As someone new to SCUBA and just joined Scubaboard, I read the whole thread with great interest and would like to comment on some isues:
Basically, Captain Daves aproach, from the positive side, boils down to:
1.- niche market to affluent customers
2.- Loyalty to dive shop through a commercial relationship
3.- Work on a continuos loyalty customer base to maintain and increase revenue stream
4.- Make it a lot of fun with a lot preparation, exotic locales, and present it as a bundled offer (all-encompassing)
5.- Be always prepared to avoid and rapidly resolve any little intereference on making it a lot of fun
(1) can be done. There are customers who do not care how much they pay, and also it has to do with the perception of the value of the offering, not the real value. However, there are very important hurdles to muster: it is difficult to attract them and direct mailings might not be the best way (response rates are very low), and it takes a lot of time to build the clientele.
(2) this is interesting, however, most people would want an unbiased opinion but a compromise might be arranged without ever putting anyone at risk nor selling low-qualilty gear.
(3) this is the big issue. this is customer service, this is relationship, this is upgrading and cross-selling, this takes a lot of effort, a lot of attention to details, and be able to take the plunge once in a while to keep a customer satisfied. Everyone in business knows this needs to be done, only very few do it right.
(4) cool, I see a lot of people wanting something like this, having slides, having videos, having a complete diving experience
(5) very important to keep everyone happy and not make fuss of little things that can go wrong, and turn it into positives.
I think these things that Captain Dave has raise are very interesting. Too bad that some other ideas do not seem to have too much business sense and raises some ethical questions. But then again, no business plan is perfect.
But the major hurdle was capt. dave's presentations skills. Capt. Dave wanted to sell his idea of making a good living out of this; but managed to put everyone in the defensive, did not present his ideas in an orderly fashion and basically lost his audience discussing petty details for the lack of an appropriate framework and delivery.
Just my 2 cents,
Guillermo