By all accounts, Maine’s lobster industry stands at a crossroads. With 2024 bringing the lowest lobster landings in fifteen years and trap numbers down by nearly 285,000, the economic undercurrents threatening Maine’s most iconic fishery are no longer hypothetical. Soaring costs for fuel, bait, and maintenance have created a profitability puzzle that even seasoned lobstermen are struggling to solve.
In response, Island Institute launched the Future of Fishing initiative: a bold, multi-year project designed to support Maine’s coastal and island fishing communities through both direct economic change and long-term diversification. Working with a coalition of partners—from town governments and local high schools to state economic councils, industry specialists and, most importantly, fishing families—we’re rethinking what resilience looks like in an era of environmental and regulatory volatility.
At its core, the Future of Fishing project is a two-pronged approach: improve current fishing profitability and build opportunities for additional income. The goal is to provide hands-on business support that allows fishermen and their families to chart their own course in the face of change. This means not only protecting what exists but preparing for what’s coming.
Among the tools reshaping this vision is Profit Decoder, a simple but powerful financial tool with a version built specifically for Maine’s lobstering community. Developed by co-founders Jay Friedlander and Jordan Motzkin, Profit Decoder isn’t just another stodgy financial spreadsheet. It’s a user-friendly engine for seeking financial clarity that is customized to the unique economic rhythms and challenges of the lobster industry.
Why Profit Decoder?
Within the financial management space for small businesses, Profit Decoder has emerged as a critical tool for financial literacy and business viability. As co-founder Jay Friedlander explains in a recent webinar hosted by Island Institute, most small business failures can be traced back to one thing: poor financial understanding. According to the Pew Research Center, 86 percent of small business owners don’t regularly review their financials.
This is where Profit Decoder shines. With no need for spreadsheets or accounting degrees, it allows lobstermen to:
- Instantly evaluate their entire business operation
- Simulate scenarios for price changes, cost inputs, or catch volume
- Decode profitability on individual lines of business, equipment, or decisions
- Build and revise a custom profit plan over time
The software is both intuitive and visual. Fishermen can click to select costs, enter basic revenue assumptions, and immediately understand which levers to pull to improve bottom lines. More importantly, Profit Decoder empowers users to ask better questions, like:
- Should I fish more days or fewer, more profitable ones? Should I sell wholesale, direct-to-consumer, or explore retail pricing? Is a new engine worth the investment? What’s the breakeven point on a new boat?
Webinar Series: Real-Time Tools for Real-Life Decisions
As part of the Island Institute’s commitment to practical, ongoing education, a series of webinars and virtual trainings are accompanying the rollout of Profit Decoder. Each session is grounded in the lived realities of lobstermen trying to make sense of a shifting marketplace.
Highlights from recent and upcoming sessions include:
- Diversifying Your Income (April 18): This session helps fishermen map out new revenue streams, from retail seafood ventures to tourism and aquaculture side businesses. Register here!
- Lobster Profitability Simplified – Profit Decoder:
- Improving Your Lobstering Business with Profit Decoder
Each training includes a Q&A, interactive demonstrations, and access to a free one-year Profit Decoder account for all participating lobstermen. This is a significant investment from Island Institute in local economic empowerment.
From Data to Decisions: Profit Decoder in Action
In practice, the tool transforms abstract economic forces into tangible decisions. For example, a lobsterman could use Profit Decoder to model three different selling strategies and discover that shifting a percentage of sales to a direct-to-consumer model might increase or decrease their profits, depending on pricing, volume, labor, travel and other cost inputs.
And the real magic? Profit Decoder isn’t static. Fishermen can keep updating it over time, adding new expenses, pricing adjustments, and output volumes. As the seasons and regulations change, so does their financial strategy.
A Much-Needed Resource in Uncertain Waters
The context behind this tool cannot be overstated. As climate change shifts ocean temperatures and species behavior, and as federal regulations around right whales, offshore wind, and data tracking tighten, Maine’s coastal families are navigating not just environmental uncertainty, but bureaucratic complexity.
Meanwhile, younger generations eyeing the industry often face barriers around startup costs, housing, and opaque business fundamentals. Tools like Profit Decoder lower the knowledge barrier and make it easier to say “yes” to a future in fishing—even if that future looks different than the past.
Programs like Future of Fishing and tools like Profit Decoder send a clear signal: the fishing industry is still a cornerstone of Maine’s identity, but it must evolve. And that evolution must be grounded in clarity, control, and community.
Sign Up for Free
To use this powerful tool for free, follow the instructions below.
- Click Sign Up on profitdecoder.com
- Choose the Pro account option
- Enter your name, email, organization, and description
- Click Add a discount code and enter code: ii2025
- Click Apply. If the discount is applied successfully, you’ll see the discount of –$149
- Click Sign Up!
- You will receive a confirmation email to sign up for an account
Looking Ahead
Island Institute is betting on fishing families—their knowledge, their adaptability, and their willingness to invest in their futures. The Future of Fishing project, in partnership with Profit Decoder, is not about abandoning tradition. It’s about preserving what matters by being smarter about how we operate.
As webinar facilitator Jordan Motzkin reminded participants: “There’s no better time than now to start making better decisions. And it starts with knowing your numbers.”
The Future of Fishing program was created through congressional direct spending funding supported by Senators Susan Collins and Angus King. To learn more and sign up for future webinars, visit our Future of Fishing website or contact Jeff Frank at jfrank@islandinstitute.org.
