Loving my work - being an entrepreneur already for 20 years

Personal profile by Ville L., 22.1.2022

Company

The company Enterprising Wave Oy was established in February 2002. In the beginning our business was selling and importing tools. The local metal industry and also some national department stores became my clientele. The location for my first store was an old storage building in Särmääjänkatu, Lahti.

We've always been looking forward, improving and developing the business, and so in 2005 we moved in the centre of Lahti, and ended our store sales and focused on wholesale and industrial sales.

Diving has been my hobby since 1997, and I've been a PADI instructor since 2001. That made it possible for me to start dive training in a bigger scale..

And so began the story of EW Dive, my main business since then, developing it bit by bit throughout the years.

We started participating actively in different exhibitions, first in Helsinki Boat Exhibition and then the Helsinki Travel Exhibition. In the year 2008 during the Boat Exhibition, we got to know Mr. Pertti Rautio, who was participating with Colona Divecenter, as their Sharm el Sheik representative. From there we got the idea to start dive travels with our customers, and we made several dive trips, until the unstable circumstances in Egypt forced Pertti to leave, and the dive center in Sharm el Sheik was closed down.

The global financial crisis of 2008 dropped our tool sales very quickly into a very small portion of our sales. This forced the company to grow diving into a bigger part, as clearly the clientele was on a lay-offs from their work and trying to find things to do. Also our dive students were looking for dive gear to buy, so we had to start finding quality products for them, too. The product sales of the company have always been answering for the need of our clients: first with tools, then with dive gear, and now more and more freedive and swimming gear. And from time to time you might find some surprising products from our store or the webstore ;).

The tool sales are not completely forgotten: we've been taking care of the needs of our good clients and having different kind of projects.

Case CAPE (2009)

As one significant local wood industry company ended their business, the company's CEO asked for us to handle a possible ongoing business deal to its finalization. Of course we came onboard and already next week we were standing on the "catwalk" of a Spanish company, high above the machines watching in awe how from the starting point of the machine went in raw wood, and from the end of the machine came out ready-made pallets (FIN and EURO), six pallets per minute! The view was impressive and there was a lot of thoughts buzzing in our heads.

After a bit over two years of going back and forth with the business deal, we got to bring the Finland's first Cape Mechano made pallet line to a business in Central Finland. The price of the deal was about 1 million euros. .

Layout

After the CAPE adventure we returned more or less to our normal business, meaning we continued with the industrial sales and the diving. At this point the main sales became from the tools and protective gear, and just a tiny bit from the diving and its gear.

All the while I continued to get educated in diving, and in 2004 I got qualified as a CMAS instructor by the Dive Union, and in 2007 I got qualified as a NAUI Course Director. This was in NAUI Europe in Niverdel, The Netherlands.

The amount of people we qualified into divers grew more and more. And then in 2010 through the door came PADI Nordic representative Olle, who annouced that "we're making you into a PADI instructor and that's that!". I told Olle that I'd do it, but that I would not pay for anything, and it worked out that way! PADI took over and so I became an active PADI instructor.

EFR First aid training

In 2010 we started doing first aid training. We qualify hundreds of participants in a year and also qualify new instructors.

The best part of these courses is the nice feedback we get and the long client relationships we've had all these years.

Triathlon
In 2013 we started actively participating in triathlon competitions with a sales tent, doing a collaboration with HEAD importer of open water suits. This was a nice change to our normal business. We're still participating in those triathlon competition, but nowadays we have our amazing sales trailer, a mobile store you could say..

In 2018 I got invited to be a part of Finntriathlon organization. My range of responsibility was to observe the swimming part of their competitions, but also in the Ironman Finland competitions. This has been an amazing experience and it has enriched my everyday life in many ways, and I've been able to meet the most wonderful people from competitors to the people in the organization.

Travels (2008...)

We got a strong urge to do something new and activate our divers in a new way. And as I mentioned earlier, we started making dive trips to Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and to the Red Sea. The title of the trips was "family friendly dive trips", so that in the day time the non-divers could enjoy the day at the beach and the divers went to do their adventures in the ocean. The trips were very popular from the start, and as we're always trying out something new, we started dive safaris, which means we stay a week on a boat, diving, hanging out, enjoying good food and company. Today we make several of these dive safaris and we aim to make
these long distance trips at least avery other year. The Covid situation clearly cancelled many trips we had planned but luckily we've managed to pull through from that loss and are looking into the future.

As a new trip choice for 2022 we have a freediving boat safari at Red Sea, and a wellness trip to Mallorca, in which yoga and pilates are the core of the trip.

Webstore

As the world changes, so do we. The pressure to open a webstore was quite huge, and so in 2012 we opened our first webstore. Very soon we learned that keeping up with a good webstore is a whole day worth of work. The webstore of today is doing well and we've even started international sales! This week we delivered a package to an Australian freediver, with a bonus of a Finland beanie to keep his head warm :)

Have you already visited our webstore?

2022

Our celebratory year of 2022 brings along a lot of new possibilities, as the company turns 20 years old, and as I turned 50 years old (2022-01-27). The plans for future are ongoing and there are some big changes in the near future.

Thank you to my awesome family for the endless amount of support, and I especially want to thank my wife Tanja, who has stood by me like a rock, sometimes at the rooftop level of a Spanish factory, sometimes at the bottom of Päijänne to instruct divers.

Thanks for all the instructors who've helped me along the years, and ofcourse to all my employees during the years for their commitment and their openmindness in all the situations we've had.

Thanks for our customers for being with us for all the years, both the divers and the industrial clients. Many of you have become my close and good friends

Thank you Mikko L, Lauri K, Heikki M, Kari V, Tiia L, Kirsi A, Ari R, Harri H, Maria K, Kari L, Jari S, Aki M, Hanne E, Katja K, Kaisa E, Sami A, Severi R, Jukka T, Anssi N, Juha R, Roni K, Jukka N, Sanni R, Timo N, Helmi J, Jaakko L, Johanna K! And my apologies if I didn't remember to add your name, you can blame the old age ;)

We're celebrating the 20th anniversary at the store week 4 by bringing our customers excellent customer service and substancial discounts.

Here's in short what we've done during the years:

• Tool sales 2002-
• Dive school 2006-
• Dive gear sales 2008-
• Infant swim photoshoots 2008-2016
• Exhibitions 2003-
• Valkku-dives in Pajulahti, Nastola 2006
• Dive gear maintenance 2007-
• Travels 2008-
• First aid training 2010-
• Lahti Energy tunnel photoshoots and consulting 2012
• Webstore 2012-
• Ironman Lahti (swimming) 2018-
• Moving to a new space, summer 2022

Here are some of our products..: