After a seven-year career in the yachting industry as a mate and engineer, Alex Siegars was tired of the industry’s inefficiencies. He couldn’t trust the delivery date when ordering a new part, and when it did arrive, he had to pray it was the correct one. These inefficiencies drove Siegars to create Yacht Crew Center (YCC), an artificial intelligence-supported global network that simplifies vessel management and crew resources by combining personalized support, industry expertise, and global reach. Triton spoke with Siegars to learn more about his journey in yachting and the creation of YCC. How did you get into the yachting industry? I was a packing and climbing guy going through the North Carolina mountains, but there’s no money in that. I have an uncle who was a yacht captain, down in the Keys, and he told me about the industry and that he could travel the world and make some money. I got into the industry and a few years later my business partner and I started Name and Shame, which over the years grew into this huge social media platform that we didn’t really have any idea or plan on what to do with. We’re just sitting there having people complain to each other and you see all of the issues that were going on in the industry, like the dark sides — people not getting paid, sexual harassment, assault, etc. How was YCC created? I started to make a website a year and a half ago, just for people to access maritime attorneys, flag-state representatives, legal help, and how to get paid. I kept using AI to make it and I asked myself, “Why don’t you just make something with AI to help people that need access to information?” That’s where the whole YCC came together. You start seeing the back-end side of suppliers and service providers, just how chaotic it is. Everything is so last-minute in this industry. You get people coming to do a service — they do a terrible job and leave you in a lurch. You’re looking for items and you don’t know where they are and can’t find an agent, then they charge you 20% and after waiting two weeks for it to show up, it’s not the right one. That’s why we came up with this system that centralizes the entire operations aspect. How would you explain YCC to someone who doesn’t know what it is? It’s ChatGPT for the yachting industry. Any question you have, it will create automated flows from the backend to complete processes. This year in the Mediterranean we had a chief engineer that was trying to source a computer chip to put onto a Jacuzzi system. We have charters booked through the wazoo, but he couldn’t source anything. He called agents in the area and manufacturers, and they don’t know where to find it. So, who do you call to access this information? He doesn’t know anybody, you don’t have that information, but you can use YCC and it tells you exactly that. Where did you get the background to be able to develop something like that? A lot of trial and error. Honestly, just a lot of using AI, working with teams, making mistakes, fixing the mistakes, and then getting yourself into a position where you kind of understand what you’re doing. Now we have a team of five developers and our CTO, who’s been a chief engineer for 15 years, working on our stuff. Everybody that’s in YCC now is prior crew. How important was it to have crew or prior crew involved in YCC? It’s extremely important, because nobody understands the yachting industry. It’s a very niche, small market that, unless you’re in it every single day, you don’t really know what’s going on. Even one of my buddies helps us and he knows people that own yachts, and even they don’t really understand what it takes in the day-to-day to run these yachts. What sets YCC apart from just using ChatGPT instead? It’s strictly yachting-based, so you’re connected to databases in the yachting industry, like boat builders, manufacturers, service providers, it’s a closed system. Our AI model we use learns from that knowledge base. You can also ask rules-of-the-road questions. I was in this situation with this boat coming towards me, and I asked it what the rules of the road engagement are for what I should be doing here. It told me exactly what I needed to be doing. So even with questions like that or on charter, it tells me step by step how I need to get things done. How did your yachting career give you inspiration to create YCC? I’m an extremely efficient person. I don’t like people showing up not on time, I don’t like things not going the way they’re supposed to. When you have an owner, you need to have stuff done as soon as possible. The person selling the part, he doesn’t care, but I’ll tell you who cares, the chief engineer who is going to get yelled at, or the captain who is going to yell at everybody else. That shouldn’t happen. What are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve come across when starting your own business? It’s probably the best personal development journey you can do for yourself. The issue of just being consistent and disciplined and sitting in the uncomfortableness and the unknown. Sitting in the fact that you suck at it at the moment, but if you keep going at it, you’ll suck less. It’s uncomfortable, but it allows you to be the best version of yourself, which I find highly addictive. What’s next for you and YCC? Getting the name out there. Going to crew and showing how easy it is to use it. Going to all of the shows like Palma and showing crew advanced technology that they don’t know exists yet. yachtcrewcenter.com instagram.com/yachtcrewcenter facebook.com/groups/yachtiesnameshameandfame