I Started a Ship Repair Business During COVID Without Knowing How to Fix Ships

February 2021.

The world was still dealing with COVID.

I launched Guyana Ports with a container for an office, no revenue, and one fairly obvious problem:

I didn’t know how to repair ships.

I came from my father’s seafood export business.

I understood logistics.

I understood operations.

But welding?

Fabrication?

Blasting?

Hull repairs?

Those weren’t my skills.

So when people heard I was starting a marine services company, they naturally asked:

“But do you know how to repair ships?”

It sounded like the right question.

It wasn’t.

The better question was:

Do I know how to build a business around people who do?

Within our first year, Guyana Ports experienced extraordinary growth.

And looking back, one of the most important lessons from that journey is that a lack of industry experience doesn’t automatically disqualify you from building a successful company.

In some ways, it can force you to become a better entrepreneur.

You stop thinking like the technician.

You start thinking like the architect.

You learn to find the right people, build the right systems, create the right relationships, and focus on the result the business needs to produce.

Here are the lessons I learned about building a company without deep industry experience.

Does Industry Experience Matter When Starting a Business?

Yes.

But perhaps not in the way most people think.

Industry experience can give you valuable knowledge.

You understand the terminology.

You know the customers.

You recognize common problems.

You understand how work gets done.

You may already have relationships.

All of that can help.

But industry experience and business capability are not the same thing.

Being great at repairing ships doesn’t automatically mean you’re great at building a ship repair company.

Being a brilliant chef doesn’t automatically make you a great restaurant owner.

Being an excellent electrician doesn’t automatically teach you how to build an electrical contracting business.

The technical skill creates the product or service.

The business skill creates the company around it.

I didn’t need to become the best welder.

I needed to build a company capable of employing and leading people who understood welding better than I ever would.

That’s an important distinction.

Lack of Industry Experience Forced Me to Think Like an Owner

One advantage of entering a business without deep industry experience is that you can’t pretend you’re the answer to everything.

You know you’re not.

I understood the desired outcome.

A vessel needed to be repaired correctly and meet the required standard.

But I wasn’t going to personally perform every technical task required to make that happen.

That meant I had to ask different questions.

Who understands this better than I do?

Who do we need on the team?

What does good performance look like?

What process produces the result?

How do we make sure the work meets the required standard?

How do we deliver reliably?

How do we build client trust?

Instead of becoming the technician, I had to build the environment where good technicians could succeed.

That became an advantage.

Because one of the traps for technically skilled founders is believing:

“Nobody can do this as well as I can.”

Then the founder becomes the center of everything.

Every customer depends on them.

Every difficult job needs them.

Every decision reaches them.

Eventually, their expertise becomes the company’s bottleneck.

My lack of industry experience made that model impossible from the beginning.

I had to build through other people.

1. Industry Experience Doesn’t Replace Vision

The first thing that mattered was vision.

Not a 30-year master plan.

Not a perfect prediction of where the industry would go.

I started with a one-year plan.

I needed to know where I wanted the business to be in 12 months.

That was enough to begin.

This taught me something important.

Vision doesn’t mean you can predict everything.

It means you have enough clarity about the destination to start moving toward it.

When you’re starting without extensive industry experience, that becomes even more important.

There will be things you don’t know.

There will be questions you can’t answer immediately.

There will be problems you’ve never encountered.

Your vision gives you something stable while everything else is being learned.

You see where you’re going.

You communicate it.

You bring people into it.

Then you adjust as you learn.

Your Vision Is Allowed to Evolve

Some entrepreneurs hesitate because they cannot see the next ten years clearly.

Neither could I.

You don’t need perfect visibility.

You need enough clarity for the next stage.

When you reach one target, you create another.

When the company changes, your vision can expand.

When you learn more, your plans become better.

Industry experience can tell you what has traditionally been possible.

Vision helps you imagine what could be possible next.

You need both perspectives in a growing company.

2. Industry Experience Doesn’t Replace Determination

The second lesson was determination.

Not the motivational-poster version.

The uncomfortable version.

The version where somebody gives you an opportunity and you don’t have every answer yet.

I remember getting an early opportunity when Albert called and asked whether we could start repairs the following day.

