Surf There Now was founded way back in 2007 as a way to share travel news, tips and reviews for surfers for surf destinations all over the world. We cover Central America, Brazil and Indonesia as well as the occasional shark attack. We even had a few posts went viral (mainly the posts on shark attacks like this one on your risk of dying from a shark attack). Here we interview, Evan Asano, the founder of Surf There Now. Evan Asano founded Surf There Now while living in Venice and surfing Southern California, but he had spent the previous 10 years surfing NorCal with a home base in San Francisco and surfing Ocean Beach but hitting every break between Santa Cruz and Bolinas.
Evan’s inspiration for Surf There Now came after a 3 month trip through Central America where he surfed El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The trip was incredible, but finding info on travel, lodging, breaks online was sparse. Hence the inspiration for Surf There Now.
Evan worked in digital media from 2008 – 2011 when he founded, Mediakix, the first influencer marketing agency. Evan was a leader and pioneer in the space. Instagram had just launched and “influencer marketing” hadn’t even been coined as a word. Over the next few years, influencer marketing grew and soon it became an entire industry. Mediakix has been one of the leaders all along the way. Their blog has grown to a readership of over 200K page views/month and publish on content a full range of content on from YouTube Influencer Marketing and influencer marketing case studies.
What inspired you to start Surftherenow.com? When I traveling through Central America in 2007, the only reliable resource for surf was Wannasurf which gave the absolute minimum amount of information about the break, let alone travel to/from, accommodations, what the area was like, etc. There was lots of word of mouth and combining it with travel guides. I wanted to create a blog and forum for traveling surfers both to highlight cool areas, give tips about travel in these areas and create a community.
Surftherenow was just the first of a few companies you founded. Yes, I went on to found Mediakix, the first influencer marketing agency, founded in 2011. We worked with top brands from Blue Apron, Dollar Shave Club, Proctor & Gamble, Sony, ExxonMobile, Uber and many more. We led the industry and were rated as one of the top agencies by Business Insider in 2020. I’ve since gone on to found another creator economy company, the influencer talent agency, CreatorX. We work with top talent and brands and also are developing some tech to bring to the market including a simple online media kit to help creators market themselves to brands, RallyDex.com.
What have been your favorite surf trips? I’ve done two trips to Indonesia which is hard to beat. In 2005, I did a boat trip to Northern Sumatra when it was totally off the map. We had epic breaks all to ourselves and didn’t see another boat for days. The Central America trip was incredible also, Libertad, Colorado’s and Pavones were the highlights. Local trips around California and Baja are amazing also. There’s a ton of great camping spot.
What your thoughts on the rise of “Surf Influencers”? I think it’s amazing to see channels like Jamie O’brien (Stay Psyched) and Koa Rothman (This is Livin‘). They’re super entertaining and it’s great to see the behind the scenes behind stuff like the Jaws Contest. The two videos on the Jaws contest are amazing to see how surfers prep, the paddle out and what happens after.
Do you think they’ll be more “Surf Influencers”? For sure, on Instagram there are tons of accounts. I think YouTube is really the next growth area and the vlog style is the growth area for it. Surf is such a natural fit (although filming it well is difficult) because of the different ways to film, travel, culture, and then just great waves.
Do you think resources for surfers have come along since you launched Surf There Now? Yeah there’s a ton more available online. I still don’t think it’s perfect but in a way that keeps it an adventure. For sure resources like YouTube, Instagram, etc. are amazing for scoping our locations. When I launched Surf There Now, the only videos of some spots were grainy, shaky videos. Now you get virtual surf spot reads for nearly everywhere.
Evan Asano has been a thought leader in the influencer marketing space since 2010 with the last launch of one of first agencies. He also was often featured in press and news articles for insights and predictions about influencer marketing including: making the top 100 list of most influential people in influencer marketing, discussing Revolve’s influencer strategy in Forbes, discussing the growth of influencer marketing in the New York Times, collaborating with the Wall Street Journal on a study of influencer sponsorship rates, discussing Instagram’s strategy in competing with TikTok in CNN, and highlighting and industry-revealing case study with fake influencers and brand sponsorships in Adweek.
Evan Asano has been a speaker on influencer marketing at events like Vidcon and Social Media Week.
