He left Google to build the Google Maps for boats — Jelte Liebrand, Savvy Navvy

0:00We launched this campaign, did this video for it, no idea what to expect. And within 24 hours, we're like oversubscribed. Like we're blown past the target that we needed and people are jumping on the bandwagon and mostly voters, right? People going, "Yeah, I'm I'm done with what I have. I want something new. I want something fresh." And so within 6 days, we shut it down because it was triple of what we what we needed. since then have repeated that a number of times because we basically have this army of investors who a believe in what we do, b can back us with money, but also back us with knowledge. Hello, I'm your host David Barnard. My guest today is Jelte

0:37Liebrand, Founder and CEO of Savvy Navvy, the Google Maps for boats. On the podcast, I talk with Jelte about crowdfunding millions of dollars to accelerate growth, the two-year subscription that transformed his CAC payback, and why removing signup friction backfired. Quick programming note, Jelte will be on the live stream August 6, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, 1800 Central European time. So, take some notes as you listen and join us live on YouTube to ask Jelte some questions. And if you're listening to this after August 6, just consider it kind of a part two of the podcast cuz I'm sure there'll be lots of great questions and a lot for us to talk about. Hey Jelte, thanks so much for

1:16joining me on the podcast today. Hi. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been a while, but I'm glad to be on it. So, I don't often dig into the kind of origin story of apps here on the podcast. I try and jump right to the tactical, but I I think this is a really interesting origin story that I think folks can can learn from and and is fun and inspiring. So, let's dive in. Like, why did you build Savvy Nav'i? Sure. [snorts] Um, yeah. So, few years ago, I found myself in the middle of the Pacific. Um, the wind was howling, the boat was heeled over at 30° angles and slamming

1:49through 3 m high waves. Um, because I had taken a sbatical from Google at the time to take part in the Clipper Round the World yacht race. Uh, I had a particularly bad day in the office when I signed up to this race. And I thought I' se I'd seen the posters many times. I was like, "Oh, I get I want to do this at some point and I had a bad day and I was like, "All right, I'm going to sign up for

2:09this for this race." Didn't even talk to my wife at the time. Um, so I just signed up and did it. Um, to be fair, there's a lot of training involved before you actually go do it, but I signed up, did it, got out on the water, and just realized, I mean, this is a 70 foot multi-million pound racing yacht, and it's, you know, to the brim with the latest technology, but [snorts] it just it it was just outdated. Like, a lot of the systems on this boat were like not talking to each other. A lot of stuff was showing me pretty pictures, but then I'm the one having to do all the computing in my

2:40head. Um, and so being Dutch and being arrogant, I thought I could do better. So I left Google and started Savvy. Nice. And and so back I mean back before Savvy Nav'i started making these things easier and this was only I mean we're only talking like 11 years ago you you're still having to like plot things on paper while you're cutting through those 3 m waves, right? [laughter] Uh yeah, for for a lot of it. I mean there were tools um and like in the professional space you had different set of tools but they were all just really clunky and most would focus on one particular aspect of

3:14a passage as as it's called in this particular race case was a race but if you're going from A to B over water there's a bunch of stuff that you need to take into consideration right it's it's hazards it's shipping lanes it's dangerous areas um and it's the weather like what what is the weather doing what is the wind doing what is the tide doing right? The the body of water that you find yourself in that itself is moving, right? And so you have to compute this all and you have to like take all these inputs to get you safely and as fast as possible from A to B in

3:46fast as possible in the case of a race. Um and so there are tools and there were tools um but they each were focused on one particular aspect. And so you'll find yourself using one tool going, okay, I'm going to go over there. I'll be there probably in six hours from now because you're like computing how fast you're going to go with the wind. So now I got to go over here and figure out well in six hours from now, what is the tide going to do? What is the current doing? Is it going to push me back? Is it not? Right? Is it going to push me into a dangerous area? Right? And so yeah,

4:15on the boat that we had, we weren't really using pen and paper, but it was still effectively the same thing because I'm the one doing that work, whereas these computers could far more easily do it. I mean, even the compute power on this guy is is more powerful than well, a what's in my brain, let alone what was on that boat. So, yeah, it just struck me as odd that you couldn't do this in an easier way, right? At the end of the day, with Google Maps, you drop two pins and it works out everything, right? It works out the the traffic and and the road works and the most economically

4:45friendly way to do it. And at C, it should do the same thing. And if actually in many cases there's more reason to do it at C because there's more danger element involved and so for me to compute that in my head human error like you you don't want human error when it comes to lives at C right so yeah there was there was definitely a better way to do it so you get back from this race you quit Google you raise VC and you built Nabi right [laughter] yeah yeah almost not quite wasn't quite that straightforward actually to be honest I I I I had the idea on the race. Um I wasn't initially

5:22quite convinced if um if there was really a market for this. I mean a 70 foot racing yacht in the middle of the Pacific. How many people are going to, you know, how many people are in that position, right? Um so it wasn't until I got back and started talking to friends and other boers and started to realize that actually this isn't just an ocean race problem. This is anybody going out on the water. And here in the UK on the south coast, this beautiful, you know, the Soland is amazing to sail in. And there's people that have their qualification, right? They've done all the training that they need to do, but they weren't going out because they were afraid that they would

5:54get the title calculations wrong or that, you know, they would injure someone, whatever. Um, and so it it became clear that this is a bigger problem. Um, so I did a lot of did a lot of research. Um, I went down to the south coast and I even bought a clipboard because not that I needed a clipboard, but anybody with a clipboard is taken seriously, right? So, if you just rock up and ask question, nobody answers. But, well, there's a clipboard perhaps people will answer. So, I spent hours, literally hours, walking up and down every pontoon I could find to talk to any boater I could find to just understand how they go boating and, you know, not just sailors, but motorboaters,

6:30even kayakers and paddle boarders and anybody else getting on the water. What's the pain point? What is the real issue with you enjoying and getting out in the water more? Yeah. Too too many people skip that step [laughter] and and you don't it doesn't have to be a clipboard. It doesn't have to be in person, but the the user research and like deeply understanding the problem. And it sounds like that's what really convinced you that this was a bigger market. There there are markets where

6:55people are like, "Ah, it's not that big." Like you were thinking like, "I was on a racing yacht. There's only, you know, a handful of those in the world. It only happens certain times a year. like how big is this market really? And then by going and doing the research and understanding the pain points like oh wait like the boating market's actually huge and like everybody's solving seeing this problem. Um so that user research piece is is is way too often skipped and so it's really cool that you did that. It's often skipped and that's that's bad. But um it doesn't stop there either,

7:24right? Like for me it was like okay this clearly there is something here and so I can build this. But to this day we do this, right? to this day we talk to our customers for new features or whatever and and to this day we learn new things right if if we look at what we did originally and then what we're looking at now and even geographically like obviously a boater in Italy is going to have different pain points than somebody in the UK right there's no tides in Italy to start with right um so 100% people forget that step and or they do it for a little bit and then they just

