A seafarer in high-visibility workwear walking the deck of a cargo vessel

Scoutbase

Four years at sea.

Scoutbase, from one founding insight to 80+ ships, Shell, and a 90% daily response rate.

At a glance

Venture: Scoutbase - crew-wellbeing data for shipping (SaaS)
My role: Co-founder. Research, product design, and the commercial side: fundraising, sales, partnerships, the business model
Scale: Pilots on 80+ ships
Engagement: 90% daily response rate
Funding: $1m+ raised
First major customer: Shell Shipping & Maritime

A bulk carrier broken in two on a reef, seen from above — When ships fail, it's rarely the engine that failed first.

2017 - The blind spot

87% of accidents at sea are caused by people.

Engines have hundreds of sensors. The crew, behind nearly nine in ten accidents, had none. Safety managers told us as much: no data on how their crews were really doing.

The betMake crew wellbeing visible in real time, and safety managers get their missing instrument.

Work jackets and helmets hanging in a ship's gear room under a fluorescent light — Life on board: watch schedules, rank dynamics, and rare moments online.

2017-2018 - Going to sea

You can't design for life at sea from a desk in Copenhagen.

So we didn't assume we knew. I went aboard five ships and stayed overnight with dozens of crew, studying their work routines, life at sea, and the one thing that mattered most: when and how they actually get online.

A seafarer at his desk on board, reviewing paper prototypes of the Scoutbase questions — Paper prototypes, tested with crew at their stations.

The research

One field note became the whole product.

One detail looked minor at first: after a shift, every crew member connects to the ship's WiFi to reach the people they love. That habit, found only by being there, became the channel the whole product runs on.

2018 - The channel bet

No app. No login.

How do you ask a seafarer how they're doing, every day, without adding work? We bet on the one thing they already do: going online after a shift. The question just appears. One tap, done.

Instead ofA native app, the default startup answer. Downloads, logins and updates made it dead on arrival at sea.

The product - frontstage

Caught at the one moment crew are already online.

Connect to the ship's WiFi, answer in seconds, go online. Nothing to install.

The Scoutbase dashboard for safety managers: causes of time pressure, trends, and changes over 30 days — Backstage: the safety manager's real-time view, on land.

The product - backstage

At sea, a tap. On land, a signal.

Every answer feeds a live dashboard - wellbeing causes and trends, per ship and across the fleet.

What happened

90%

average daily response rate, sustained across the fleet.

Most crew surveys run once a year, and barely get a response. We got 90%, every single day. This is the number that made investors and Shell lean in.

A 'You're the expert' Scoutbase onboarding poster on the wall of a DFDS vessel — Trust, built in the mess room - onboarding posters aboard a DFDS vessel.

2019-2020 - Proving it at scale

A 6-month pilot across 60+ ships - growing to 80+.

Pilots at sea are their own service-design problem. Installation had to work without us aboard, and trust had to be earned rank by rank, from the captain to the newest deckhand.

2020-2021 - The market answers

Shell signed. $1m+ raised.

The pilot evidence converted. Shell Shipping & Maritime became our first major customer, and the industry's biggest players started paying attention.

My role ran well beyond design. I owned the commercial side too: investor pitches, conferences, partnerships, and the sales conversations that brought customers like Shell on board.

A ship's captain on the bridge, reviewing Scoutbase communication data on his monitor — The Scoutbase dashboard in use on the bridge.

“Knowing instantly if we have a potential issue on board - if I would not have that data, now that I am used to it, I would be a little bit lost.”

Capt. Dave CudbertsonManager Fleet Operations, Shell Shipping & Maritime

Looking back

What four years building this taught me

The reward was turning research into something real. Not a report of insights left on a shelf, but a product people actually use, built on what we learned at sea. Years on, Shell still runs it across close to a hundred vessels. The proof is in the pudding.

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