Oriana Schneps founded Moby Maritime Media after more than five years as a crewmember. While most yachties starting a business go straight from the deck to entrepreneurship, Schneps’ path took her to New York to work with Gary Vaynerchuk and then back to the yachting life to star in “Below Deck,” before finding her niche in the industry and creating Moby Maritime Media. Triton spoke to Schneps about her journey to becoming a founder, how she intends to revolutionize the yachting marketing space, and how her crew skills helped her along the way.
What was your journey into yachting and what made you want to become a crewmember?
I started working at the New England Aquarium when I was in high school, and I really got exposed to what it meant to work in the marine field. I also worked on expedition boats, so we would take boats to the Bahamas for a week at a time and live on board. I was one of the youngest people ever invited to be a part of that research and liveaboard experience with the aquarium in an educational capacity. While I was there, I learned about yachting. Fast forward to graduating college — I realized that I did a lot of being on the water and yachting seemed like a great way to do that.
In conjunction to working at the aquarium, I also had a lot of hospitality experience and my Divemaster. I really loved that client- or guest-facing element and I wanted to find a way to utilize all those skills and passions in one setting. The only thing that I can think of on the planet that lets you serve cocktails, scuba dive, live on the water, and travel the world is yachting.
What is Moby Maritime Media?
We are a creative marketing agency specifically serving the megayacht industry. I’ve been in the industry for almost a decade, so any clients we work with are directly within yachting. We work with a lot of different brokerages, builders, and marketplaces, and we’re trying to create and tell stories in a unique way that pushes past what you see the traditional walkthroughs doing and really brings to life these different brands within yachting.
How did Moby start?
I went on “Below Deck” during COVID. Prior to being on “Below Deck,” I was working in the start-up space in New York, and I had totally forgotten about yachting. Then I get this call about going on “Below Deck” and while I’m filming, I’m like, “Shoot, I really miss this industry, like I absolutely love it.” I packed my bags after the show, moved back down to South Florida, and I started working at a charter brokerage called Worldwide Boat based out of Fort Lauderdale. During my time at Worldwide Boat they asked me to do a lot of different walkthroughs for them and short-form content on their marketing team.
I started making those videos and then I got more and more people reaching out saying, “Can you do a walkthrough on my boat?” Then I realized from there, it was just supply and demand and it happened naturally and organically.
You’ve said in the past there are some redundancies in maritime marketing that you hope to change. How do you go about doing that?
A lot of it is the same walkthroughs we see over and over again. A lot of brands try to tell the same story, by showing the different images of the boat or point at things and talk about them. Granted, I do my fair share of that, because some of my clients demand it, but I think that in addition to that style of walkthrough, we can be storytelling and bringing to life what it feels like to be on board in ways that people aren’t doing. Really explaining the different elements of how guests would use the boat because I don’t think guests really know what a beam is — I don’t think they necessarily care.
I basically find a synergy between creativity and something that will engage the audience in the first couple of seconds while still keeping in mind that we are selling a product. Examples of that would be content I did with Dwight Howard or Daniel Mac. When we’re working with celebrities, we’re bringing them into a scene [to show], if they were owning this boat, how would they interact with it?
Did you always have an aspiration to start your own company?
After I left yachting, I worked in the marketing and startup space for Gary Vaynerchuk. He taught me about digital marketing and building businesses, so I was always trying to create a side hustle startup. I had e-commerce companies, and I did stuff in the tech space. I was always driven by early-stage businesses and creating companies. I think that passion stemmed from my time at Vayner and [that’s how] Moby came to fruition.
Did “Below Deck” help you create your business?
It’s interesting because it’s a double-edged sword in this industry. Some people love “Below Deck” and some people absolutely hate it. I would say that it allowed me to be more well-known within yachting than I was before. It’s a small industry, so everyone kind of knows of each other, but it gave me more exposure online, and that helped me with my reach. I think just becoming more comfortable in front of the camera while on “Below Deck” helped me start my walkthrough videos.
What were some of your biggest challenges when creating Moby?
For a little bit, I led with supply and tried to find demand. What I mean by that is I initially started to build out a SaaS (software as a service) product. I quickly realized that, while it’s still under development, it was a really big undertaking and not necessarily the path of least resistance. My challenge was spending a lot of my time and energy on a product that hasn’t gone to market yet, when right in front of me I was getting a lot of demand for the creative services.
What are your biggest achievements?
I’m proud of the clients we work with. One of our longer standing clients is Yacht World and it’s a really big accomplishment to be able to travel around the world with them and create really cool content. We’re rolling out an adventure series with them, so Ryan McVinney and I are spearheading that. [Another achievement is] being able to work with Capt. Sandy from “Below Deck” and leading her charity’s content creation initiatives as well. Besides the client side, we’re working with different celebrities, product brands, and a handful of really well-known restaurants in Miami.
How did working as crew help you create Moby?
Just having the literacy and familiarity with boats. That’s kind of taken for granted — some media companies have never been on board and they don’t know the first thing about the etiquette. I’ve also served guests, I understand how the boats are set up for the guest experience, and when you’re trying to bring a video to life, to tell stories, that has helped me visualize what it would look like on charter and tell that story.
What’s your advice for crew looking to start their own business?
Look where you see your life in the next 10 to 15 years — not just the role for your job, but for the lifestyle you want. Start there and figure out jobs that fit in reverse, almost like reverse engineering your life. Figure out that and then also what skills you want to translate. If you’re on the interior, do you like the organizational side? Do you like the accounting side? How can those skills then relate to other jobs because, assuming you’ve been crew for a couple of years, the jobs you are applying for aren’t necessarily going to be entry-level jobs and they’re going to want to see how your work history has helped you.