7:55that's it we're gonna write on this info you got to keep doing it you got to keep talking to the to the customer and and understand even over time how does it change? People use tools differently over the last 5 years, let alone anything else. So, um yeah, keep talking for sure. Well, one of the things I love about this story is that there there really are parallels to today in bringing AI into the equation. So, you know, a decade ago, you were at Google, you were using Google Maps in your car, you know, probably had CarPlay and other things even a decade ago that like just didn't exist in in the boating world. And then today, I think folks listening to this

8:36can be thinking whether they have an existing product or whether they want to build a new product. So much of what we think is like great tech today is going to feel super clunky over the next few years as you can integrate AI deeper and deeper into it. I I just saw a tweet yesterday by somebody participating in the uh shipon. It's a a hackathon we're doing starting August 1st, so this this podcast will come out right after it. Um, but he's building a cataloging app for all your games and things like that. And he built this AI feature that he was showing off on Twitter

9:08yesterday where you just like take your phone and like just like scan it around and it grabs all the titles and then like brings it in and makes it all look nice. So instead of like typing in every, you know, game thing, it's just using AI to like optically visually recognize things. So I think there's just there's so much opportunity to kind of to to bring AI, bring tech, bring this product intuition into these, you know, clunky industries. Um, so tell me a little bit about how how you thought about that in building Savvy Nav'i, coming from Google and coming into this really clunky old industry with all these like outdated tools and low processing power and all all the things you

9:51were facing at the time. Yeah, for sure. And and I totally agree. I think you know when I started with Cyan Avi say I was at Google maps um and so I had a lot of experience not just Google maps I did at Google Chrome did a bunch of different things at Google but a lot of experience in that user interface and that that um that interaction model that becomes so that we're also accustomed to right now which wasn't and to a degree isn't still in marine um nowadays if you've got a product any tech product that if it comes with a manual you've already lost Like fundamentally people

10:25don't use a manual right you just use the product and it should just be obvious on how I should use it and that's not something that was happening in marine I think in marine everything is about if I'm nice let's say 10 years behind landbased stuff probably 15 to 20 years quite frankly and so I took a lot of that learning that I'd had from Google into Sava and made it a tool that is just immediately recognizable and I know exactly what I'm doing and how I'm using it and I think you're absolutely right with AI I if we look back at before chatp came out um and had said oh you

10:58know in a few months from now you're going to be talking to you know your computer or whatever else or typing and just do natural language everybody would go nah no way right and then within months everybody's doing it and not only is everybody doing it but if if chatbt gets something wrong now we get annoyed like a come on it should know better right like we're already so accustomed to talking to an AI and to get a response and and so that's how quickly that's changed Right. And so if you're looking at products and you're looking at stuff on your phone or whatever, that's going to already rapidly changing, but it's going to increasingly more rapidly change if that

11:34makes sense. Um, and so the expectation again is different. And I think that's the key thing here. You have to put yourself in the consumer's shoes, right? And and from a consumer perspective, I expect this thing to work in a certain way. And that expectation is constantly changing. And again, this is why you need to keep talking to your customer because in 12 months from now, I guarantee they will expect something completely different because of AI and because of how you interact with with said product. So yeah, it's um it's a never- ending thing and you have to stay on top of it. And if you're building anything with the intent of launching it in 12 months from now,

12:08you've already lost, right? Because in 12 months from now, that's going to be outdated. You need to be able to move quick enough to be able to do that. I love that idea of expectations have changed and maybe and that that's maybe like a really good rubric for thinking about products to build or ways to improve your own product is that if you find yourself frustrated, you know, even my example of of um the guy building the the game scanning app to build a library of all your

12:34games, you know, in 2026, the idea of pulling up your iPhone and typing things in is crazy. like the expectation is like oh you know AI like everything's so smart like why am I doing this and so it's probably a a good way to think about opportunities is like what are the things that are frustrating today in 2026 that seem really cool like 3 years ago or whatever but in 2026 it's like this is dumb like why am I doing this and and it's a great way to think about improving your product and even like finding new product ideas yeah and and you know coming back to savvy as I said it

13:12when I started Ed, it was like this concept of it should be as simple as dropping a pin and say go, right? Like I want to go here, so drop a pin and go. The concept of dropping a pin, you could argue by now, is starting to become slightly dated as well. Like, you know, why why am I dropping a pin over here? I want to go to cows, which is a, you know, city on the white. I just want to go, hey, Savi, tell me when I should go to cows. What's the best time to go? Well, Saturday 11:00. Okay, great. Right? And then show me that route. Right? So even things like that I think are so quickly

13:41changing and turning. Um and you know the beauty of software is that you can you can adapt quickly. You don't have long lead times when it comes to hardware. We are doing a lot more stuff with boat manufacturers now which has opened my eyes to that that world of supply chain and whatever. Um but you have to you have to move quick. You have to be able to move quick. Um because it's what people will expect and already are. I I want to talk more about the boat manufacturers. you're doing some really cool stuff with uh B2B uh that that creates a flywheel with B TOC. Uh but I did

14:13want to kind of continue the story I joked earlier about so you quit Google and raised VC because I knew that wasn't the path but I want to talk about the path because you did think about raising VC. So what what happened there? Yeah. If you like I left Google and if you'd had asked me at that time do you understand all the various different funding vehicles out there VC private equity debt um crowdfunding whatever I would have said yes cuz you know they're all the same right you get investors they they give you money they get a share of the company and and off you go and you

14:44know an angel's just a small VC right that that's how that works right and and it's so not true like it's so different um you know I left and luckily because leaving Google was invited to a Google pitch event and a pitch day. At the time, we didn't actually need funding yet. Um I was, you know, me and my co-founder were bootstrapping. Um but you get invited by Google, you know, you're going to go, right? And so we did a pitch and had some interest from a number of VCs, sat down with one of them multiple times, flew out to them, whatever, and and went very far down that standard

15:16path of getting funding from VC only to realize as we're talking, they want one thing from the business, we want something else. And actually, you know, even as we're discussing the term sheet, it's already a little bit there's already friction, right? There's already something here that doesn't feel quite right. And so ultimately, to be fair, from both sides, we walked away and

15:36we said, "Okay, this this doesn't feel right. This this is not what we want from the business. We're going to and we didn't need it." So we we walked away. And then about a year later, one of our potential angels and and a very good friend and customer actually said, "Have you have you

15:52considered crowdfunding?" cuz at the time we had 10,000 people on the platform using the app, etc. Um, and so we hadn't. I mean, like, okay, don't know. Let's let's give it a go. You know, why not? Um, cuz this is the audience that understands what we're trying to build, right? They're literally using it. So, at that point, you were at a place where you felt like more capital would improve the business more quickly and like you needed capital, but you didn't necessarily need to go down that VC path. Um, and I read about this crowdfunding, but actually didn't go deep enough to know exactly what you did. So, I'm actually I'm super curious and gonna be learning on the

