Running a Superyacht Business: Marriage, Sacrifice and the Weight of 25 Livelihoods
Most people see the polished side of running a superyacht business: awards, technology, loyal clients and a capable team. What they do not see is the phone that has not been switched off in 18 years, the legal meetings taking place at one o’clock in the morning, or the business owner lying awake worrying not only about her own mortgage, but those of 25 employees.
Alicia Store, Chief Operating Officer of dsnm Ltd, and David Store, its Chief Executive Officer, have built the company together while also building a marriage and raising a family. On paper, their responsibilities divide neatly. Alicia oversees the daily operation of the business, while David manages yachts and drives the development of Compass software. In practice, the company occupies almost every corner of their lives.
Running a superyacht business at this level is not simply a job with longer hours. The work may leave the office, but the responsibility follows them home.
The Job Titles Only Tell Half the Story
Alicia’s remit stretches across nearly every department, from cash flow, budgeting and client retention to staff management, training, marketing and brand. Her purpose is to make sure everyone at dsnm Ltd can do their job to the best of their ability.
David remains a yacht manager with his own fleet while leading the development of Compass. He jokes that he does not appear to do as much as Alicia, a line she is only too happy to agree with.
They are not trying to perform the same role. David creates movement, ideas and, by his own admission, a certain amount of chaos. Alicia creates the structure that makes it workable. He credits her with the company’s scale; she credits his belief in her when her own confidence has faltered. Their differences are part of the reason it works.
Running a Superyacht Business Means Carrying Other People’s Risk
Both describe their team as the best part of the company. They hire selectively, looking for people who understand what they are building and care about delivering the same standard of service.
That culture brings enormous satisfaction, but it also creates a weight rarely visible from outside a business.
“There have been times when I have come home, got into bed and, rather than worrying about my mortgage and feeding my child, I have worried about 25 other people’s mortgages, their children and their bills.”
It is easy to speak about employment in numbers: headcount, payroll and growth. Alicia speaks about it in homes, children and security. In those terms, a commercial decision is no longer confined to a spreadsheet. It reaches into the lives of everyone who depends on the company remaining stable.
Caring less might make the burden easier, but it would also remove something fundamental. The people who make the work enjoyable are the same people whose futures Alicia feels responsible for protecting.
The Phone Has Not Been Off in 18 Years
The most revealing measure of Alicia’s commitment is not a revenue figure or an award. It is the fact that she has not switched off her phone in 18 years.
She does not offer that detail as a complaint. She loves the work and believes in what the company is building, but she is honest about the obsession involved. It reaches from hiring the right person and examining figures late at night to making sure a logo is exactly right before it goes out.
“To run a company successfully, you sometimes have to be obsessed with what you are doing on an unhealthy level.”
David once imagined that running a company would be similar to having a job. Experience taught him otherwise. The last time he turned off his phone and stopped checking email was on their honeymoon, 14 years ago. Alicia kept hers on.
Business stories are often polished after the fact. The finished company appears inevitable, while the exhaustion and constant availability disappear from view.
Crisis Arrives Without an Instruction Manual
The pressure intensified when events beyond the company’s control arrived one after another. COVID brought unprecedented disruption, while the conflict in Ukraine created legal and commercial questions about who the business could work with and under what conditions.
Momentum built over years was interrupted overnight. Meetings with lawyers ran into the early hours, paperwork covered the family table and decisions had to be made without a tested roadmap.
“We were having meetings with lawyers at one o’clock in the morning, working out who we could work with and who we couldn’t. I wasn’t trained to do that.”
David focused on the foundation beneath the company. No leader can predict the next global crisis, but a business can be built to react without losing its footing. In an industry that crosses borders, stability is not the absence of change. It is the capacity to absorb it.
The Sacrifice Success Cannot Give Back
The most difficult cost arrived during the COVID lockdown, when Alicia had a baby while the company was in a precarious position. She worked on the day she gave birth and was back online the next day. There was no maternity leave, baby shower or ordinary time away with her child.
“I worked that day, gave birth and the next day I was back online. I took no maternity leave whatsoever.”
She does not regret the decision itself. Given the number of people relying on the company, she understood why it had to be made. She regrets the experience she lost and can never repeat.
That distinction cuts through the mythology surrounding entrepreneurship. Success accumulates through clients, teams, technology and recognition. Sacrifice works differently. Time disappears once, and no later achievement can buy it back.
The choice helped keep the company moving, but necessity does not erase its personal cost. Alicia can be proud of what the decision protected and still grieve what it took away.
Why Marriage Became an Advantage
Running a company can be isolating, even when the office is full. The most serious decisions often remain with the people at the top long after everyone else has gone home.
Working together means Alicia and David do not carry that isolation alone. They share the celebrations and the pressure, often working through problems at the dinner table with someone who understands their full weight.
Their partnership is not frictionless. Alicia occasionally wants to throw a stapler across the office, while David has learned that accepting she is right can be the simplest route to peace. The humour works because it sits beside genuine respect.
“There is no way dsnm Ltd would be as big as it is now if it wasn’t for Alicia.”
Alicia calls David the most supportive person imaginable. He pushes her when her confidence falters; she gives order to his ideas and energy. Their marriage does not remove the strain of leadership, but it gives them somewhere to share it honestly.
The Courage to Build Before Everything Is Ready
If David could change one professional decision, he would have created Compass sooner. The idea existed for years before the company had the money to build it. Ambition still has to meet commercial reality.
Seeing the first clients use Compass remains one of David’s proudest moments. It proved that an internal idea could become a working tool for the people it was designed to support.
dsnm Ltd has received two Queen’s Awards, one connected to the company and another to Compass. The first took Alicia and David to Buckingham Palace, where being in the same room as the Queen felt almost unreal. The recognition made visible years of deciding that standing still was not an option.
David’s view is uncomplicated: if a company is not moving forward, it is falling behind. Innovation adds pressure, but failing to build for the future creates a greater risk.
The Luxury of Being Unreachable
When asked to choose any yacht and any destination, Alicia chose Antarctica aboard Octopus. David chose Indonesia on a sailing yacht, anchored somewhere with no other boats and nobody else around.
There is something revealing in both answers. After years of being permanently available, their imagined luxury is not a busier harbour or another room full of recognition. It is distance, stillness and a place beyond the reach of ordinary demands.
Running a superyacht business has given Alicia and David a team they love, technology they are proud of and recognition that once placed them inside Buckingham Palace. It has also taken nights, holidays, maternity leave and the ability to stop thinking about what happens next.
Their success does not prove that sacrifice is painless. It proves that the polished result carries a private cost. The work can be divided, the problems can be shared and the occasional stapler can remain safely on the desk, but the responsibility never fully disappears. Perhaps that is why, after 18 years of being available, the rarest luxury they can imagine is finally being unreachable.
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