Peer-to-peer boat rental company Boatbound recently relocated from San Francisco to Seattle.
Boatbound moved its offices in December because the company is growing, according to an article in the Seattle Times. The company needs to hire engineers and other staff, according to Boatbound co-founder and CEO Aaron Hall.
Seattle’s lower cost of living makes it less expensive to hire there, and the talent pool and boating scene, he said, are just as strong, the article said. The tech perspective Hall was used to in San Francisco — networking, culture, mindset — was similar to that in Seattle, he said.
The company’s database contains 12,000 boats available for rental, from sailboats to megayachts.
The Seattle Times profiled the company after the move was announced, saying Hall has boated with his family since he was a boy growing up in central California. When the family traveled, they would rent boats. In 2012 they tried to rent a boat at a Texas lake, but found that most people who rent boats don’t have websites or reliable ways to find them.
Hall figured there needed to be a place where people who wanted to rent a boat could find one. Such a place could also help boat owners who wanted to rent their boat, the article said.