16:28fly here exactly what you mean by crowdfunding because everybody thinks like Indiegogo and uh Kickstarter and things like that, but uh yeah, so te tell me how it actually went. Yeah, so Indie Indiegogo and and Kickstarter that is, you know, that is a form of crowdfunding, I suppose. Um, but you're you know the quoteunquote investors are backers, right? they back this product and by giving some money you effectively donate the money you might get that product sooner than anybody else but you're not investing in the business so you're not getting an equity share of the business so there are platforms uh here in the UK it was Cedars who has since been bought by Republic from

17:06the US uh CrowdCube there's a bunch of different ones across the world and it's basically you're investing uh your money and you get a share of the business now the the platform usually um sits on the cap table and becomes your front of the investors of ECV because you have a long tail. We have two and a half thousand investors like this uh by now. Um but yeah, anybody anybody can invest, right? And so anybody can and investors as little as 10 bucks or you know as much as hundreds of thousands if they want to. So when we started we weren't sure what was going to happen. like we

17:42got 10,000 people using the app and sure I have a network of people that potentially have some, you know, spare capital. Um, but I don't know and we only needed a little bit of funding and you're right, we needed the funding because we wanted to push it into marketing. At the end of the day, we're a B2C business predominantly and so in order for us to get to the number of subscribers that we need to get to to cover our fixed cost, you're going to need capital, right? Um, and so we we launched this campaign uh did this video for it. um no idea what to expect and within 24 hours

18:14we're like over subscribed like we're blown past the target that we needed and people are jumping on the bandwagon and uh and you know mostly voters right people going yeah I'm I'm done with what I have I want something new I want something fresh uh and so within 6 days we shut it down um because it was triple of what we what we needed and since then have repeated that a number of times because we basically have this army of investors who um a believe in what we do, b can back us with money, but also back us with uh knowledge. Like we've had a number of times throughout these years that you

18:51know you start a business, there's so many aspects of the business you don't actually know about, right? Um you don't know what you don't know until you don't know it, right? And so at some point we needed something for logistics or something in marketing, whatever. And we can tap into these two and a half thousand investors and go, "Hey guys, we need some help with this. can anybody give us some advice or jump on a call or even like tell us where to go? And so it's been real real good for us to have that um army of investors that can help us not just financially but also

19:19um in in in knowledge based stuff and and in marketing and in other aspects. So yeah, it's it's been fascinating. It's been really really good. So, I I'm fascinated and and I think our audience will be as well because actually two podcasts ago, I actually had a venture capitalist on and we were actually talking about this specifically and I I hadn't even thought to bring up crowdfunding, but we were talking about how VC just doesn't make sense for so many um bootstrap or or so many consumer apps. It just doesn't make sense to take VC. the DAM's not big enough or the opportunity is great but then there's so many you know sacrifices where

19:59when you're shooting for those big outcomes and you're spending a lot of money you as a founder can end up screwed where you otherwise would have had a really amazing outcome. So we talked through all of this and it didn't like crowdfunding didn't even come up. So I want to dig into like the mechanics of it because I I I think there's folks listening to this who can like learn from this and go do some crowdfunding. Now, it shows a an incredible level of product market fit that you have 2,000 people investing in it because they believe in it. Um, but let's just let's start with

20:32like just just the simple mechanics of it. Like, you know, on Kickstarter, which is what I know, um, you know, you give perks and things like that. Is it similar where where like every dollar in gets a certain ownership percentage, but then you also offer certain perks and things? So, how how did that you actually structure that? it can be and for some of the brands we did it was I think before I jump into the the mechanics of that I think just coming back to VC um I think one of the things that I learned throughout this process look V I have nothing against the VC model as such I

21:04think it's a great model and it works really well but it works really well for a very particular set of businesses right and unfortunately uh and I don't know I'm presuming you've seen Silicon Valley TV show I think everybody should watch it it's amazing show. Um, unfortunately, everybody believes that VC is the path, right? That is how you build a business, which is not true. I think for 80% 90%, you know, I'm making up a number here, but for a large percentage of businesses, it's probably the wrong model, right? It's probably not the model you want. You can build a really successful business that isn't necessarily hyperrowth. You're not going to be the next Mark

21:40Zuckerberg, but that doesn't mean the business is crap. That just means it's a different business, right? Yeah. And and what's funny is like a ton of VCs would actually agree very strongly with those statements because they don't want to fund the kind of businesses that aren't a good fit for VCs. So even VC VCs would 100% agree like it is a great product but it's a great product for a very narrow set of people. Whereas like exactly like you said, everybody in tech wants it's like this it's almost like this this weird like dream of like oh I I'll really have made it if I can get

22:14venture capital investment and like it's just not that's that's not the path for so many business like there's so many great opportunities for great outcomes where you don't take VC and if you did it would actually mess your business up. So I think it's so important for people to understand. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, like business like VC will will back me on this one. funny phrase there to back me. like they will agree like fundamentally in some cases there's a there's almost like a vend diagram overlap and that's where it gets even more quirky because then the VC goes actually okay I can't if you just change this bit then maybe you could but but

22:49now you're changing that business right and that doesn't necessarily help and so you're trying to what's the saying round peg square hole like it doesn't necessarily fit whereas if you're looking at like an angel and again when I started I thought an angel is a mini VC right they they put money in they want to get a return on investment just like the VC does. But they don't they do, don't get me wrong. Everybody wants, you know, you're investing, you want to make money. Um, but a VC when they invest, they don't just invest once, right? They invest multiple times. They want you to spend the money that they put in in order to grow, to get that hyperrowth. They want

23:23you to spend all of it, and they want you to come back for some more, right? Preed, Ced, series A, series B, series C. The reason they want that and again they will agree with me is so that they own more of the business right they want to own as much of this business as possible so that when there is an exit they make the most and that's how they get the 20x on the fund that they want to you know that they need to need need to do and so the object is to own as much of the business and to have that business grow at a hyperrowth rate. If you're looking at an angel, 99 out of 10 out of

23:54100 times, the angel will have made their money. Um, they're retired. Um, their partner probably has kicked them out of the house going, "You're doing my head in. Go do something with your life." And they want to give back, right? Yes, they want to invest and make money, but they want to see the business succeed. And that is a very different motivation. They don't necessarily want to own as much of the business as possible. They want to see it succeed, not just by putting money in, but putting their expertise in. and they will invest in a vertical that they're familiar with because they've done it before. And so you get both you get the best of both worlds, right? You get

24:26somebody who knows what they're talking about, who has some capital to invest. Now, you're not going to get the level of capital that you would get from VC, but quite frankly, in the vast majority of cases, people raise too much. They they go, "Oh, I want this. I want this." I guarantee you all the founders I've talked to who who ask me for advice on crowdfunding whatever in the majority of the cases I would tell them raise half of what you're trying to raise because whatever you're trying to raise is you're you're not that's the other thing I I actually hate the phrase raising money like you said people think it's a oh I've made it if I raise money you're not like it's not

