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How childhood friends started a successful business on Bald Head Island

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2 months ago

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How childhood friends started a successful business on Bald Head Island

Growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Zach Crilley and Gus Haglund were always looking for ways to make money.

“We were the kids that if you lived in our neighborhood, we would be knocking on your door offering to rake your leaves or mow your lawn or walk your dog,” Crilley said.

In summer 2020, Crilley and Haglund were college students. Haglund was living with his parents on Bald Head Island when he saw a business opportunity and immediately called Crilley.

Haglund had been earning extra money by making grocery trips for island residents when he noticed there was no delivery service on the island. Haglund decided he and Crilley could fill the void.

The teens made a deal with the owner of the island’s only grocery store, the Maritime Market, and BHI Delivery was born. At first, the only employees were Haglund, Crilley, and one young woman, which made for 18-hour days.

“It was a grind,” Haglund said.

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As the business grew, so did the staff. At one point, BHI Delivery employed more than a dozen high school and college-age students. Due to the demand, Crilley and Haglund decided to keep the business running even after they returned to college for the fall semester.

Figuring out how to keep operations going was tricky, and it often meant making trips back home from college. Haglund explained the trip from Burlington to Bald Head Island wasn’t too bad.

“It was only three-and-a-half hours,” Haglund said. “In the beginning, I was commuting almost every weekend.”

But things were a bit more difficult for Crilley, who was studying abroad in London.

“Gus called me at one point and was like, ‘Hey man, we have people that need food, and we have orders to fill,’ so within 48 hours, I was on a plane coming back to Bald Head to shop for orders and deliver so that the business would keep on going.”

Eventually, they found a team of part-time employees who lived on the island, which made it possible to keep the business going for four years. Haglund said keeping the business going meant reshaping the narrative of the business into a logistics and hospitality service by delivering groceries to homes before folks arrived for their vacations.

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“We changed the narrative from ‘Don’t go in grocery store because there’s COVID’ to ‘Save 90 minutes of being in the grocery and enjoy food and drinks and family and go to the beach right away,’” Haglund said.

Crilley graduated from Babson College in Boston in 2022, and Haglund graduated from Elon University in 2023, and the men were ready to move on with their careers. They made the decision to sell BHI Delivery, but it took some time to find the “perfect” buyer.

The believed they found one when they met Nathaniel Hoelk, who purchased the business in March.

“We were very good about arrival and departure, and if you can make those two things more streamlined and efficient and easy — adding on other services — then the customer’s your best friend,” Haglund said. “And Nathaniel really saw that vision that we pitched to him, and he really bought in.”

Crilley and Haglund have moved on in their careers. Crilley is now running GovFuse, a company he founded—and living in Washington, D.C. Haglund is working in the finance industry in Charlotte and is excited about a business he will be launching soon.

Both say they hope to return to Bald Head Island one day soon.

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