SmallBizResource Blog -- Startups

A Small-Business Lobster Tale

Posted by Gayle Kesten Monday, Jul 7, 2008, 11:51 AM ET

Running your own business requires a thick skin. Or, if you're John Ready, a crustacean-hard shell.

That's because Ready's in the lobster business. The Maine native, along with his younger brother, Brendan, co-owns two Portland-based small businesses: Ready Seafood and Catch a Piece of Maine, each with less than 10 employees. Ready Seafood is a wholesale lobster and seafood distribution business that last year made $10 million; Catch a Piece of Maine aims to personalize lobster-buying -- "bringing the consumer closer to the dock" -- with a vision of preserving the Maine lobster industry and its way of life. Customers buy a trap and own all of the lobsters caught by a private lobsterman assigned to their account (these guys also blog). Lobsters are credited to owners' accounts, and shipments can be requested at any time by phone or the Web.

"Consumers want to know more -- that Captain Ready caught this lobster on Tuesday," Ready told me. "They want to know their money is going to a good cause, back to the lobsterman, not to big companies."

Ready's passion for lobstering is stronger than ever, despite nearly two decades in the business. That said, I should mention he has been doing it since he was 9 years old, when his uncle, a commercial lobsterman, would take him and his brother out on the water. The boys worked during their summers, always reinvesting the money they made from sales to buy more equipment. By the time they (half-heartedly) left for college, the Readys had 800 traps. Each earned business degrees from separate schools ("We learned new ways of thinking"), then returned home to Maine and founded Ready Seafood in 2004.

These days, 27-year-old Ready spends more time running his businesses than out catching lobsters. "You can't grow a business without spending time on the mainland," he said. A typical day begins at 5 a.m. when his early crew arrives. "Then I work on accounting and plan out the day. Marketing comes in around 8 a.m. to talk about Catch a Piece of Maine. At 9 a.m. we have a daily meeting for Ready Seafood."

By late-morning Ready is ready to turn his attention to other matters, like a certain landlubbing blogger who reached him on his cell phone.

SBR: My son is the same age as you were when you began lobstering. All he cares about is buying his next Nintendo game.
JR: Instead of buying a Nintendo we bought more traps, ropes and buoys. We kept making more money, then would buy a new boat. We kept turning [the money] over to have more each year. When we were seniors in high school we were as large as you could get by Maine limits.

SBR: When you returned from college, how did you finance the business?
JR: We had what we had before, then an SBA-backed loan for 50 grand got us started.

SBR: What did you do next?
JR: We each had our own boat. We sold lobster and didn't take money back for 2-1/2 years. We put it back into the business and lived with our father for two years after school. We lived a life of just work -- 15 or 16 hours every single day. No vacations, just work. We had nowhere to spend our money even if we wanted to! But it was about building something -- we were trying to create something we would have pride in, our baby. We wanted our name to be reputable.

SBR: I suppose everything has a trade-off.
JR: Any small business getting started needs to put in that time. At an SBA event we attended in D.C., everyone had the same stories -- horror stories of working tremendous hours, not getting paid, massive difficulties, hitting bumps, getting up again. It was extremely motivating to learn we were not alone.

SBR: What can we learn from the lobster industry?
JR: That you can take an ordinary product, put a spin on it and put more value on it compared to how just one business can win. We have a cooperation and collaboration between the person catching lobsters and [the person buying them]. It's stronger than thinking "me me me."

SBR: What's been your biggest business lesson to date?
JR: Realizing you can't do everything yourself. You have to bring others on. We were brought up as lobsterman to do the hard work yourself. But when you're trying to grow something, you have to trust others. We try to make everyone feel like a team. I'm just as strong as the guy next to me. Our company policy is we treat everyone else the way we want to be treated. We have a sign in our shop that says, "Teams win. Individuals don't."

SBR: What's it like working with a family member?
JR: It's good -- we have a close relationship. Like any relationship we argue from time to time. We take it in stride and realize we each have different points and places we're coming from.

SBR: How so?
JR: My nature is to be a risk taker. I do not see risk. I see the finish line and am more concerned about getting there quickly. Brendan is more conservative. He likes to do research. He's more cautious. It works great because there are certain situations where if I were the aggressive party, we'd probably lose money. And then the opposite.

SBR: How computer-savvy are you?
JR: I never was before college. I realized its importance for tracking sales and leads. Without it we'd be nothing. We have an online calendar attached to the rest of our team members.

SBR: What tech gadget do you most rely on?
JR: My BlackBerry is attached to me no matter where we go, even on the boat.

SBR: Are you sick of hearing about how young you are to own a multimillion-dollar business??
JR: Not really. A lot of people were skeptical. We were determined to prove them wrong. People are now understanding that we're here for the long run, that, yes, we're younger, but we're the next generation coming through. It's nice being younger because we can be role models for others. We can show them that, sure you can be young and do great things, but you have to be devoted and you have to make sacrifices.

SBR: Such as?
JR: We're working when friends want to see us. Same thing with girlfriends. There's not enough time. We're putting the business first right now. One day it'll be time to settle down, have a family, live a different lifestyle. Sometimes it's frustrating because a lot of people we grew up with are settling down. But it would be wrong for me to think about that decision now. We're driven to not just grow this business for ourselves, but to market it for Maine -- to keep the heritage and lifestyle alive for years to come.

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More SBR profiles of young entrepreneurs:
>> Briz.com Founder Mike Librizzi
>> Mytopia Co-Founder Galia Ben-Artzi
>> TodaysMama CEO Rachael Herrscher
>> Cyndee Sugra: A Rocker Girl's Journey to Tech CEO

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