25:00some magic money tree that you put some water in and you're raising this magical free money you're selling your business you know that is what you're doing and even with crowd crowdfunding, you are selling part of your business. So if you're doing that and you you're getting a lot of money in, you're selling a lot of the business, right? So um yeah, so back to crowdfunding, crowdfunding, the better way to look at it when it's crowdfunding for equity is indeed angels. So the majority of your round will be funded by a handful of angels who put in a significant amount of money. Now, the longtail is everybody else who's putting in 100 bucks or 10 bucks or 500 bucks or a few grand or

25:37whatever else. Um, and yes, it's a platform like Kickstarter or Indiego. You go on the platform, there's a video there that explains what this business is doing. There's some documentation and some financials and, you know, a pitch deck and whatever. Uh, and in some cases, in most cases, there'll be some perks. I think in the first round all of our investors got a Cavi sailing jacket like a really cool jacket with Savani in the back. Uh in one we gave people threeear subscriptions because again most of our investors are actually Boers but the big reason you do it is to get equity into that business and the ultimate aim is always well it's not always a trade but there is

26:15an exit in mind so that you get your money back and in most of these platforms there is then a secondary market as well. And so actually, even though we're not a public company, our shares and stocks are being traded on this secondary market. And so even if you invested and we haven't yet

26:29made an exit, you can still liquid liquify some of the money by selling it on the secondary market. So it's a really good platform. Uh it's very founder friendly as well because again, you're not dealing with a VC who's trying to mold your business into their model uh and trying to change what you're trying to do. Um, and again, that's nothing wrong. If you're building a business that fits the VC model, go at it any day, all day long. But in most cases, you're probably not. Um, and there's also nothing to stop people from doing both, right? It's very common for people to say, "Okay, we're going to fund via crowdfunding initially, couple of rounds, whatever, and now

27:05we're going to get institutional money in to to back us further." What What did the distribution look like for you? Were there a few angels that put in 100k plus? And actually, I'd love to know like what that first round looked like. Were you raising a 100,000? Were you raising 500,000? And then, you know, kind of what that distribution looked like. Yeah. So, the first round we we our target was 125,000. Uh, and I think we stopped at 370 or something like that. Like, okay, well, we definitely have enough now. Um, and then from there on in, I'd have to remind myself on the numbers, but most of our rounds will have been around the million mark. Um and in most rounds

27:45there would have been two or three angel investors that come in in six digits uh each and then the rest is then um the the the long tail of other investors. So then what are the mechanics of it like how much ownership do you give up? Is there like do they get profit share distributions or is it just only if there's an exit and then I mean in VC you have the what's it called? I always forget the shares preferred shares. Yeah. Yeah. So then like do they get their money back first before you get a profit? Like how walk me through the actual mechanics of that. So when it comes to how much

28:20equity you give up, just like any funding round, you set a valuation. Um and usually if you're even if you're VCs or even you have maybe multiple VCs, um there will be a lead investor, right? And you basically negotiate the term sheet with the lead investor, which sets the valuation and therefore sets how much equity you're you're willing to give up. That's no different really. Fundamentally, when you're thinking about crowdfunding, before that round goes live, you will be talking to a handful select people that you have identified who might be interested. And so you fundamentally with them uh agree the terms and in large part agree what the valuation of the company is and therefore

29:00how much equity you give up. Once you have that agreed, then everybody else jumps on the bandwagon at the same term sheet. And that term sheet again for most platforms and definitely the one Cedars/republic that we do it is very very simple in the sense that there are no preferred shares. Everybody gets the same share. Even the guy that's putting in 10 bucks versus the guy that's putting in 200,000 they all get the same level of share. And um nobody has a preferred share. And so how do they get the money back? Yes, that is generally speaking um by the exit. And that could be that

29:36we IPO. And so, okay, now they can either sell or dividends comes their way or whatever. Uh, or a trade sale, right? Uh, this is usually the most common too. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I think the the mechanics are not that different from any other funding round in the sense that you have to agree with someone what your valuation is. You know, I can argue that we're worth half a billion, but if nobody's willing to put money in at that valuation, then clearly we're not,

30:04right? you're only worth what somebody's going to put in. And so it's the same concept here. You will have angels with whom you have that connection and you sit down with them and work that out and then everybody else comes on the same terms. I would imagine because you're doing this publicly that the valuations are public like and so all the numbers would be public and and people could even go back and look at some of your old crowdfunding campaigns. But but maybe walk us through since it all is public. Um like when you raised that first like 300,000ish and and you can talk ballpark. I know you we didn't talk about you know doing these numbers ahead. So uh you

30:40know ballpark what was that first valuation and by taking 300 instead of 125 or 375 or wherever you ended up at did that mean you were giving up you know a much larger percentage of the company. Yeah. Talk talk me through some of those numbers. So yeah, I don't have the those numbers at hand here, but you're you're absolutely right. Like if you are uh you've agreed a valuation and I'd have to look up what the first one was, but our last one for example were 15 mil as a valuation and once you overs subscribe, you are going to give up more equity. [snorts] Um so this is again not

31:15necessarily different from a VC round where you you have a target of how much you want to raise, but usually it's a kind of a range, right? you're going to I want to raise a million to a million half or whatever or I want to raise 5 to 10 or you know whatever it might be and you kind of settle on a number with the VC in this case you know if another VC jumped on board as well then obviously you're going to go over and you're going to lose more equity and so what you tend to do and and the only difference on crowdfunding I think is that that range probably is larger and so before

31:47you start you really want to have in your own head what is the bare minimum what is the minimum that I want to raise in order for need to do what it is that I want to do in the next 12 to 18 months, but I also want to set the maximum, right? Because I know that we're going at this at this valuation and if I go over that maximum, well, I'm losing too much in my business. And so, fundamentally, you know, again, try to raise as little as possible, right? Because it's it's costly. Um, and so set set that maximum and that's when you stop. And so in our case, you know, in

32:17that very first round, we didn't even know what to expect, but like after 6 days, we're going, well, this is getting out of hand. So, we're going to have to stop it because it's it's we're losing too much equity. It's something you have to consider in a lot more detail. I think the other thing that while we're on the topic, I'll throw it out there. When I get asked about this by other founders who are thinking about crowdfunding or thinking about funding in general, my first my first bit of advice is don't don't raise at all. Like if you can get away with not raising VC or grad

32:46or angel or anything else just don't cuz it is really difficult. It is very timeconuming and once you're down that path you are setting yourself up on purpose and and in you know explicitly so for doing it again and again until you get to that level that you want to get to. Um and if