I said:

“Yes.”

Then I had to figure out how we were going to deliver.

That’s entrepreneurship.

You rarely get perfect conditions.

Sometimes the opportunity arrives before you feel completely prepared.

You make the commitment.

Then you organize the resources required to honor it.

That doesn’t mean being reckless.

It means understanding the difference between:

“I genuinely cannot deliver this.”

and:

“I haven’t figured out how to deliver this yet.”

Those are very different statements.

My lack of industry experience meant there were plenty of things I hadn’t figured out yet.

Determination meant I kept finding the people, information, and resources necessary to move forward.

Learn Faster Than the Problems Arrive

If you don’t have deep industry experience, you need another capability:

The ability to learn quickly.

You have to ask questions.

Listen.

Find people who know more than you.

Understand enough to make good decisions.

Admit when you don’t know.

Then keep learning.

Pretending to know everything is one of the most expensive things an entrepreneur can do.

Your job isn’t to be the smartest technical person in every room.

Your job is to make sure the business has access to the knowledge it needs.

That’s a very different mindset.

3. Relationships Can Multiply Industry Experience

The third lesson was relationships.

This became one of the biggest multipliers in the business.

If you lack industry experience, relationships become even more valuable because you cannot build everything from your own knowledge.

You need people.

Employees.

Technical experts.

Clients.

Suppliers.

Partners.

Advisors.

Mentors.

People who see things you don’t.

But building relationships isn’t simply networking.

I had to develop what I think of as relationship intelligence.

How do you understand people?

How do you communicate?

How do you listen?

How do you build trust?

How do you show empathy?

How do you lead people who know more about their technical role than you do?

That last one matters.

You Don’t Have to Know More Than Everyone You Lead

Some owners feel threatened when an employee knows more than they do.

I think that’s backwards.

You should want people who know more than you in their area.

Your finance person should understand finance.

Your technical team should understand the technical work.

Your salespeople should develop sales expertise.

Your operational leaders should understand their responsibilities deeply.

Your job is not to beat everyone at their job.

Your job is to help them work together toward a common result.

Industry experience can make you knowledgeable.

Relationship intelligence helps you multiply the knowledge of everyone around you.

That’s leverage.

4. Starting Lean Can Be an Advantage

Starting Guyana Ports during COVID didn’t exactly look like perfect timing.

But the circumstances forced us to be disciplined.

We started lean.

Our office was a container.

We had a small administrative team.

We didn’t build a large overhead structure before the business had earned it.

We added resources as demand developed.

That mattered.

Because one of the easiest mistakes in a new business is building the company you hope you’ll need rather than the company customers currently require.

Big office.

Large team.

Expensive systems.

Extra management.

Then you spend the next year trying to generate enough revenue to pay for the infrastructure you bought too early.

We didn’t have that luxury.

And I’m glad.

Let Demand Earn the Next Investment

Our growth taught me to ask:

What does the business need now?

What does customer demand justify?

What capacity is becoming constrained?

Where should we invest next?

That creates a much healthier relationship with growth.

You don’t hire because you hope sales will appear.

You strengthen capacity because demand is proving that the next investment is required.

A lack of industry experience can actually help here.

You may have fewer assumptions about how a company in that industry is “supposed” to look.

Instead, you can build around what the market is actually telling you.

5. Industry Experience Doesn’t Replace Business Fundamentals

Eventually, every entrepreneur discovers the same thing.

The product matters.

But knowing how to run the business matters too.

You can have extraordinary technical expertise and still struggle with:

Cash flow.

Sales.

Marketing.

Hiring.

Leadership.

Margins.

Management.

Systems.

Delegation.

Time.

Strategy.

Those are business disciplines.

And they apply whether you’re repairing ships, running restaurants, manufacturing products, providing professional services, or building software.

This is why I believe industry experience is valuable but incomplete.

You need business capability too.

What Business Coaching Changed for Me

As the company developed, I eventually began working with ActionCOACH.

One of the biggest shifts was understanding the difference between working in the business and working on the business.

I had become involved in everything.

Finance.

Projects.

Problems.

Decisions.

Operations.

Whatever needed attention, I was there.

