Boat Planet just hired it’s third full time employee, and they’re putting them on the ground in Florida. The company is an online marketplace connecting boat owners with marine businesses. The startup sprang out of a Facebook group that CEO Michael Kiel started for the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri a couple years ago. When tens of thousands of people joined the group he began building a site to take this concept across the United States.
Michael Kiel, Boat Planet CEO
“Florida is the largest boating market in the United States,” Kiel told the 4thEst8. “It’s a good time to talk to businesses down there right now because they’re busy, but they’re not slammed… so we’re gonna spend a good amount of time down there just trying to onboard more businesses and show them the value we can provide them.”
Kiel claims a couple hundred businesses from Lake of the Ozarks on its platform, more than a score of them are paying customers. Across the country the company has set up accounts for 5000 businesses. Kiel says putting the new employee in Florida just made sense.
The company is headquarted in the CIC co-located workspace in the Coretex district of St. Louis and is a member of ITEN. Boat Planet now has three full time and two part time employees. Founded in 2017, the startup was accepted into the 2019 cohort of Tech Wildcatters in Dallas, picking up a $30,000 equity investment with a commitment to take part in a later institutional round (should one occur).
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