33:02you are doing crowdfunding you're right it is very public. So all these numbers are freely available. You can go to Cedars today and find them and find our previous campaigns and find all the videos that are made about, you know, what we said we would do. And that's the other aspect. It is, you know, we are publicly stating this is what we're going to do with this money. And then in 12 months from now or 18 months from now, if we need another round, we do have to prove that we were able to do that, right? And so while the longtail investors sit behind the platform, we

33:32have a very direct connection with them. I'm very open and transparent with my investors. I said it from the very first letter to investors that I wrote. I'm going to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. We're in this together, and there's going to be bits here that are going to hit me in the face. And, you know, it's not always going to work the way that we want it to. And so, we have been transparent in that, and we've been open in that. And when we did the first one in 2019, I won the Cedars Entrepreneur of the Year award because of that communication that I have with those

33:59investors who voted for me because of it. because you have to stick close with them cuz you're going to come back. You're going to need more money. But yeah, if you can get away with not fundraising, I would highly recommend not to do it cuz Yeah, I just it takes a long long lot of time, lot of time and effort. Yeah. And and so the mechanics of it are are are essentially like you said, a $15 million valuation at the last raise. So just for round numbers, if if in that round you raise

34:241.5 million, that means you'd be giving up 10% of the business. um across across all those raises. Uh one is there dilution as you raise similar to VC? Um and then the second question being like how much have you how much of the business have you now uh sold uh to these investors through C crowdfunding. Yeah. So it it is literally the same uh yes you dilute and yes therefore my my and my co-founder percentage is uh significantly lower. That's no different to VC, right? like by the time you're at a series D for the founder to still have 8% you do well right um and so it's it's

35:03very similar in those terms um because the concept is the same like fundamentally you're saying my business is worth this and I need this much cash and yes that's usually about 10% and you know the the exact numbers are always slightly different but fundamentally similar to a VC if you're if you're trying to raise something that is going to give up 40% of your business that's red flags all over like what's going on here that's way too much for the valuation where you're at right now, right? So, that doesn't change. That's just normal business mechanics. And and so, yeah, the the same thing applies here. In that last round you did, I actually did pull the numbers from this, you did

35:40almost $700,000 at that $15 million valuation. But in those disclosures in on the the platform, you shared that you were doing like three and a half million in ARR from the BTOC business. You you also have B2B which we'll we'll talk about but the B2B was doing you know somewhere in that like two two plus million dollars a year uh range. So you're really only talking like a a 3 to 4x multiple which seems low like you know typically in VC for you know fast growing businesses it would be higher. H how do you how do you set the multiple you you talked about kind of

36:20negotiating with some of the lead investors. Is that is that how it's it's typically done? Yeah, it is. And I think you know if you if you look back in 2025 that might sound low but um I think everything was low like raising in 2025 was difficult right and so that is reflected in in that number. It's also reflected in yes we have the B2B side and we'll talk a little bit more on that in a second. Um but I think a lot of people focus [snorts] predominantly on the B2C side which is our core business. And so if you're only looking at that number then

36:51that multiple becomes slightly different. But um but you're right I mean fundamentally um again I don't think it's any different to a VC from that perspective in the sense that that multiple has to be sensible. Like if if if that multiple was 20x then that'd be crazy, right? Like why would I invest in a business that that is clearly talking BS, right? So it has to be sensible. Um and also I think there's an element of having to prove that what we can do with those funds and how we can change our growth um does come to fruition, right? And so in the course of Savvy, there have

37:29been black swans. You know, we've had co we've had the boating industry dropping through the floor on certain occasions. And so getting the growth that we had anticipated hasn't always planned out. And so therefore, we have a different plan which involves the B2B side of things and the flywheel that we briefly mentioned before. Um, but a lot of that is is is risk, right? It's like, okay, well, is that going to pan out and am I going to put that money there? And so I think you see that you see that reflected in that multiple as well. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And and and at

37:59the end of the day, and this is where I think VC does often pay a higher multiple because they want you to be growing, you know, 100% a year. And when you are growing 100% a year, the 20x multiple, you know, you catch up on that much more quickly. And and so they're specifically funding for that kind of hyper growth. And so those higher multiples make sense. But then with this crowdfunding, you know, the idea isn't just a donation. The idea is you will get some return on investment over time. And so the multiple is a reflection of that. It's like, okay, if it's a a 5x multiple today,

38:35like, you know, can they double the business and give me a return on that investment over time? And then how long will that take? And all that kind of stuff. And so, so it makes it makes sense. And, you know, and that's about what we're seeing for acquisitions like unless it's a super strategic acquisition, an app is typically valued o only at like 4x uh trailing re uh profit, not even revenue. And so, you know, when you think about it from that perspective, a a three to 5x multiple on topline revenue probably is for a consumer app a a a healthy multiple. Um, but it's funny because I think a lot of people will listen to this and think they could potentially go onto a

39:17crowdfunding uh platform and get the kind of VC multiple. Uh, but it's nice to have this little bit of a kind of a bring you down to earth that that it does have to make sense. It does. And and I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's also it depends on is it quote unquote just an app, right? And that sounds very derogative and I don't mean it that way because obviously it's my business, but um but but there's a difference between okay, it's an app, it's a consumer app or more than likely um and that is the space that it's swimming in. like we expanded from that and I

39:51don't know if this is the right segue to to go into that B2B side of things but when you are boating and we talked about this big yacht that I was on and stuff there's obviously tech on that boat right and so just like if I am getting in my car to drive to London there is a dash there and you know I might have looked on my phone what the traffic is like to get to London but when I get in my car I want that to sync I want that to work and so similarly for us we're not just that app because we are also now working with B2B and integrating directly with boat manufacturers helm

40:24displays and that becomes a very different story because now all of a sudden it's a platform all of a sudden all the aspects of what we have built has a secondary route to market on that dash of the boat and that acts like a firewall if more and more customers you know I've had people on the stand at a boat show who you know boat builders who've come to me because they've got consumers

40:48coming to them and saying, "Hey, does your stuff work with Savi Na'vi?" He goes, "I don't know. Like, does it? I I need to talk to Yela. I figure out how we do this, right?" And so consumers, $3 million, they're going to the boat manufacturer. Boat manufacturers coming to us to put it on the boat. That acts like a flywheel because now as a consumer, I can see, oh, Savi isn't just on my phone, but it's also on that boat that I'm going to buy. So, it's going to work together. And so, it's validation that that is the right tool for me to get when I get on the water. Um,

41:15and that's a different thing. Right now, all of a sudden, you're not investing in an app. You're investing in a platform that is changing marine navigation across the board, across the industry, and bringing innovation where there wasn't much. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, I I actually want to dig a little deeper into that. I This is one of those areas where I I I don't think, you know, a lot of people listening will have these kind of B2B opportunities to become part of a hardware platform and stuff like that. But you are seeing more and more like hardware attached uh subscription services and um you know I'm actually gonna have on the podcast pretty soon