That’s common for entrepreneurs.

You tell yourself you’re being responsible.

And in the beginning, sometimes you need to be deeply involved.

But eventually, being involved in everything becomes the problem.

You haven’t built an organization.

You’ve built a company around your personal capacity.

Coaching helped me see that differently.

From Technician to Architect

This is the lesson I wish more entrepreneurs understood.

Your business doesn’t need you to become the best technician.

It needs you to become the architect.

An architect doesn’t personally install every pipe, pour every foundation, and wire every circuit.

They make sure the right pieces work together.

That’s what the owner eventually has to do.

Build the systems.

Build the team.

Create the standards.

Develop leaders.

Track the numbers.

Clarify the vision.

Allocate resources.

Then let capable people do their jobs.

My lack of industry experience taught me this early.

But even as the company grew, I still had to learn how to step further into the owner’s role.

Systems Matter More as the Business Grows

When a company is small, the owner can hold a surprising amount together personally.

You remember everything.

You know every customer.

You solve every problem.

You know which employee needs what.

That stops working as the company grows.

Eventually, knowledge needs to become systems.

Processes need to become repeatable.

Decisions need clear ownership.

Standards need to be documented.

Numbers need to be visible.

Leaders need authority.

Otherwise, growth simply makes the founder busier.

Industry experience won’t solve that problem.

Systems will.

Your Business Should Become Less Dependent on You

This was another important shift for me.

A successful business shouldn’t require the owner to personally operate every part of it forever.

That’s not laziness.

That’s scale.

If everything stops when you stop, the company still has a dependency problem.

You want to build something where:

People understand their responsibilities.

Processes are repeatable.

Leaders can make decisions.

Standards remain consistent.

Customers receive value.

Numbers remain visible.

And the owner can focus on where they create the most leverage.

That’s the difference between building yourself a job and building an enterprise.

Industry Experience Versus Business Experience

So which matters more?

It’s the wrong competition.

You need enough knowledge to understand the business you’re operating.

But you don’t necessarily need to personally master every technical discipline inside it.

What you do need is the ability to build around your gaps.

If you lack industry experience, hire it.

Partner with it.

Learn from it.

Ask questions.

Build relationships with it.

If you lack business experience, develop that too.

Learn your numbers.

Understand marketing.

Study sales.

Build systems.

Learn leadership.

Develop managers.

Understand cash.

Get coaching.

Find mentors.

The strongest company isn’t necessarily built by the person who knows everything.

It’s built by the person who knows what the company needs and can bring those capabilities together.

Mindset Matters, but It Must Produce Action

Another lesson from the journey was the importance of mindset.

I don’t mean pretending everything is wonderful.

I mean paying attention to the beliefs that shape your decisions.

If your internal narrative is:

“I don’t have enough industry experience, so I can’t do this,”

you’ll behave accordingly.

You hesitate.

You avoid opportunities.

You wait for certainty.

You convince yourself you need another year before you can begin.

A more useful question is:

“What would need to be true for us to make this work?”

Now you’re solving.

Who do we need?

What knowledge are we missing?

What resources are required?

What risks need managing?

What is the next action?

Positive thinking without execution accomplishes very little.

But productive beliefs can lead to productive actions.

That’s where mindset becomes commercially useful.

Don’t Let Lack of Industry Experience Become an Excuse

There is an important qualification here.

Saying you don’t need deep industry experience does not mean expertise doesn’t matter.

It does.

Especially in industries where technical quality, regulation, safety, and professional standards are critical.

The lesson is not:

“Knowledge doesn’t matter.”

The lesson is:

“The founder doesn’t personally need to possess every piece of knowledge.”

The business does.

That’s completely different.

You have to respect the expertise required to deliver properly.

Then make sure you hire, develop, or partner with people who possess it.

A smart entrepreneur doesn’t ignore their knowledge gaps.

They build around them.

What I’d Tell Someone Starting Without Industry Experience

If you’re thinking about entering a market where you don’t have years of industry experience, here’s what I’d tell you.

Know the Outcome

Understand what customers are buying and what successful delivery looks like.

Identify Your Knowledge Gaps

Don’t hide them.

Write them down.

