# Scoutbase > A maritime SaaS startup I co-founded to improve the well-being of seafarers, turning crew sentiment into actionable insight for shipping companies. I built and scaled it from 0 to 1 over four years. **Question:** How do you protect the well-being of workers at sea? **Tags:** Startup, Maritime, SaaS **Focus:** Founder **Case study:** https://www.sebastian-nause-blueml.com/scoutbase.html --- ## Four years at sea. Scoutbase, from one founding insight to 80+ ships, Shell, and a 90% daily response rate. *Cover image: A seafarer in high-visibility workwear walking the deck of a cargo vessel.* ## 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 ## 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 bet:** Make crew wellbeing visible in real time, and safety managers get their missing instrument. *Image caption: When ships fail, it's rarely the engine that failed first. (A bulk carrier broken in two on a reef, seen from above.)* ## 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. *Image caption: Life on board: watch schedules, rank dynamics, and rare moments online. (Work jackets and helmets hanging in a ship's gear room under a fluorescent light.)* ## 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. *Image caption: Paper prototypes, tested with crew at their stations. (A seafarer at his desk on board, reviewing paper prototypes of the Scoutbase questions.)* ## 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 of:** A 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. *Image caption: Frontstage: one or two questions when crew go online - 100% anonymous. (The Scoutbase crew popup on a phone: a short anonymous question with one-tap answers.)* ## 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. *Image caption: Backstage: the safety manager's real-time view, on land. (The Scoutbase dashboard for safety managers: causes of time pressure, trends, and changes over 30 days.)* ## 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. ## 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. *Image caption: Trust, built in the mess room - onboarding posters aboard a DFDS vessel. (A "You're the expert" Scoutbase onboarding poster on the wall of a DFDS vessel.)* ## 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. ## Quote "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 Cudbertson**, Manager Fleet Operations, Shell Shipping & Maritime *Image caption: The Scoutbase dashboard in use on the bridge. (A ship's captain on the bridge, reviewing Scoutbase communication data on his monitor.)* ## 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.