Savvy Navvy

The idea came from combining navigation inputs by hand on a racing yacht. Jelte Liebrand, who had worked on Google Maps and Chrome, took a sabbatical to sail the Clipper Round the World race. On a 70-foot yacht in the Pacific, separate tools each covered one factor, so he combined hazards, weather, tide and current in his head.

Planning six hours ahead meant checking the tide and current for that hour, then asking whether they pushed the boat into danger. He wanted the Google Maps model for the sea: drop a pin and get a route. "Being Dutch and being arrogant, I thought I could do better."

Sub Club

Talking to every kind of boater showed the market was huge. Liebrand bought a clipboard and walked the pontoons of the UK south coast, asking motorboaters, kayakers, paddle boarders and sailors what kept them off the water. Qualified sailors stayed ashore for fear of getting tide calculations wrong or injuring someone.

From the racing yacht the market looked tiny. The research turned it into a problem for anyone going out on the water. The team still talks to customers before building each feature, because needs differ by country (Italy has no tides) and change over time. "Anybody with a clipboard is taken seriously."

Sub Club▶ 6:15

Ask what AI has made feel dated, and avoid 12-month builds. Liebrand estimates marine software trails land software by 15 to 20 years, and says a product that needs a manual has already lost. He argues that anything planned to launch 12 months out is already outdated because AI resets expectations within months.

His test is to ask what feels dumb in 2026 that looked fine three years ago. Even dropping a pin may give way to asking in plain language: a boater asks when to go to Cowes, hears Saturday 11:00, then sees the route.

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Savvy Navvy walked away from VC because the goals didn't match. After a Google pitch day brought VC interest, Liebrand met one VC several times, but term sheet talks showed friction: "They want one thing from the business, we want something else." He argues VC suits only businesses built for hypergrowth.

VCs invest repeatedly from seed to Series C and want you to spend it all so they own more and chase 20x on their fund. Angels, often already wealthy, want the business to succeed and bring vertical expertise. His first advice to founders is not to raise at all if they can avoid it.

Sub Club▶ 21:03

Selling equity to existing users filled the first round in days. With 10,000 users, Savvy Navvy launched an equity crowdfunding campaign targeting 125,000. It was oversubscribed within 24 hours and closed after 6 days near 370,000, triple the target.

It used UK platforms like Seedrs (now owned by Republic) and Crowdcube, which sell real shares, with a video, financials and pitch deck. The valuation is agreed first with a few angels who provide most of the round, and a long tail of small investors joins on the same terms with no preferred class. The company now has about 2,500 investors and rounds mostly around the million mark, with the money going into marketing to win subscribers.

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Raise half of what you think you need, and cap the round. Liebrand tells most founders to raise half of what they planned, because every round sells part of the business. Set a bare minimum covering the next 12 to 18 months and a hard maximum, and stop at the maximum.

Savvy Navvy shut its first round at 6 days to avoid giving up too much equity.

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Keep the valuation at a sensible revenue multiple. The last round raised almost $700,000 at a $15 million valuation, about 3 to 4 times revenue, against about $3.5 million B2C ARR and over $2 million B2B.

Liebrand says a 20x multiple would look like nonsense for a consumer app, and risks like black swan events show up in the price. "That multiple has to be sensible."

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Customer-investors double as an advice network. When the team needed help with logistics or marketing, it asked its 2,500 investors for advice, calls or introductions.

The material gives no evidence of what this help actually delivered, and the costs of crowdfunding (time, public disclosure, repeat rounds) are described only loosely.

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Boat makers bundle the app at the helm, creating a demand flywheel. Savvy Navvy integrated with manufacturers' helm displays, starting with electric brand Arc Boats, and later added CarPlay for pontoon boats. Makers bundle 12 months or an extended trial and pay for it.

After the Arc Boats partnership and press release, many more manufacturers approached, some with unreleased R&D projects. Consumers ask makers for the app, which validates it for the next buyer. The team walks boat shows to meet industry people instead of paying for a stand priced per meter for boats.

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Win instructors by working with them, not paying kickbacks. Instructors get the app free and students get discounts, but the real draw is collaboration: webinars, beta access, acting on their feedback and teaching tools like a three-point fix feature other apps lack.

Many instructors refuse commissions so they aren't seen as sales reps. They recommend Savvy Navvy as the only app company that listens, and the approach has been repeated in the US with American Sailing. "Not every mouth is the same value."

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QR codes in chandleries reach boaters who never search for apps. Boat shops put a QR code in front of customers who aren't on Facebook or looking for boat apps, and seeing it in a trusted store validates the app.

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Safety-critical apps need brand trust that paid ads can't buy. Liebrand argues brand is hard to measure but lets performance marketing scale past its ceilings, and matters most when users rely on the app for their family's safety.

He sees manufacturer endorsement as a form of brand building, while a recipe app may not need a brand. The share of revenue from boat makers is not given.

Sub Club▶ 1:04:00

A discounted two-year plan funded more marketing spend upfront. Savvy Navvy sells $129 a year or $183 for two years, about 30% off, collecting a similar amount per customer but immediately. It was the company's biggest win of the year.

The upfront cash comes back as soon as it is spent on acquisition, which suits boat owners who keep the product for years. "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."

Sub Club▶ 58:34

Removing signup won in a small test, then failed at full rollout. Anonymous accounts skipped signup and early results were "through the roof." At 100% rollout the gains faded and users on a phone and iPad couldn't sync or log in, piling up support tickets.

Users who said they wanted privacy still wanted an account to use multiple devices. The team says it still has scars. Keep watching after rollout and check metrics further down the funnel.

Sub Club▶ 1:01:10

Small startups rarely have traffic for clean A/B tests. Without Google-scale users, sample sizes are small and it is easy to read what you want into results. Liebrand says to keep testing but watch the whole funnel, since no metric moves in isolation.

"It is conversely so easy to [ __ ] it up."

Sub Club▶ 1:02:42