When the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. this spring, bringing the hospitality industry to its knees, Mike Melillo wasn’t sure how things would play out for The Wanderlust Group (TWG). The company, which includes subsidiary marina operating platforms Dockwa and Marinas.com, had the potential to be caught in the pandemic’s stormy seas; some of its clients in warmer states like Florida went from 95 or 100 percent occupancy to zero overnight.
As it turned out, Melillo had no need to fear. Boating bounced back almost immediately.
The pandemic has spurred even the most indoors-inclined among us to explore the outside. Boating, Melillo points out, is an inherently socially distant activity. Dockwa saw its inbound leads grow 400 percent year over year in June, around the same time it was fielding higher-than-ever bookings from mega yachts, and the boat storage marketplace exploded as boat owners fled to their summer homes.
“There’s no doubt that Covid was a catalyst for a lot of systemic change for everyone,” Melillo said. “We were fortunate to be in the boating industry when this was going down. Candidly, a lot of these waterfront communities would not have survived without the boating industry.”
The last three months, Melillo said, have been the three best months in TWG’s history. The explosive growth caught the eyes of investors. On Wednesday, TWG announced that it had closed $14.2 million in Series B funding.
TWG is using that funding to double down on its mission of bringing the outdoors online. This week, it launched a beta version of a new platform called Campouts, which Melillo calls “the RV version of Dockwa.” Just as Dockwa allows marina operators to manage their harbors, Campouts will allow RV park operators to keep track of their sites on land. Launched in 2015, TWG has serviced more than 15,000 marinas to date.
Many of TWG’s existing clients operate marinas and RV parks at the same location. TWG’s first goal is to bring its existing Dockwa customers, some of whom were using Dockwa to manage their RV parks, onto the Campouts platform.
“I think this space has historically lacked technological innovation and investment. While we’re excited about where we are in the market, it’s a bit lonely to be innovating on the frontlines by yourself,” Melillo said. “Rising tides lift all boats. More people are now understanding that this market is much bigger than people previously understood.”
TWG is taking advantage of the great outdoors in house, too. The startup has always had a remote-friendly culture, but since switching to an entirely remote model in March, TWG has become even more flexible. TWG keeps offices in Newport, R.I., and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now, about half of TWG’s employees in Greater Boston have permanently relocated, mostly to coastal towns in Maine and New Hampshire as well as to Rhode Island, and Melillo has alluded to potentially ditching the Cambridge space.
TWG has also permanently shifted to a four-day work week—no Mondays.
“One, the best time to enjoy a coastal town is Monday, when most of the tourists have gone home,” Melillo said. “Two, we just wanted to allow folks to turn off.”
Founded in 2015, TWG currently employs about 35 people, spread across six states. With the new funding, the startup will bring headcount to about 50, but Melillo doesn’t want to expand much beyond that if he can help it. Keeping the team small, he says, allows people to coordinate more easily and take more ownership over their day-to-day work.
For Melillo, the new funding is a testament to the newfound resonance of TWG’s mission: Everyone wants to get outside.
“Our entire mission is to try to help people get away from their devices, ironically. If we’re doing our job, you’re not looking at your screen,” Melillo said. “We don’t think there are many thing better than getting the hell away from our devices, which I know is a little counterintuitive for a technology company to say.”
