Sustainable Ships Extended Version
The detailed value proposition of Sustainable Ships - a look under the hood
Sustainable Ships is a tool store for maritime sustainability. Our goal is to make a shipowner’s life easier. We do this by providing cost-effective, ship-specific tools and insights on regulations and decarbonization measures. This begs the question, what are tools?
Tools can be anything, for example interactive webtools, downloadable Excel sheets or PDF guides; as long as they are easy-to-use and fast. In their core, they are information presented in a way to save time and money for a user. So who is that user?
Grossly speaking we have two types of users: shipowners and suppliers. We have defined shipowners as anyone who works in a company that owns vessels, and suppliers as anyone who provides a service to a shipowner. At its core it is supply and demand, with one key driver clearly surfacing when you speak to either shipowner or supplier.
The ultimate client in our industry is always the shipowner who is concerned about one thing: compliance to (decarbonization) regulations. Using our tools, we make on demand insights what the shipowner has to do in terms of compliance, what he can do in terms of decarbonization, and most importantly - what it will cost. These insights are at a feasibility study or conceptual design level, intended for longer-term decision making.
With these insights we refer to our partners who can provide a budget quote to validate our price indications, and can continue with the detailed design if needed, without referral fees as to ensure the usage of our tools and the ecosystem. Our value is to simplify a complex problem, and smoothen the sales process from inception to budget quote.
This blog elaborates on the opportunities, problems clients are facing, what we offer to solve our clients’ problems, who we are, business model including cash flow, and what sets us apart. Contact the helpdesk at any time to get in touch about collaboration opportunities.
The Cause
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We are driven by passion. A strong desire to do good in this world and help other shipowners to make the maritime industry sustainable. That is what ‘floats our boat’ at Sustainable Ships. This strong conviction is translated into what we call “our Cause”. It is a collection of the problems we are facing, our vision of a future without these problems, the role we play in solving those problems and the values that guide us while working towards that future.
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We provide “First Aid for Sustainability”. On demand and cost-effective insights, i.e. feasibility studies and roadmaps for companies and shipowners who do not have the time or manpower to do it themselves. We are the first step in a shipowner’s sustainability journey, or the first ones to go to when you need help sustainalizing.
To make it on demand and cost-effective, we use tools that provide instant reporting. We call this trick “tool + click = report”. Learn more in the ‘Our Role’ section.
2. The Non-Negotiables
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Clear non-negotiables are the rules everyone in the organization adheres to in order to achieve the cause. They provide clear guidelines and rules for the organization to operate in. They are the framework and basis for cooperation. They embody the ideals and values of the organization and ensure members have a sense of purpose. When you have clear non-negotiables as an organization, all your members know what to do and have a common goal.
Other words for the non-negotiables could be organizational principles, company rules or “commandments”. They prescribe simply how to behave in certain situations and - importantly - will prevent discussions as they are ‘non-negotiable’. The magic word is expectation management, inside and outside the organization.
3. The Plan
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The plan is considered the roadmap of our organization, both for the short and long-term. It is subject to constant change, as we confirm or reject value hypotheses. However, we remain committed to the maritime industry in the coming years, as it provides us with a great niche that applies itself well for business opportunity. Marketplace and/or ‘Spotify’ elements have been and are still being considered, but these should come after a client based consultancy with financing opportunity has been established. Click here for more.
Sustainable Ships has a continuous roadmap that consists of yearly and quarterly goals, backed by monthly or weekly actions. Yearly plans make an organization less flexible however, as the lessons learned throughout the year can make targets set at the beginning obsolete (see No Rules Rules). We therefore focus on quarterly goals and not yearly per se.
The basic necessity remains to get the desired ecosystem started. For that we need a mix between shipowners' demand (questions) and suppliers' supply (budget quotes).
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Our prime directive is to create interdependent, decentralized cash-flow by ‘productizing’ and breaking down existing consultancy practices. For example, the Decarbonizer is a way for shipowners to receive ‘first aid’ on decarbonizing their vessel. We give this away as a freemium until further notice, to act as a lure for shipowners to start their sustainability journey on our platform. We are the only ones providing this service for free anywhere in the world.
Our principles and practices are described in Rule 6, but focus almost solely on ensuring fixed-cost products and services at a low price and high volume.
We currently adhere to a Freemium 4 price tier model, as stated in pricing. These are:
(1) Freemium
(2) Sailor (entry level subscription)
(3) Captain (currently unused)
(4) Admiral (specials, enterprise and custom toolbuilding)
These tiers are subject to continuous change and we need to determine the best price fits for our markets in the future. We continue to provide a no-cure no-pay model for suppliers as that is what they need, and we also provide a pay-per-use for all our products as many clients do not require a subscription.
