Global family travel enhances educational, cultural and business insights
In 2014, after a successful 30-year run as a marketing agency partner, I was fortunate to have a midcareer timeout to reflect on my next phase of business. I was only 55, felt like 35, and wanted something new.
My wife and I checked out YouTube videos of families who took their kids on culturally-immersive, educational trips around the world. After much planning, our New Year's Day 2015 departure to 22 countries in six months - with our 3 middle school teens - would open my eyes to the problems facing global shipping ports and lead to my next business venture - the launch of EagleRail Container Logistics.
Our travels included typical site-seeing, shopping malls and using mass transit to wander around cities trying not to look like tourists (not possible). We were shocked by how densely populated other countries are compared to the United States, and how efficient their transportation systems are, in moving people and commerce. The train, truck and shipping operations as a sight to behold ... behemoths that never sleep, especially in the Eastern Hemisphere, as their citizens and shipping containers move like clockwork, night and day.
Yet, despite their efficiencies, traffic to and from shipping ports - from miles and miles of old, dirty, pollution-spewing trucks - paralyzes some of the world's most stunning cities like Bueos Aires, Tokyo, Barcelona, Mumbai and many more.
When we returned, I discussed several business opportunities while networking with friends, but nothing piqued my interest until I met a gentleman who was developing an alternative shipping container shuttling methodology. After conducting a few hours of typical "potential market-demand" research, and while recalling the crippling shipping port and intermodal congestion I witnessed, my Aha Moment arrived. This idea was a sleeper worth exploring!
After checking with our financial adviser who called it "high-risk profile money," we bet on our instincts and I eventually became a majority partner in the start up, EagleRail Container Logistics (www.eaglerail.com). The 100% electric overhead container transportation solution enables ports to do with 60,000-lb boxes what Amazon.com warehouses do with 60-lb. boxes. Our port solution robotically lifts and shuttles repetitive container deliveries via an automated, overhead electric rail system and dramatically reduces pollution, congestion and dramatically improves port and intermodal operations and efficiency. Five years later, we've invested four times the money we intended. I have assembled a great band of brothers and sisters, who also co-invested cash, sweat equity, or both. We have built a healthy demand pipeline, made presentations to 40+ shipping port authorities in 22 countries, and I was invited last November to be the keynote speaker at the world's largest port conference in Rotterdam.
So what did I learn from my family travels, cultural immersion and executive education?
1. Travel with your family every chance you get
2. Look at the world with fresh (non U.S.) eyes and you'll witness human and technological wonders with a fresh perspective
3. Invest in yourself
4. If you're a 'groupthink' guy like me, get a great bunch of people as teammates
5. Don't give up when things get tough
6. Don't be stubborn! Adapt and adjust to the realities of market feedback.
• Mike Wychocki is the CEO of EagleRail Container Logistics, providing alternative container transportation solutions between container port terminals and intermodal operations around the world. www.eaglerail.com.