Cameron Olthuis

We’ve been working on this for a long time now so I am very excited that we’ve finally launched 5ones Earth. Big ups to all of the 5ones team for their hardwork and dedication.

Earth is an interactive map for surf, skate and snow spots as well as pro shops and company headquarters. It’s almost like local search for action sports. Check it out…

They do, it’s true. It’s one of the reasons I got into the industry when I started Factive. The other reason being it’s been a passion all my life. Long have I felt that action sports companies don’t get the Internet, especially the big media corpos that try to play here. Instead of going into all the reasons why - not to mention I’ve had the post in my unfinished drafts for a year - I’ll just link you to this great post I just came across, When Action Sports Sites Go Wrong.

Maybe it should be the other way around (what business can teach you about surfing), since I learned to entrepreneur before I learned to surf. Either way, I came across a couple of blog posts this morning about surfing lessons for entrepreneurs and felt as both an entrepreneur and surfer, I should also blog about this subject. Here are 5 things about entrepreneurship that I learned from surfing (or vice-versa).

1) Patience - It takes a long time to learn to surf, it’s hard and one should not expect to be ripping waves their first day out. Same with building a business. It’s an exercise in patience. If you think you’ll be successful overnight, you’re sadly mistaken my friend. You will fall a lot at first but the more you do it the better you will get.

2) Thinking fast - No two waves are exactly alike. Every way breaks differently and when you’re riding a wave you always need to be making split second decisions. This is a skill that’s required in business too. You can’t predict exactly how the wave of your business will break so be ready to make decisions and adapt on the fly.

3) Positioning - This is pretty much what the other two articles I referenced above talk about. With surfing, you’re relying on so many elements to come together to make a surfable wave. When then do, you need to be positioned correctly to catch that wave. The same thing with business. Lots of waves will come your way, be in position and be ready to ride the good waves.

4) Wave selection - Being in the right position to catch a wave is one thing. Catching the right wave is another thing. As a surfer, you learn to read the shape of the waves as they’re coming in. If you pick the wrong wave it might close out on you and there will be no where to go. Like I mentioned in the point above, pick the good waves to ride. In business you need to learn to recognize and pick the right waves that you can ride to success. Get on the wrong wave and you might put your business in a position that it has no where to go.

5) Competition - There are a lot of surfers competing for the same waves as you, just like there are a lot of entrepreneurs competing in the same marketplace as you. If you don’t get aggressive while surfing and take waves, there are a hundred other surfers in the lineup who will paddle right around you and do so. In business, if you don’t jump on the opportunities presented to you, there are a hundred other people waiting who will. I love surfing next to the candy-ass surfers who aren’t aggressive, that way I can take all the waves I want. I also love competing in marketplaces where candy-ass entrepreneurs don’t leverage the opportunities that come their way, that way I can and I will.

If you’re a surfer, I’d love to hear some of things surfing has taught you about business.

I am asking you this question, seriously. So feel free to leave your answer in the comments. I’m convinced after dominating the ASP World Tour this year that Kelly Slater is the greatest athlete ever. He won a record breaking 9th World Title this year and just finished winning a record breaking 6th Pipeline Masters. I’m pretty sure he already held the record in both of those as well.

Is he a greater athlete than Tiger Woods? Michael Jordan? Lance Armstrong? I think so. There is no other athlete that has dominated his respective sport the way Kelly has.

Funny mental picture isn’t it? A bunch of sun-starved geeks out on the beach trying to learn how to surf. Alas, I vow that every one of them, who gives an honest effort, will get up and feel the sensation of riding a wave.

Wondering what I’m talking about? ThinkTank, an un-conference that’s being put on here in San Diego by my buddy, David Klein, is bringing together about 40 or so of the top Internet Marketing minds to network and learn from one another in a casual environment. I noticed there were a bunch of very cool activities lined up (i.e. MMA Training sponsored by Surehits) for the event but I also noticed no mention of surfing. I thought, hmm, how can there be an event here in San Diego that doesn’t even include surfing, especially an event that will be happening on the beach??

So I contacted DK and asked him what he thought about one of my sites, 5ones, sponsoring an activity that would give surfing lessons to all the attendees. Seeing as dk loves surfing (almost ;)) as much as me, he was thrilled with the idea. So, my action sports website, 5ones, is hosting surfing lessons to any of the attendees that have the sack to get in ocean and try. Yes, that’s a direct challenge to Neil, Shoe, and all the other attendees. I have hard time picturing Neil on a surfboard but I will try my hardest to get him out there, that’s a promise.

I’m beyond thrilled to be able to share my passion of both surfing and the ocean with my friends. Surfing is one of those things that unless you’ve done it, you just have no idea what an amazing experience it is. There truly is nothing else like it in this world, and on so many levels too. Not only is surfing fun, and physically rewarding, but it also serves as a form of mental therapy. It doesn’t matter what stresses I have in my life, or how bad a day I’m having… when I go surfing, it erases all of that from my mind and I always leave the water with a smile on my face. Hopefully I will be able to pass this passion on to at least a few of the ThinkTankers.

PS - I think there still might be a couple spots left for this event. It’s a small investment for the amount of knowledge you will leave with and I’d recommend that any serious Internet Entrepreneur attend.

I have to admit, I’m really having a lot of fun playing around in the action sports industry. Besides, my passion for action sports, one of the main reasons for starting Factive was that I knew I could come in with my audience building skills, dominate the online space, and have fun while doing it.

Our audience is growing at a very rapid pace… I couldn’t be happier. The best thing is that it’s super defensible traffic too, we get a very healthy mix of Google, direct, social, and referral traffic. We’re now at the point where we’re ready to start monetizing our sites. Exciting!

I love the fact that I’m building a company around something I love so much. I wish I would’ve done this sooner as it makes life so much more enjoyable to combine work with your passions. At that point it no longer becomes work, as big of a cliche as that is. For example, ‘board meetings’; instead of sitting in an office, I now have meetings with people while I’m surfing. I get to go hang out at cool places like the Red Bull headquarters. I can fly around the world on exotic surf vacations and call it work. And companies are backing their trucks up to my door with free products for me to review. Its got it’s perks to say the least.

My advice to you is: get into something you truly enjoy and figure out a way to make money doing it.