About Us

Our Purpose

Buying a boat or purchasing boating equipment can be risky – both financially and emotionally.  If you make the right choice, it can be a source of tremendous joy and satisfaction for you and your family.  But the wrong decision can lead to ongoing frustration and regret.  Problem is, there are no “Consumer Reports” or Five-Star Amazon reviews for things like boats & motors to guide your purchase decision.  And many of the online product “reviews” and recommendations are highly biased at best.

BoaterInput was founded to equip boaters like you with honest and unbiased information based on feedback from other boaters along with insights from an industry insider and the leading research expert in boating, Jerry Mona.  Our job is simply to help you make the right purchase decisions based on your needs and budget.

This site is completely self-funded and has required considerable time and money to produce.  If you would like to support this effort and enable us to continue to provide valuable and unbiased information, the best way to do so is by subscribing to our monthly newsletter or submitting a review for your boat, motor, batteries or equipment.  Thank you so much for visiting our site.

The Problem with Most Online “Reviews”

Try searching for reviews for one of your favorite brands of boats. Chances are, you won’t find much if any, objective, unbiased information or the information you do find is suspect.  Manufacturers and dealers often “cherry-pick” the customer reviews they post on their websites and the product reviews written by online magazines and websites are often “advertorials” designed to promote their sponsors’ brands.

While the opinions on boating and fishing forums can be helpful, the format of the feedback is unstructured and lacks any objective metrics (i.e., ratings) making it difficult to generalize and compare brands.

The BoaterInput Difference

BoaterInput was founded by Jerry Mona, a boating industry veteran and leading research expert to give boaters like you a “voice” to share your opinions and experiences with others. For over three decades, he has helped boat and engine manufacturers and trade associations to understand the needs and wants of boaters. Now, he is sharing many of those same insights and perspectives with the overall boater community.

A key aspect of this website is the ability to post user reviews. Whether a review is positive or negative, we strive to post all reviews as long as they are not fraudulent and do not violate our review policy.  Plus, we have created a structured format for posting reviews that includes both attribute ratings as well as comments to make it easier to compare items and identify strengths and weaknesses.

Besides user-generated reviews, we also provide a number of articles or reports that are often based on unbiased studies conducted with members of the BoaterInput community. In many cases, specific products or services are recommended based on the survey findings. We never recommend a brand in our articles in exchange for advertising or sponsorships. Our goal is to always provide you with information that is both helpful and trustworthy (and you can’t have one without the other).

About the Founder

Jerry Mona is a long-time boating industry insider, research expert and avid boater and angler.  He began his research career with the Coca-Cola Company, Foods Division, where he learned research from some of the best in the business.  In 1991, he left Coca Cola Foods to follow his passion for the water to head up the research function at Mercury Marine.  After climbing the ranks within Mercury and later at the parent company, Brunswick, Jerry left Corporate America in 2000 to launch his own company – Left Brain Marketing, Inc., a research firm specializing in the boating industry and outdoor recreation.

Over the past 20+ years, he has helped leading organizations such as Mercury, Brunswick, White River Marine Group (Tracker, Sun Tracker, Nitro, Mako, Regency, Tahoe), Polaris (Bennington, Hurricane), the National Marine Manufacturers Association, Discover Boating, the Marine Retailers Association of America, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation (TakeMeFishing.org) and others to better understand the needs and wants of boaters like you.  Widely recognized as the leading research expert with boaters, Jerry has conducted hundreds of studies and has received responses from over 350,000 boater participants since launching his firm.

Jerry started BoaterInput in July of 2017 as a way to engage with many of the boaters who have participated in his surveys over the years, and to share with them the kind of honest and helpful information that is often lacking for boaters.

However, his passion for boating and fishing began much earlier in life.  As a child, his siblings nick-named him “Virgil Ward” – host of one of the first TV fishing shows – because of his love for fishing.  And he has long been an avid skier and watersports enthusiast too – something that he continues to enjoy to this day.

Jerry currently owns two boats and is on the water nearly every week throughout the year.  He lives on Lake Palestine in East Texas with his wife, Lisa, and dog Norman.