Proof and Validation
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The below statements are under new consideration due to the Market Readiness Program, which will continue until Q3 2024.
Current developments seem to point out our value hypotheses are being validated. This is reflected in the increase in our traffic and client feedback.
Platform traffic
We have had a significant visitors growth on our website, approaching 10.000 unique visitors per month. These are mainly attracted to specific blogs, rules and regulations. We noticed it takes about a year before our content is high on search engines’ charts. We are just getting started and are now thinking of ways to monetize these visitors in the form of smaller tools, e-books and other content. In any case, we see the growth of visitors as a validation of our hypotheses and opportunity for decentralized, cost-fixed growth, in addition to a source of knowing what clients want.
As a warning note, it should be remarked that platform traffic remain ‘vanity metrics’, i.e. a result of work that we do but not a metric we control directly.
Client Feedback
In addition to the traffic - which only now gets monetized - we have acquired a multitude of respectable clients in only a matter of months. In some cases, our conversion speed has been a matter of days for large corporate clients, which is highly unusual. Furthermore, we see our conversion rate is in the order of 80%, but only once we have sat down with them to show them our products. Additionally, these clients - shipowners - do not provide recurring revenue and most of them reach out to their suppliers, as this is a conservative market. This tells us that our online, standalone message is not yet sufficient enough for conversion, and is also the reason we are shifting our focus towards suppliers.
4. The Crew
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We are a crew of passionate people, working in the maritime industry. We believe the maritime industry is a thing of beauty and want to share our passion to make the industry sustainable. We aim to do so by working together, reaching out to other passionate people in the maritime industry and give a voice to those who want to make more impact. A noteworthy observation, is that we strive for a partnership/cooperation construction, in which no employees are present. We thus only work with contractors and owners in order to promote accountability.
5. Frequently Asked Questions
General & Team
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We are a consultancy that provides maritime sustainability on demand, dreaming to become a platform.
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“Small” shipowners and companies without a sustainability advisor are our ultimate client, and all our work is geared towards serving them in the end. However, we see our strategy to helping these shipowners shifting towards helping suppliers, by means of a ‘come for the tool, stay for the network’ approach.
We see that our products provide value, but we do not have the authority or validity shipowners seek. In addition, the maritime industry is conservative and shipowners rather contact suppliers or their shipyards directly. Hence, we now address suppliers and provide the suppliers with the tools to help shipowners.
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Vincent Doedee is one of the longest living sustainability advisors in the maritime industry and has realized one of the largest shore power connections in the world. Due to his actions, up to 250.000 metric tons of CO2 are reduced or compensated yearly.
Currently, the team is heavily dependent on the knowledge and experience of Vincent, which he aims to learn the other team members and instil in the Decarbonizer, in order to scale our ability to helping shipowners.
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We are working on a network of preferred partners and more experts to expand our knowledge base. You can find a list of our current preferred partners here.
As stated, we are now in the process of reaching out to suppliers directly, in order to provide them with tools.
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Governance and organization structure is described here.
At the moment, the organization is legally owned by Vincent Doedee as a ZZP entity in the Netherlands.
As soon as our turnover exceeds €100k, we will transition into a B.V. or cooperation.
Once we have the correct network and culture in place and the helpdesk is finished, we strive to build a DAO or similar for the platform, in line with our values and desire for a fair, decentralized world.
Market & Opportunity
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(2023) In addition to the below, it was recently stipulated by the Dutch Refit Alliance that the average vessel would require at least €4M in terms of retrofitting. This would set the Total Addressable Market for all ships (100.000+) at 400 billion euros.
(2022) In terms of sustainalizing vessels, market cap is in the range of €1.000.000 (5 reports for 1% of 100.000 vessels). This should serve as feed money for extended and ‘evergreen’ platform services, on which all kinds of tools and services can be shared by any company or person.
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Shipowners are facing some serious challenges in terms of decarbonization, as can be seen in this blog.
The ‘maritime sustainability market’ is still in its infancy though, and many shipowners or maritime players still need a lot (!) of help in their sustainable journey.
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For ease of calculation, we assume there are approximately 100.000 vessels in the world. Most of these vessels are owned by small shipping companies or single shipowners (for instance with the binnenvaart in the Netherlands).
Of these smaller players, virtually no one has access to a sustainability advisor or has the money to pay for elaborate decarbonization reporting.
We aim for quantity over quality. We target the large majority of smaller shipowners ‘with a small wallet’.
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For decarbonization purposes, we assume 3 to 5 reports/concept designs can be sold per customer. This equals €600 to €1.000 of value.
