Port Profile was founded by Anton D Park or Anthony (If you can pronounce the ‘h’). A chef for most of his life, he gained his qualifications at the university of Northumbria in Newcastle, England. He first ventured into yachting back in 2004, on the recommendation of a yacht chef that he had worked with in London back in the day. Off he went, not having a clue about anything nautical, other than sand and winkles at the beach. He never actually intended to stay as long, though as he rightly states, who does? One summer season was his plan! And 15 years later, he’s still here, just in a slightly different guise.
Back in 2015, he had setup a Facebook page named; ‘Yacht Chef Support Network’ which many will remember, especially for the infamous party he jointly hosted at the Antigua boat show with Shore Solutions, a well-known provisions company. Apparently it was one hell of a party!.
However he was fed up with the lack of functionality available at the time from the Facebook’s business pages, and so it was time to take a new route. So what he set out to do was to create a simple support website for yachts chefs. The initial concept however soon moved from a support network just for yacht chefs, to a network for all yachting crew. After many discussions with web designers, marketeers, and creatives, (none of whom worked, nor knew a thing about yachting) they realised that their direction should focus on reshaping the recruitment side of the industry instead. And so Port Profile was born.
They had no knowledge of web development, algorithms, API, meta data, prototyping, complex calculators, latency, protocols, parameters, and how machines talk to each other! Neither did the design and tech teams have any knowledge of how the yachting industry functioned. So, the learning curve began for all involved. A vast amount of research, learning and explaining was required to ensure that everyone was on the same page.
All this was achieved whilst Anton continued to work as a head chef on some of the industry’s largest yachts. However this allowed him to pick the brains of all the senior and junior crew. Their input was invaluable and has contributed to what is now an incredible platform. So when they say Port Profile is “a platform built by yacht crew for yacht crew” they really do mean it! He is genuinely humbled by all the help and support they received, not only from crew but also seasoned recruiters, especially during the charter season.
During the more than four years it has taken to get to where they are today, they have developed many designs, redesigns, prototypes and even had a complete change in direction at one point! By the time they decided to change direction, the initial budget had been blown out of the water and he found himself drowning in an ocean of invoices! Thankfully he was fortunate to have several close friends (all of them yacht professionals) invest in the company, which proved a life line. Not only was it financial support, but that they believed in the concept and of course that they believed in him!
It is clear that Anton is overwhelmed by the support of his family and friends, and those who started as partners, but became friends, such as the design team at Red Bullet web design. He is now excited to announce that along with the full launch of the product, Belinda Carrigan has joined the team as Client Support and Sales Manager. This dynamic and fun-loving duo are set to shake up crew recruitment and we wish them luck!
CONTACT DETAILS:
+44 (0)7380 892 121
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