Jose Lorido MBA’20 lives in Miami. He grew up there too. It means that the sea has always loomed large in his life. “I do everything outdoors on the water,” he says. “I paddleboard. I kitesurf. I fish. I dive. You name it.”
Today, Lorido’s career is also focused on water. As a partner of PADL, he is in the recreation, sun and sea and relaxation business.
Lorido joined paddleboard rental company PADL in 2020, shortly after its inception. Similar to bike and scooter sharing ventures such as Lime, PADL offers self-service stations where paddleboards can be rented using the company’s app.
Paddleboarding is an increasingly popular activity, but Lorido says the long boards used can be a hassle to store and carry. PADL aims to eliminate these inconveniences by placing stations very close to the water’s edge. Renter pays by the hour or purchases a monthly or semi-annual membership. “You want to have fun. This is a healthy way to get out there,” Lorido says. “It’s affordable and easy to clean.”
PADL offers 30 self-service locations in Florida, from the Keys to Jacksonville on the east coast of the state and in the Tampa area in the west. We plan to increase that number to 50 by the end of the year.
Lorido enjoys paddleboarding at PADL’s location in Miami’s oldest neighborhood, Coconut Grove. The station is located in Peacock Park, just steps from the waters of Biscayne Bay. “You can paddling around the marina and bay,” Lorido says. “It’s nice and calm in the morning.”
“Something Entrepreneurial”
Lorido joined PADL because he wanted to participate in the growth of new ventures. “I wanted to do something entrepreneurial,” he says. “It was a good opportunity to do that.”
PADL isn’t the first brush with entrepreneurship. Lorido earned his MBA at Babson’s Miami campus. There he was part of a startup working on a remote water monitoring system for high-rise residential buildings. This venture was a finalist in the 2019 BETA Challenge. “It helped me understand what it takes to build and grow a business from scratch,” he says. “This includes sales, marketing, operations, everything. It’s a day job.”
Prior to PADL, he worked on the finance team of an expanding cruise company. The job required long hours and a lot of travel. “It was our job to grow it,” he says. “I stayed there he stayed four years and traveled all over the world.”
At the cruise company, Lorido worked closely with Andres Avello. Andres Avello later co-founded PADL and eventually he asked Lorido to join the company.
beyond florida
Lorido is part of a PADL team of eight. Lorido’s focus is primarily on growth, sales and partnerships, but “we’re all doing a little bit of everything,” he says. Since it is often set up on site, a large part of his job is meeting with city managers and civil servants to secure space for the station.
“You want to have fun, and this is a healthy way to get out there. It’s affordable and easy.”
José Lorido PADL MBA’20
PADL faces a common challenge in today’s business, especially in the supply chain (finding enough material to build a station can be difficult). The company is still moving forward. PADL’s community of paddleboarders is now about 35,000, and by the end of the year, the company will also add kayaks for rent to the station.
PADL plans to expand beyond Florida next year. The company’s mission to help people get on the water more easily has proven to be a popular one.
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