8 YEARS WITH WATERY

THE STORY BEHIND THE SCENES, FROM BASEMENT TO 45 COLLEAGUES

Watery´s story started back in 2016, where I (Daniel Johannesen) after a swim practice in my shower, took a seemingly innocent conversation with my swim mates to the extreme: I wanted to start a business. At the age of 17 at the time. While I was still in high school. And swam 7-8 times per week.

All seven of us agreed that we were sad, that that extremely cool swim shop just wasn’t available in Denmark, as we knew them from USA. You know, the ones where we could find EVERYTHING we needed as serious swimmers. The shop that created a community around the swimmers in Denmark, and where the guidance actually came from other passionate swimmers, and that didn’t take the usual 4-7 days to deliver.

My immediate thought was that this could be done better. And that was the beginning of watery - with the first 14 boxes in storage in my dads basement.

But before this, however, there were more than 10 years in my case. First as a baby swimmer, then on the coaching team in “Horsens Svømmeklub”, and then 6 years on the first team as elite swimmer.

Today my father’s basement has been swapped out for a new headquarters in the middle of Horsens, where more than 45 colleagues have joined the team along the way. The common theme along all of us, is the joy from the many experiences we had in and around the water - no matter the activity.

In the years between, there has been full steam ahead. We won the E-commerce award “Årets Ener” and “Entrepreneur of the year in Horsens” all within few months, a visit to national TV in the Lion’s Den (with a different ending), a catastrophic production of our first own products, a genuine fairytale with paddleboards, four temporary headquarters and so much more.

Get your swimwear out, and take a trip down memory lane with me and Watery for the last 6 years below.

2005

Thanks Mum

Thanks Mum

I was practically born with water instead of blood.

With a mum, who swam on a competitive level in Ikast (between us she wasn’t the best, however) and two brothers who tried to follow, I didn’t really have a choice when it all came down to it. Swimming was calling out for me as well.

Apart from the typical baby swimming, my mum made her intentions clear in 2005, when I was 6 years old: I was to join the “dolphin team” in the local Horsens Svømmeklub with one purpose:

“You just have to learn to swim. If it isn’t fun, you can stop right at that second, but not until you have learned it.”

Luckily I quickly learned to swim and keep myself above water = One happy mum.

But to my mums great happiness, along the way I also discovered how amazingly fun and liberating it was to be active in water = A happy boy.

Image text: 8 years old, and already ready to conquer the swimming world

September 2016

Who needs a bedroom?

Now things are getting sporty. The suppliers has been contacted, and goods for 100.000 hard-earned kr., from the confirmation savings, fruits & greens lad in Bilka has arrived (a story for another time). The text is written. The logo is great. The fineprint is done. The design of the webshop is almost done.

Watery is nearly just about ready to go live, and start sending out parcels…. from my little, humble room in my dads basement.

My room was literally commandeered as Watery’s first headquarters with storage, office, dining hall, conference room - the only original piece left was the bed, which as also pretty useful during business hours, when the workdays got long and late (which they did).

All while juggling 2.G on my local high school, and my swimming career with the 7-8 weekly swim lessons. It wasn’t easy, but bloody hell it was fun!

November 2016

Against all odds people actually ordered something (and more orders came)

When I’m looking back on the website I launched Watery.dk with, on November 1st 2016, I actually don’t even understand we got any orders at all. There were spelling mistakes on the front banner, an illegal picture of Jeanette Ottesen that I had no copyright for, 6 totally different colours and two identical pictures right next to each other (why not just make one🙈 ?)

But that’s also the beautiful and the cool thing about an entrepreneurial journey like starting Watery from scratch: You get smarter and better along the way.

Never the less, I could already during the great opening weekend, employ my baby brother Mathias. 13 orders in total. That was awesome, and a huge victory!

September 2017

No money for advertising? I guess I’ll have to come to the customers

If there was one thing that swimming taught me, it was to fight just a tad more than my competition, and always see possibilities and improvements. It’s the small details that count in the water - and I found out that that was also the case in the business world.

I knew from my swimming career that there is always around 4-500 people gathered at the weekend competitions around the country. Just my target audience for Watery, and a bunch of them!

At the same time I haven’t really spent any money for advertising on Facebook or Google (every dime was spent on expanding the product lineup at the time…)

The combination made me spend 20 weekends in the following year, going around to the danish pools to sell my swim gear and swimwear to all the swimmers.

Even though it may seem crazy today, on friday after school, i would pack my entire inventory from my basement, borrow a trailer and fill it up in the evening, and then drive to Copenhagen, Aalborg, Esbjerg, Odense etc. on saturday morning, until I got home again by sunday evening.

