The Whale Song, It Called Me 🐳

Why ahoy there ocean lover, I am Benjamin Williams, the creative director and founder of 55 KNOTS and White Whale Collective; I am grateful to have you here.

I’ve been thinking about how I would introduce White Whale Collective to the world and what better way than to dig deep into my emotional state and tell you why the white whale exists and how I found him.

But first, let’s rewind to 2019 when I launched my vessel from the safety of corporate harbour to start my voyage on the seas of entrepreneurship.

I founded 55 KNOTS in early 2019; it started as a traditional all-service agency that I later evolved into an on-demand design service. As of February 2020, things were doing pretty well.

However, COVID hit, and I spent a large portion of 2020 hustling hard to keep 55 KNOTS afloat as our clients were heavily influenced by the pandemic.

By the end of the year, we rebuilt our client base, hit our financial goals, but something was missing. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, was it covid? Was I burnt out from the hustle? I wasn’t sure, but I thought it would subside after I hit the next financial goal.

Fast forward to a recent business retreat in Byron Bay, 17 other business owners and I spent a few days together digging deep into our business problems, our mental health and our pash flow (the stuff that motivates and recharges you).

We all had to bring a problem to the retreat we wanted to overcome, I came to the retreat with a very superficial problem that didn’t need group therapy, but after one day of listening to amazing key-note speakers talk about turning their passions into their businesses, I realised I had lost the reason I went into business in the first place.

But what exactly were my passions, when did I get into the flow and lose track of time? Well, a few places that I could think of top of mind and that was my love for sailing and the ocean, my creativity through photography and design and the love I have for building and nurturing my team.

However, I have always had a deep urge to give back, especially to the ocean, the one thing that soothes my soul.

And this is when I asked myself – what if I combined an on-demand design service, but for ocean-loving business and donated a portion of all our profits back to ocean conservation? And what if we could also spend time providing pro-bono work for ocean conservation efforts? These thoughts alone lit a spark in my heart.

As business owners, we’re all chasing our White Whale, whether it’s for financial reasons, or freedom itself. The White Whale is a symbol of peace, kindness and bounty and like a beautiful whale song from the sea, it called me, and White Whale Collective was born.