What don’t you understand?

Find the Right Expertise

Hire, partner with, or learn from people who understand what you don’t.

Learn the Business Fundamentals

Know your numbers.

Understand cash.

Learn sales.

Understand marketing.

Build systems.

Learn leadership.

Start Lean

Don’t build overhead for revenue you haven’t earned yet.

Let demand help determine where you invest.

Build Relationships

Your network can expand your capability far beyond your personal knowledge.

Create Systems Early

Don’t let every process become dependent on one person’s memory.

Keep Learning

Your lack of industry experience today doesn’t mean you remain inexperienced forever.

Learn deliberately.

FAQ: Industry Experience

Do You Need Industry Experience to Start a Business?

Not necessarily.

Industry experience can be valuable, but founders can also build successful companies by combining business skills with the technical expertise of employees, partners, advisors, and specialists.

The key is recognizing what you don’t know and ensuring the business has access to the expertise it requires.

How Important Is Industry Experience for Entrepreneurs?

Industry experience can help entrepreneurs understand customers, terminology, operations, risks, and common industry practices.

However, it doesn’t replace skills in leadership, finance, sales, marketing, systems, and management.

Both forms of knowledge can contribute to success.

Can Lack of Industry Experience Be an Advantage?

Sometimes.

A founder without extensive industry experience may question assumptions that industry veterans take for granted.

It can also force the founder to build through capable people rather than becoming the technical bottleneck.

However, this only works when the founder respects the expertise required and actively fills their knowledge gaps.

How Do You Start a Business Without Industry Experience?

Start by understanding the customer outcome and identifying the technical knowledge you lack.

Then find people who possess that expertise, learn the business fundamentals, start lean, build strong relationships, and create systems that allow knowledge to exist inside the company rather than only with the founder.

Is Industry Experience More Important Than Business Experience?

Neither automatically replaces the other.

Industry experience helps you understand the market and technical environment.

Business experience helps you turn resources, people, systems, and opportunities into a sustainable company.

Strong entrepreneurs learn how to combine both.

Should I Hire People With More Industry Experience Than Me?

Absolutely.

You should want people who are better than you in their specialist areas.

Your job as the owner isn’t to know more than everyone.

Your job is to create the vision, structure, leadership, and environment that allow their expertise to produce results.

Can Coaching Help if I Lack Industry Experience?

Business coaching can help owners strengthen broader capabilities such as leadership, financial management, sales, systems, accountability, and strategic thinking.

It doesn’t replace technical industry expertise, but it can help you become better at building and leading the company around that expertise.

Industry Experience Isn’t the Only Way to Build Expertise

I started a ship repair business without knowing how to repair ships.

That doesn’t mean expertise was unnecessary.

It means I didn’t have to personally own all of it.

The business needed technical expertise.

So I needed people who had it.

The business needed relationships.

I had to build them.

The business needed systems.

We had to create them.

The business needed leadership.

I had to develop it.

And the business needed me to keep learning.

That’s the bigger lesson.

Industry experience can give you a head start.

But it doesn’t determine where you finish.

Vision matters.

Determination matters.

Relationships matter.

Business fundamentals matter.

Systems matter.

Leadership matters.

And your willingness to learn what you don’t know matters enormously.

Don’t wait until you know everything.

You never will.

Know enough to take the next intelligent step.

Find people who know what you don’t.

Build around your weaknesses.

Keep developing your strengths.

Then execute.

Because you don’t have to be the technician to build the company.

You have to become the architect.

Ready to Build the Business Around Your Strengths?

You don’t have to personally know everything your company needs to know.

But you do need to build the systems, leadership, numbers, team, and business disciplines that allow expertise to produce consistent results.

That’s one of the biggest shifts I made as Guyana Ports grew, and business coaching helped me see the difference between simply doing more work and building a stronger company.

ActionCOACH helps business owners strengthen the fundamentals behind sustainable growth, from numbers and accountability to leadership, systems, team development, and execution.

Whether you have decades of industry experience or you’re building around specialists who know more than you do, the objective is the same:

Build a company that becomes more capable as it grows.

Discover ActionCOACH and learn how structured business coaching can help you build a stronger, more scalable business.