MySwimPro

Swimming Vacation in Cancún, Mexico | 2021 MySwimPro Retreat Recap

As a fully remote company, we go all out each year on our annual, in-person retreat! It’s a chance for our team to come together, align on strategy and produce some epic content! For 2021’s retreat, we traveled to Cancún, Mexico.

We had a jam packed week that included snorkeling, cliff jumping, dryland on the beach, pool workouts as a team and, of course, some quality time together!


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Reflecting on Past Retreats

For our 2019 international retreat, we rented a castle in Mallorca, Spain. Our kingdom was right on the edge of a beautiful bay with a small island not too far off shore. Every morning we’d either swim a lap around the island or do dryland on the beach.

Related: 2019 MySwimPro Team Retreat: Mallorca, Spain

Due to the pandemic, we couldn’t travel anywhere for 2020’s retreat, so we opted for a camping adventure in our own backyards.

Related: Highlights from the 2020 MySwimPro Team Adventure

This year we took over an all inclusive resort in Cancún and used the presidential suite as MySwimPro HQ for the week! 

Epic Team Workouts

On day 1, we hit the beach at 7:30am and ran through a total body dryland circuit.

MySwimPro CEO Fares Ksebati led the team through a dynamic warm up followed by 2 circuits of bodyweight exercises and a plank challenge. Nothing beats working out on the beach with your team at sunrise!

Our resort was equipped with a 25-meter lap pool, complete with lane markers! Fares took the lead as coach on deck for 2 team swim workouts.

Our first workout was all swimming. We started with a descending ladder: a 200 free, 100 free and a 50 free. Then, Fares ran the team through a series of kicking drills and helped us improve our feel for the water.

Our second pool workout included a mix of swimming and dryland. We’d swim a 25, get out, and do either jump squats, pushups, or leg lifts on Fares’s command. We wrapped up that session with a few relays which turned out to be pretty close!

On the final morning of the retreat we did an open water swim, and spotted some turtles! Of course, each swim was logged in the MySwimPro app!

Waterpark Adventures

On the third day of the trip we ventured to an epic water park in Tulum, where we got to chill out, take in the views and go snorkeling!

Some of us tackled the 40-meter-high water slide that sent us rocketing back to earth at up to 8 meters per second!

We also went zip lining, cliff jumping, and floating down the lazy river soaking in the sun.

Team Working Sessions

The trip wasn’t all fun and games, though. We had lots of work to do! 

We kicked off the retreat with Fares’s State of the Company presentation. Each quarter, Fares shares an overview of where we’re at as a business, and how the coming quarter lines up with our overall strategy. With our singular vision in mind, we were ready to take on the week’s activities.

As a team, we spent a lot of time brainstorming how to make the MySwimPro app better for our members. We did a deep dive into the MySwimPro brand and completed a company SWOT activity, which allowed us to celebrate our strengths and identify opportunities for improvement as a company. 

Each team member had a chance to share a bit more about themselves and their passions. We broke into small groups to dig even deeper, learning more about each other and how our roles at MySwimPro make an impact.

Over the course of the retreat, our Product and Marketing teams split up for dedicated working sessions. The Product team tackled engineering challenges together, while Marketing spent time producing content at the pool and beach. 

We made time for a little fun, too. The Product team created a team playlist and movie watchlist and Marketing got up to some shenanigans at the pool!

The week culminated in a night of Shark Tank-style pitching, in which the Product team pitched new app feature ideas to the Marketing “sharks” for potential investment. We finished up with team awards and one final dinner together.

This in-person time together is invaluable, and will have a direct impact on our engineering and marketing efforts for the next year or more. 

We all left Mexico with some amazing memories, a little bit of sun tan, and a refreshed perspective on MySwimPro, our goals and our plans for the future.

If you’re interested in joining the MySwimPro team, view our open positions here.

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