None of my competitors wanted all that hassle, but that just gave me more of an advantage, because I LOVED to guide and meet the customers face-to-face. And it provided just the knowledge I needed, to take Watery to the next step.

February 2018

An apartment on the pedestrian street in Horsens to Watery

It might seem weird to place a warehouse for a webshop in the pedestrian street in Horsens, where a bunch of physical stores are typically located.

Nevertheless it was the right fit for Watery, when we had to fly from the nest (i.e. the basement) for the first time.

Things were starting to pick up the pace. We received more than 50 orders every day. We had expanded our product line so we also had equipment for open water swimming and exercise swimming. The first intern had joined us (pretty cool..). And my dad was getting pretty sick of people always knocking on the front door to collect parcels at home.

With only my school and Watery to concentrate on, an apartment in downtown seemed like the perfect fit for a young, hungry lad.

This way I could drive to school, get back to the warehouse and pack, take the bike to Bilka with the parcels on my shoulder (or in a shopping trolley), get busy at the computer in the evening, and jump to the back to sleep (shh, don’t tell anyone)

August 2018

The first colleagues (apart from baby brother) joins in

My single-life in Watery was finally over. Some changes were needed, because +60.000 happy customers had already had a great experience, so the concept was ready to spread it out a bit.

At the same time I had finished high school, so now we actually had to make some money as well. Or, that would be the 2.000 kr for my wage (i still lived at home, and I had gotten quite fond of freezer pizzas).

The first one I could welcome to the family was Martin. Then along came Marvin, Nicolai and Casper in the next six months. Because with more hands, the growth seriously startet to pick up the pace as well.

Here we had already approached the position as Denmarks largest swim shop with more than 6.000 products in lap swimming, open water, snorkeling and kids swimming. Safe to say - a turning point for our story.

November 2018

Our first real warehouse

The year 2019 was creeping around the corner, and here were some BIG news, that would be guaranteed to speed up Watery even more.

Before that we had to move the company again. What in the beginning was a showroom in Watery’s apartment, had in the meantime been filled with shelving. The bed had been swapped out for trash. And the whole apartment had been turned into one-way streets. It just wasn’t working any more (even though it had only been 7 months since we moved in 🤦‍♂️)

A little older, a little wiser, and still incredibly tuned in to create the coolest water sports shop in Denmark, I decided to rent an office and warehouse twice the size for watery. 350 square metres seemed like more than enough for 3 years of growth (but I would get wiser again quickly…)

August 2019

New (and big) changes in the horizon

You remember the cliffhanger? Now it’s time to get into it. After the Lion’s Den we couldn’t reach an agreement with Jesper Buch and Christian Stadil. That’s just how it goes sometimes, but after 3 years of walking through the fire, I wasn’t just going to let others join in on my lovechild just like that.

Luckily 5 other men was ready to sink their teeth in, when the lions couldn’t. In August 2019 I welcomed Jens, Emil, Morten, Jonas and Filip to Watery as partners.

Together we would continue the rising trend for Watery - and further develop it with another branch that would be launched soon.

October 2019

Heja Sverige!

It was time. In Denmark more than 80.000 had gotten their swimgear and swimwear from Watery. Trustpilot showed 4,8 out of 5,0, and the growth was better than ever before.

But it was “everyday life”. And not enough action.

So in a months time, I decided that it was time to open up Watery to the swedes. They swam at least as much as the danes, and was also lacking a serious swimshop, and I had heard once, that Google Translate had gotten pretty nifty between Danish and Swedish (I’ll never make THAT mistake again..).

So it was up for grabs. So we launched pretty darn fast, and launched on November 1st, 2019 - exactly 3 years after the launch in Denmark.

Do I have to mention that it was a bit of a failure? It was not until a couple of years later, that we understood that the translation had to be made by a real swede, and we needed other payment options than the danish Mobilepay, that we really got a hold of the Swedes.

December 2019

A rocket is built to fly fast, not straight

Since I started Watery, I always knew that I wanted to build more than just a webshop. As time had went along, we had made deals with 30 of the largest swimming brands in the world, had more than 10.000 products in our shop, and everything for every watersport.

But I couldn’t stop looking at the sales figures of our own Watery bathing caps: +10.000 and by far our most popular product.

That led me to another adventure, to start up our own brand with gear and swimwear. Watery was born as a brand in December 2019, with the first swim boards, pullbuoys and swimming goggles. Later a lot more would follow. It occurred to me, that we really could radically change something in this swimming business