41:54this like health company where they white label a wristworn device that actually collects way more data than like a Whoop or a or a ring and they're able to do so much more because they are a plat a hardware integrated company. Um but let's dig into like h how did how did that flywheel first start? Did a boat manufacturer come to you? Did you go to them? How did how did you first get into working with these bigger companies? Yeah, so we um so we go to all the boat shows. We don't actually have a stand at the boat show. I don't think that necessarily works well for apps. Bo shows are

42:28expensive. You know, they they price these stands per meter for the boats that are going to go on it, which I can't really compete with. Um but we do, you know, we obviously you see everybody in the industry and walk around. Um, and so a few years ago, one particular boat brand called Arc Boats out of LA, um, think of them like the Tesla for boats. So, it's a it's a fully electric wake boat. It's an amazing piece of kit. They've taken me out on a few times. I'm I'm converted. I want one. Unfortunately, I can't afford one, but we'll get there at some point. Um, but they have

42:57this boat and it obviously it's fascinating because they similar to Tesla. They worked on first principles. They built it from the ground up, redesigned everything, designed the helm and etc. And so we got t talking like okay well that's what I expect to see that's what I expect to see in the industry I expect to see some innovation how can we help etc and long story short we ended up partnering with them to provide them with the charts and some other technology to get that innovation onto the helm of these boats and as soon as we did actually somewhat surprising to to us we just found so many more people that came to us right we obviously did a the press release on

43:34it and So many people who we didn't even know were building new things because obviously that's their R&D and so it's not necessarily public yet started to come to us going hey we like some of that thank you very much. Um and where previously as I said a lot of the stuff in marine was outdated and a little bit clunky these boat manufacturers want to innovate but they couldn't get what they wanted from the normal incumbents in the in the industry. And so we started to work with more and more and more and actually um more than we initially anticipated. across the board. So that's that's

44:06boat manufacturers, that's marine new marine electronic manufacturers. And what we're seeing is that for a lot of these guys, they know they need to innovate. They know that fundamentally if you just put the same hardware on your boat as the next guy, well, how's your boat different? Okay, it might have an orange cushion or a blue cushion, but that's not really how I'm going to sell this boat, right? And so they need to innovate and they want to innovate. And for some of them that means they're building their entire tech stack and their entire software stack themselves and they're bringing it in in-house and we're helping with them and we're integrating with them. And so what

44:41we provide is not just an off-the-shelf solution. It isn't truly integrated product for them. For some others, they don't necessarily have the appetite or even the the experience and knowhow to build it all themselves. So they go to new players in the industry who can provide them with a marine electronics that's slightly different that allows them more customization and we work with those. So again we get on those boats and then the latest category which I'm really excited to announce cuz when this podcast comes out it's it will be public um is the more entertaining boat. So in the US you got pontoon boats. You know you're not going to go offshore with them. It's not my 70ft racing yacht

45:22in the middle of the ocean, but you go on a lake and you've got the family and you're entertaining and you're going from A to B. You might go to a restaurant with a nice pontoon. These boats traditionally don't have any navigation on them because the navigation would be really clunky and big and complex and expensive and it doesn't make sense. So, for these boats, what we're now having is CarPlay. And everybody knows CarPlay. Everybody knows how it works. Everybody know how easy it is, right? I've got my phone. I put in the route that I want to go to. I get to my normally my

45:50car and it immediately works. I don't have to press buttons to sync anything or make it work. It just works. And the same thing now. And these entertainment boats, it's like you got Spotify and Apple Music and like all the other things you're used to from the car, put on a podcast, you know, whatever. That's it. Exactly. Exactly that. And now also navigation just like you have Google maps on your car play you know have Sabi and you can see where the shallows are and you can keep safe because um here in the UK we don't really have these pontoon boats so the first time I came

46:21to the US to be on pontoon I was shocked these things go fast they don't they're not they're not like pottering around they're going at speed and if you don't know where you're going and there's a shallow that's that's dangerous right so being able to provide that navigational element and that element of safety while at the same time playing your Spotify music and you know getting drinks out

46:39on the table. It's It's perfect. It's exactly what that segment of the market needs. That is so cool. I I've been trying to think as you've been talking about, you know, segments that our listeners could potentially enter into because it it is it is, you know, these opportunities are fewer and further in between. But I mean really any any hardware that you interact with that feels clunky is

47:04an opportunity either to white label a version of that hardware and do better software integration. The the thing that popped into my head though was uh I have a uh a Kia uh electric vehicle, a Kia EV9. Their app sucks and [laughter] I so desperately want to build my own. There you go. There's your opportunity. Well, so I've looked into their API. They don't have really good APIs. I'll probably just like re reverse engineer their APIs and vibe code an app because because [laughter] I want it so bad for myself even if I can't like sell a reverse engineered app into the into the market. But hey, you know, maybe if I build a really great app, I can like work

47:46with them to get it released and get access or whatever. So, there's potential there. Yeah. But then that reminded me of an app Tessie that works with Teslas because Tesla like you were talking about with Arc Boats like they've wanted to be that more like software forward more tech forward company and so they actually do have really great API access and this app Tessy is a great example where early on they're like oh wow wait there's an API for Teslas like what can we do and they built

48:16a really great business and a really cool app that that Tesla lover that Tesla users absolutely love. Um, and so it's like there are opportunities like this if you go seek them out and you think creatively about it. And it's so cool to see you um, you know, after after starting as just an app as we've we've talked about, not a not a pjorative, but [laughter] but just an app um, but then building in this uh, industry has then created all of these opportunities. I I I do want to have you talk a little bit more about the the flywheel aspect of it. So, like with the CarPlay

48:52in these new pontoon boats, the announcement that that just came out yesterday when this podcast airs, um, I is is it there a bundle situation or or do they promote Savvy Nav'i as like the ultimate, you know, way to get navigation? Like what does that actually look like and how do you how does that flywheel work? Yeah. Um, so it is a it's a bundle and it slightly depends on the models and we're obviously talking to other people as well. Um, so it can be It's a wide r a wide range of opportunities here. So either it is a case of well you you're picking the high end

49:26of this this pontoon boat it comes with 12 months of savvy right and so ultimately the manufacturer pays us for you know QR code or whatever it might be um which touches on other routes to market I'll get to back to in a second as well. Um and so it's bundled effectively with the boat. In other cases, it might be a case where um an extended trial is bundled with the boat. Uh in the US, we have a premium model. Outside of the US, we don't, which is actually slightly unique. We have

49:56two different business models across geographical areas, which is fascinating for so many reasons. But in the US, we do. And so therefore, there is a free product that you can just get anyway um that can be more tailored. There are then flavors of the app whereby it is actually it's not white labelled but maybe grreylelabeled for that manufacturer and so therefore think about oh particular information of the boat that could be surfaced within the app as well uh within the CarPlay. Um so there's a there's a a variety of different options and mechanisms um

