should start up the “thing” I had been talking about for awhile because in her words “You never know how much time you have left”. She went into some kind of coma overnight and three days later she was gone. I guess that last bit of advice from her had a pretty serious impace because three months later on May 15th 2010, I took Destination Brevard online without any idea of what it might turn into.

Now between our website, email blasts and social media streams, Destination Brevard regularly reaches well over a half million different people per month and it’s been able to be my full time gig pretty much from the beginning.

At the time, there was nothing anywhere near like what Destination Brevard did and over the years many people who wanted to do something similar have come and gone because they didn’t understand just how much time goes into what I do every single day, 365 days per year. I only see things from my side of the equation, but I hear on a regular basis just how much Destination Brevard means to the owners of local businesses in Brevard County as well as to those in our audience and I have to believe that my mom is looking down, pleased that I took her advice.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My professional background is photography even though that wasn’t the plan I had laid out for myself as a young adult. I had intended on being a commercial diver, but at the young age of 16 I had a sinus infectin that turned into something much more serious and ended up with me in the hospital with a literal hole in my skull and having to relearn how to walk, talk and write. Having that hole in my skull instantly took care of ever being able to scuba dive and it took me a couple years to figure out a new plan. I had always loved the ocean and I started on the path to become a teacher where I figured that I could end up teaching marine biology. A few twists and turns in life found me going down a different path after I picked up a camera and starting shooting photos of friends while they were surfing. I ended up being able to go on a few trips for companies in the surfing industry to capture images, but then life threw another curve ball at me just as that was starting to take off. My wife and I had our first child and she was beginning her career in banking, so I couldn’t just up and disappear for a week or more to go off somewhere taking pictures of people surfing. I found myself working for our local paper as a freelance photographer, but being able to do it full time and that’s where the idea for Destination Brevard blossomed as I shared in the previous question.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Honestly, this is easy.

Whenever someone decides to start their own business they need to understand that it takes 100% of their time to get it going and to keep it growing. Everything else has to fit in as well as it can, but your business is your baby and you only get out of it what you put into it. If you’re not willing to give it your all, don’t expect it to give you much back. Sure my job may be different than most, but I never turn off finding new ways to help businesses be seen. I suppose having that thought of how my mom told me to run with this thing keeps me pushing forward every day even when I might want to slow down.

After all, if you’re not growing your business, you’re letting it die.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As stated a couple questions ago, what I do with Destination Brevard is nothing like what I thought I would ever be doing. After all, I made it up from an idea in my head and didn’t even know if such a thing was possible. I made it possible by putting everything in my soul into it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.destinationbrevard.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/destinationbrevard
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DestinationBrevard
• Twitter: @DestinationBrev
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DestinationBrevardVideos

Image Credits

All of the photos were taken by me except the one of my 2019 Mustang on Daytona International Speedway, That was taken by a SCCA photographer during a track night event.