Micha Seal is the founder of Watermelon Swim, a collection of swim schools, located in the Tampa Bay area.
On track to exceed $13 million in revenue in 2024, and open three new locations, her business is doing much more than just staying afloat these days.
Bridgette Bello, chief executive officer and publisher of Tampa Bay Business and Wealth, interviewed Seal in front of a live audience at Perform 24 in Tampa. This interview has been edited for length and brevity.
Talk about your experience over the last 30 days of stardom.
I’m a very private person, but I love what I do. And, over the last couple of years, it has been my mission to get our name out there and to talk about the importance of water safety. In Florida, children under the age of four are drowning every day. It is our mission, and has been our mission for the last 40 years, to save lives every day and to make a difference.
Can you talk about the early days of starting the business and how it grew?
My mom started the business out of her backyard. She was a true entrepreneur and was looking for a way to bring in money, yet still stay home with her children. We bought an above-ground pool and my mom started teaching swimming lessons out of it with nine children.
We each leased outdoor seasonal pools and did that for about 15 years. I moved my children to Lutz, and I said, “Mom, this place is blowing up. We need to have a location in the area.” We negotiated with Heritage Harbor and we leased their pools for four years. We had grown to about 12 instructors.
I knew the writing was on the wall. At about year two, I heard the grumblings from the residents. I knew we were getting too big. Our time was numbered there. So, I started looking for property in the Lutz area. I couldn’t find anything that was big enough and that I could afford.
Like in the story, that’s when one day I had the kids in the car and saw the guy putting a for-sale sign in a yard on Dale Mabry Highway.
Watermelon Swim is the company you run now; do you miss the school business you had with the family name?
I think I’m a visionary, but also very practical. If I make a decision, I make a plan and then I get it done. As soon as I knew that I had to rebrand, there was no other option for me. I couldn’t tell anybody and I couldn’t use the Seal name after the day of the closing. So, in one day I had to change everything at four locations. Think about that for a second. It was difficult, but I did it.
That one day I was allowed to cry, and I did. I cried hard that day to the three people who I trust, my three team members, one who’s my daughter, and two others who have been with me 10 years.
I don’t think any of the entrepreneurs or people who run companies would say anything that they do is easy. But I also don’t know that we’ve all had that same amount of adversity.
Talk about how you prioritize and how you hone in on what’s next and what’s most important.
You must have people who champion you and believe in your mission around you. You must understand that you’re not the smartest one in the room. Some people are smarter than you which can help you be successful in your business.
Talk about your book.
We do a lot of water safety throughout the community and, this year, we wrote a water safety book. We have so much work to do and we believe in giving back. We give about a million dollars away each year to the Tampa Bay community.
One of the ways that we give back is going into the schools, libraries and moms’ groups, whoever will listen to us about water safety. For a lot of children, it might be the only water safety training that they get. The water safety book is for children who don’t understand the program. [The book] is near and dear to our hearts. It’s been a journey, but the children who we serve are the reason why we do it. ♦