50:32to get in front of the user. Um, and yeah, a large part of it is the boat manufacturer promoting us. And this is really where that flywheel comes in because it's all well and good us saying that we are savvy and smart and, you know, the best app out there. It carries a lot more weight if that message comes from somebody else and especially if it's somebody in the business who's been in the business forever and has been building these boats. Um, and so we do a lot of stuff with partnerships for for getting CarPlay and Savvi integrated for a second where again where we look for opportunities to get in front of that customer and in front of that consumer. Um,

51:09we have a massive program for instructors, boating instructors. When I got my um my dayc whatever, it doesn't really matter which qualification it is. I spent a week on the boat with an instructor. Uh, one of the aspects of what he was teaching there's a it's a it's a sailboat. It has a winch. Forget the detail. But basically, they they'll teach you to always keep your thumbs away from the winch because if you screw it up and your thumb gets into this thing, you could lose your thumb, right? And if you do the other way around, you only lose a pinky. And it's better to lose a pinky

51:39than it is to lose a thumb, which is a little bit of a morbid talk. The man who's teaching me this is missing a thumb. He literally lost his thumb doing this and is telling me this is why you don't do it. I'm going to trust anything that guy says, right? if he's done this and to the point of losing a thumb, I'm from now ever ever going to put my thumb near that thing, right? And so the, you know, word of mouth is a great thing for any business, but not every mouth is the same value, right? And so if that instructor is telling me that this is the thing that you need to get,

52:11that carries a lot more weight. And the same goes for the Savvy integrated partners. If this if this is a boat manufacturer that's been around for decades building boats and they're putting Sava on there, as a consumer, I'm going to trust that more. And likewise, if more consumers like our product because it is easy to use and it's clean and clutter-free interface, more of them are going to demand that from the manufacturer. I want this to work with the boat that I'm buying. And so that's the flywheel. It's like the consumer wants it. Therefore, the manufacturer wants to provide it. The manufacturer provides it. The consumer sees that and now has more validation

52:45that this is the right thing to get. And that's how that flywheel works for us. And tell me more about the instructor program. Do you treat them as like affiliates? Do they have a code? Do they get kickbacks? Do they just get free Savvy Nav'i? How do how does that work? They're not affiliates. They uh they do get a free version of the app, but actually what is far more important is that we work really closely with them and go, okay, how are you teaching voting? What are the things? What are the tools that you use? Here in the UK, there's a big push for digital first

53:16to step away from the old way of teaching with just paper charts and doing more digital stuff. How are you guys bringing that into the classroom? What are you missing? What is not really working? And so we've built tools within the app to help instructors teach boating and teach a safer boating effectively. And so yeah, they get Taba for free, but and then their students get a discount, sure, but the real working mechanics here is that we work closely with them. We do webinars. We take a lot of their feedback. They're beta users for us. any fe any features that we have, we first roll it out to them. We get their feedback. Does this work? Does this not work? And

53:54so it's a real close-knit um arrangement. We do a similar thing in the US. We've just signed with uh American Sailing. Um and and and outside of instructors, we have a bunch of different programs like this uh working with Chandleries or or boat shops where people obviously, you know, they might not be on Facebook, they might not be searching for boat apps, but if they see us in the shop, if they can see a QR code through which they can get something, all of these nondigital routes help us with that um validation for an end user to go, "Oh, okay. Well, if I if I can see it in in this

54:31particular store that I always go to that I trust where I get all my kit and they have it, well, that must mean that it's good. Yeah, that's that's so awesome. And I I would have thought you would be giving them kickbacks, but it's so cool that you're not, but you're giving them a ton of value. So, there's a value exchange there by helping them, you know, be better instructors. You are giving them free access, but I would have I would have guessed that there was like an affiliate revenue kind of situation. But I mean, it just speaks to like what a great product you've built

55:01and how respected you are in the industry and and how much care there is that these instructors would promote and and be a part of this without getting that kind of financial kickback. Uh yeah, and to to be clear, for a lot of them, they don't want the kickback. Um and they don't because they don't want to be seen as a sales rep. That's not the point, right? The point is how are you safe on the water? And for a lot of them, they they also promote some of the other tools or at least use some of the other tools, but we work more closely with them. And so they go, "Okay,

55:33well, here are all the tools that are available to you." And there are different apps you can get, you know, on the app store. And they'll all walk through them, but we're the only ones that are talking to them. We're the ones that are listening to them. And so they will go immediately to SA go like you if you if your GPS fails, and I know this is a thing that a lot of people go, "Ah, GPS doesn't fail." Well, if you're in the Baltic Sea right now with everything that's going on geopolitically, GPS does fail, right? And so the concept of traditionally on a boat, if the

56:00mechanics fail, you need to be able to take what's called a three-point fix, right? You you use your handbearing compass to look at a lighthouse over there and another one over there and whatever, you draw three lines. You triangulate on the paper chart. That's where I'm at. We do that within the app. None of the other apps do that because we work closely with the instructor. And so it's almost like they purposely don't want that kickback because it's not about being a sales rep. It's about being a good instructor and teaching people how to stay safe out on the water and what tools you can use and which ones are the best. Yeah, that is so cool. Well,

56:33we have a ton of things on this list for us to keep talking about, but we are running short on time. The good news is, and I'll have said this in the intro to the podcast, we're going to have you on the the YouTube sub club live stream August 6th, uh, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, 1800 Central European time. We will pick up from here and cover some of the stuff we didn't get to. And then we'll also take questions. So, those of you who've listened here through to the end, jot down a few questions and come join us live August 6th, uh, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, 1800 Central European time on YouTube,

57:11uh, to be able to ask Yelta questions. I think this is so cool. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and this is going to be the second one we've done this way. Uh, so come to that. Uh, but there were a few things I did want to wrap up. I wanted to wrap up with the three questions I now ask every guest, and that is because these are just so fun. And I've had so much fun asking these. Um, what is the most impactful experiment or change of the past year? Your biggest win of the past year? Two-year subscriptions. So, we now obviously in the US there's abilities to

57:43not necessarily use the app store for for payment. That forget the whole debate whether or not that is a good thing and 30% this and whatever else. That's a side story. But what it has allowed us to do is actually provide different type of subscriptions and one of which is a 2-year subscription. If you if you're a boater and you've got, you know, a boat, you're going to likely have that for a number of years. And so, if we can provide you with a 2-year plan at a discount, that is much more favorable for you. The benefit for us isn't actually, oo, that's that's more money. It's it's more money upfront. And what that does is really help on the marketing side with the

58:18CAC payback, right? all of a sudden, even though, you know, we're giving a discount, but ultimately over the span of two years, we're probably getting about the same revenue out of this person, but we're getting it now. And so, that's had a huge impact on what we're then able to do on the marketing side and the spend that we can have because we get that back immediately as we spend it. So, I think that's definitely one of the biggest wins this last 12 months. Yeah, that's so cool. What What level of discount have you found successful for that? Are you doing two You're not doing two years for the price of one, but are you doing two years for the price of one and a half,

