Startup Sense Podcast

Diana Goodwin started AquaMobile in 2003 while she was still in college and wanted to earn some extra summer income by teaching private swim lessons. She kept it as her "side hustle" for the next 8 years but after a career working for Bain Consulting she finally decided to go full-time with the company in 2011. Now 5-6 years later, the AquaMobile network has more than 1,800 instructors and lifeguards providing services to tens of thousands of people. The company is currently bootstrapped (although she's turned down investors) and has anywhere from 8 to 30 employees depending on the time of year. As you can imagine it's still a seasonal business but Diana is focused on changing that by getting into new business opportunities that compliment what AquaMobile is already doing, leverage the existing platform they've built and utilize the skills they have learned.  In this interview I spoke with Diana about why she started AquaMobile, what was the problem she was trying to solve, why did she keep it as a side hustl