2025: the year of multiple hats
2026 - it's good to be back. Took a couple weeks off over the Christmas break (the first proper time off in a couple years). Family time, good food & company, reading in front of the logburner - just what was needed. Feeling refreshed and raring to get back to it.
Personal highlights
It was a busy year in 2025 - always amazes me how much happened when I look back on it.
A highlight for me this year was having the chance to attend the final dress rehearsal of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, due to my fiancĆ© Maisieās work sponsoring the event.
We had the best seats in the house with the musicians performing directly to us as 2 of the only 200 guests, instead of the normal thousands. It was pretty breathtaking watching a pipe band march to within a few feet of you under a lit-up Edinburgh castle playing the Braveheart theme. Goosebumps.
We added a couple of sit-on-top kayaks to the Blue Coast fleet this year, which presented the perfect opportunity to take my Mum along the coast to Bow Fiddle Rock at Portknockie. Finally! Perfect conditions for it too - glassy, nice evening light, a visit from the dolphins.
Did another CBT this year and got my first motorcycle which has been a long-held goal of mine that never quite saw the right time. Stoked. Itās a little Yamaha 125 - she doesnāt go very fast which suits me just fine. Iāve been enjoying tootling around the coastal back roads when the weatherās nice.
Business wins
Flask ā Swellbase
Flask was accepted into the Techscaler Catalyst Accelerator. This was a great opportunity to meet some likeminded people and learn from some experienced startup founders.
In the end, I made the decision to pivot Flask from a marketing automation tool into a bookings and operations platform - it became Swellbase.
40ish centre owners have been kind enough to have a chat with me on the phone over the last few months which has shaped the roadmap as v1 is developed. Momentum is building as I build it out ready for the 2026 season. Exciting.
Blue Lighthouse
Blue Lighthouse delivered its pilot programme and impact evaluation this year. Really happy to have evidenced positive results for our frontline workers - great to see the data validating what we see in the water.
Iāve taken to calling what we do āenforced mindfulnessā. Sounds like an oxymoron but it really is an apt way to describe the focus you experience when surfing, and the health benefits are clear and becoming better evidenced all the time.
Blue Coast
Solid year at the beach for Blue Coast. We have a good team and good systems and things are ticking away nicely.
This year we became a beach lifeguard approved training centre which added a revenue stream and solved some staffing gaps. We also added our self-service hire kiosk (read āfancy shedā) with automated security checks and contactless access code delivery. I think this is a world-first!
Currently thinking about
Wearing multiple hats
Ultimately, I think you can wear multiple hats across multiple projects successfully, so long as you arenāt wearing multiple hats IN multiple projects.
At least for me, there has to be a primary project where I can deal with multiple things, but other projects have to be secondary and my role in those projects has to be limited. This wasnāt the case in 2025, but it will be in 2026!
I remember reading somewhere that humans arenāt built for multitasking. Itās impossible for us to hold our attention on two things at once - so multitasking actually means focus-switching which just isnāt compatible with deep focus.
Reflecting on reflections
Iāve been consistently writing private monthly & annual reflections for over 3 years now, since September 2022. This has been hands-down one of the most impactful and positive things I have done for my life, self-improvement, and success.
It encourages long-term thinking, and makes it easier to stay the course when things are difficult or distractions pop up. Probably the one thing I would tell 19 year old Adam if I could go back in time and distract him from surfing!
Goals for 2026
- Swellbase launched with 5 initial companies, iterating and growing over the season and covering the Blue Coast outgoings for employing a school manager
- Write once a month
- Complete the sale on our new house and make it a cosy, feel-good space
- Get my full motorcycle license
- Western Australia trip with Maisie in autumn
Industry Predictions
- We'll start seeing some fractures in restech - with smaller, faster teams solving more specific problems for their customers, and taking market share from the incumbent giants trying to be everything for everyone
- We will see people experiment more widely with AI chat based booking widgets towards the end of the year as companies build in this space
- Pretty standard year for the outdoor industry. Everyone is down because of macro-economic factors, but the ones who are doing a specific marketing channel really well will continue to outperform the baseline. When we have a good year, everyone has a good year. When the market is rough, the hustlers and the prepared win
- Paddleboarding and dryrobe-type products have reached critical mass and will decline, with some companies closing as demand reduces
AI interprets my life at the moment
Not too far wrong-looks almost relaxing..
Hereās to a good year in 2026 š„