58:53two years like a 25% discount? What does that look like? Yeah, I think I think it averages on about 30%. So, uh our normal price is 129 bucks a year. Uh the 2-year plan is 183. So, we're giving 70 $75 off effectively. And so, that's uh I think that that comes down about 30%. I can't do it the math in my head, but [laughter] that's about it. Yeah, no worries. Um, yeah, so cool. I mean, you know, there there has been a big push the last few years to annual subscriptions for that CAC payback and then this is taking it to that whole another level is that with a two-year subscription, you even

59:30have much higher uh guaranteed LTBs on that. So, uh, we didn't even get to talk about, but we'll we'll talk about this in in the um in the YouTube live stream. And if you don't come live, it it still would be a good followup to hear more. Uh because I do I I would love to ask more about like whether you do free trials, no free trials, what your premium looks like, and those kind of things are in my notes, but we just didn't have time to get to today. So, we'll we'll we'll catch up on those later. Um all right, and this is this is the one I have the most fun asking. What was

1:00:02your worst experiment, your biggest fail of the last year? I think the biggest fail and I can kind of hear my team in the background shouting this at me at the moment in my head uh is something called we called anonymous accounts. So obviously all of us in this space we're always looking at experimenting and looking at that onboarding flow and the funnel and where do people drop off etc etc and so obviously one of the areas people drop off is when they need to create an account right like you know that that's a friction point and no denying do I put in an email even if I've

1:00:35got you know federated accounts like Facebook or whatever it's still a friction and for some people that is a problem. So, as an experiment, we went, well, what if we just don't have those, right? What if we just skip that entire step to just go through like we'll create an anonymous account under the hood, right? And let you do what you need to do, right? We don't actually need your

1:00:55details. Um, we are not This is another aspect that we should probably pick up at some point. We don't do any email marketing. I I hate it. And so, I've killed it. I've just thrown it away. Um, but that's a side point. So, we we did this anonymous account and we did it as an experiment. like we do everything. And initially the results were through the roof. It was amazing. It's like, "Oh my god, this is this is night and day. This is going to be this is going to be so good." Um, and then we rolled it out to 100%. Um, and that number that that that success rate started to

1:01:27drop a little. It's like, hang on, it doesn't make any sense. Um, and ultimately, long story short, we ran it for quite some time. It caused so much grief, so much customer support issue because while people are on one side going, well, I want privacy and I don't want my details there, but they actually do want an account, right? And I have multiple devices. I've got I've got it on

1:01:46my phone. I want it on the iPad, but now how do I sync the two if I don't have an how do I log in? I need to log in. Surely I need to log in. And it's so just no end of grief. Um, and ultimately the the uptake wasn't as good as we thought it was due to some metric issues that we found in this in this region. So yeah, anonymous accounts is um is a is a is a big topic on our virtual whiteboard and internally people uh have scars from it. And a great example too of of so many tests that you know you think at a 10% or in a one particular region that you are experimenting in the numbers

1:02:23look good but then once you roll it out you need to keep an eye on those numbers because they don't always pan out the way you think they don't. And I think, you know, like like at my time at Google, if you if you've got a billion users, AB testing is easy, right? And actually, it's surprisingly demotivating because most of the time what you think is going to work doesn't work. But if you don't have a billion users, like if you're an app, like you you're a startup, whatever, you probably do not have the sample size to do proper AB testing, right? And I think, you know,

1:02:52yes, we should all do AB testing, and I I will get my team to do it and we do it for everything, but it is difficult. It is so hard to do that right. It is conversely it's so easy to [ __ ] it up. Excuse the French because it is it is right. It is just so easy to get it wrong and to read into the numbers what you want to read into them or to only you know have the blinkers on and I'm looking at this number that I'm going to like improve forgetting that that number down there and the funnel is not completely affected by nothing is an isolation. And so, yeah,

1:03:21experiments, AB testing or ABC testing for that matter, it's it's so difficult and it's so easy to get wrong. All right, last question. Growth would be easier if growth would be easier if um so I'm a so I'm an engineer at at heart and I I want to measure everything coming back to the AB stuff. Um, and so when it comes to growth, obviously that that relates to marketing, I think the one area that I hate the most because I can't measure it is brand recognition. Like brand recognition is actually super important. This comes back to the flywheel. This comes back to validation. You know, people need to know about you and if you're starting up, they don't,

1:04:03right? And so, how do you make sure that they do? It's it's easy enough to get the early adopters, but beyond that, if you want to scale beyond that, and thus you want that proper growth, you need brand recognition. And nobody knows nobody knows what will stick, what doesn't stick. I'm next to me, I've got eight boxes here of Syavi caps that we're going to hand out. Are they going to work? I you know, you don't know, right? And so, if only you could measure, truly understand, and scale brand recognition, that part, then growth would be easy. We we should talk about this more on the liveream because uh it's it's a a nice counterpoint to the last podcast I did with

1:04:42Julia Linux uh where she actually argues nobody cares about your brand. Brand doesn't matter. She was pretty hard on brand and was like performance marketing is the only way to make any money. Bring her on. We'll have a chat. We'll have a chat. But but I think this is a great counterex example to that where where you are building a brand because because it's people need to trust if they're out on the water they need to trust you and you're in a unique position as well with the B2B motion where when the boat manufacturer is telling people to use Savi Navi that that is a form of brand

1:05:23play that you just don't get with traditional performance marketing and and and so I think she's right that for most apps brand doesn't matter but for some apps brand does matter and you're an example where I think it really does so another topic for us to to pick up on the live stream I think I think she's she's right in the sense even even with brand recognition performance marketing is where your growth is going to come from but with brand recognition you can actually scale that more because otherwise you and again it depends on the brand depends on the niche the market you can hit ceilings that you cannot get through unless there's brand recognition, right? And so,

1:06:00you know, nothing again, nothing is in isolation. And I'm sure that if you're building a recipe book app, right, then no, nobody cares about your brand. I just care about the the ingredients and, you know, the recipes and does it work. But if I'm trusting my life on the water and my family's life to this app, you bet your bottom that I want to know that this brand is good, right? And so, you know, it depends. That's a great way to put it. [gasps] All right. Well, as we wrap up, uh, anything you wanted to shout out, any roles you're hiring, another crowdfunding campaign coming up if

1:06:32people want to invest or anything else our our audience can do for you? We don't have another funding round, unfortunately, so you're going to have to sit on the sidelines if you wanted to join that boat. Um, [snorts] there is a secondary market on Cedar, so you know, you can you can buy some shares that way, but uh, no, no hiring at the moment and no fundraising, but I would love to talk to people and answer questions anybody might have. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me. This is fun and I'm looking forward to chatting again in just a few weeks. Thanks so

1:07:00much for listening. If you have a minute, please leave a review in your favorite podcast player. You can also stop by chat.subclub.com to join our private community. [music]