After the helpdesk phase, we assume we can provide tools and services similar to those provided by DNV for approximately €200 to €400 per month.
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Assuming 1000 customers per year, that would surmount to €1.000.000 maximum.
Assuming 1000 customers per year in the post-helpdesk phase who are subscribed, that would surmount to €4.800.000 maximum.
Solution and customer base
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The Decarbonizer is infinitely scaleable in its finished form, as it would require no intervention by humans.
The helpdesk is marginally scaleable if we assume it has to be manned by human.
The helpdesk is extremely scaleable if we assume that shipowners can help each other answer questions and we program an AI to answer basic questions, such as GP-3.
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Frequently heard feedback includes:
“There must be a great demand for this service”
“This tool is amazing” (… while clicking and analyzing for up to half an hour)
Or, our best feedback we have received so far:
“Yeah, this seems about correct” (a conservative shipowner of a small vessel)
Competitive landscape
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The Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping.
Sustainable Ships will provide exactly the same service, but you don’t have to pay €25.000 euro for a single report and a pretty PowerPoint from a consultant.
Our competitors are very expensive for most shipowners. We provide a freemium model, orders of magnitude more cost-effective than competitors.
In addition we consider business model and pricing features we're nearly certain competitors cannot ideologically build but our users would love. Our main feature would be a revenue sharing principle with suppliers. This is very hard to copy, or compete with.
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The biggest difference - besides the fact that we are at least 100 times cheaper than everyone else - is that everyone can make money on the platform.
Our goal is to make a place where everyone - shipowners, individuals, companies - can create, share and make money on content to make the maritime industry sustainable. Similar to Spotify, where there are artists and listeners, we aim to create a ‘sustainable space’ for artists and listeners.
This is unique in the maritime industry and has never been done before.
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Depending on how you view the helpdesk/platform, the answer would be that there is no one doing what we are doing. The whole reason we set up the helpdesk was because there is none.
Sure, there are plenty of others who can do it or who are actually providing similar services, for example the Maersk/McKinney centre. These focus on large clients and fleets however, and do not provide much help for the average shipowner. They are also working on marketplaces, for example veracity. These are interesting developments but as far as we can tell, these stores operate with a different business model and focus and do not provide the freemium tools we envision.
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Maersk/Mckinney - expensive, large clients, very knowledgeable
DNV/Veracity - expensive, large clients, very knowledgeable, no instant access
Technology and roadmap
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We strive for flexibility, decentralization and believe in collaboration. That is why we use open-source tools or philosophies wherever possible.
At the moment, we rely heavily on Squarespace, Notion, Grid and Tidio. These applications are used to provide the online helpdesk environment.
In the future, when we transition towards a platform, we will shift towards a more developer-heavy organization in which we strive to build everything ourselves as much as possible.
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We believe in collaboration and aim to make a platform on which everyone can make money and share knowledge on sustainability. That might lead one to think that there is no proprietary technology involved, which is mostly the case in the current helpdesk phase.
However, it is not the technology behind the platform at the moment, but the type, amount, structure and access to specific information that will be the key distinguishing factor.
In the end, the customer will pay for the access to the information, tools, people and companies that are active on the platform. On top of that, they can make money by sharing said content.
In Dutch we say “geen gezeik iedereen rijk”, which loosely translates to “everyobdy happy”.
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No. There are plenty of other companies who have more information, IP, better technologies and whatnot. From a technological standpoint, we do not have a clear advantage. There is one thing however that gives us a cutting edge over everyone else.
We focus on access to information, not the technology behind sustainalizing a vessel or the industry. We simply collect and provide the tools for shipowners to become more sustainable. We do not care which tools, as long as they work.
This is sometimes called the pickaxe-theory, which refers to the organizations that provide the marketplace or tools on which others can sell.
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In all fairness, we might not be the best. But, in addition to us being humble, we have an advantage over other well-established companies.
We are the cheapest.
There is no other party in the marine industry who can do what we do for the price that we offer. In fact, we wanted to decrease our prices even further, but that worked adversely because people did not believe it.
The marine industry works with outdated business models that do not make it suitable for established players to do what we do: make a platform with very cheap tools that anyone can use to make money with. It simply does not cross marine peoples mind, and that might exactly be the reason why we are well equipped to do this, not best.
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At the moment, we are highly dependent on the internet. In addition, we are highly dependent on Squarespace, and moderately dependent on Tidio and Notion. Other dependencies exist (like Microsoft Office environment etc.) but this is similar to dependencies in any other organization.
Our philosophy going forward would be more and more to ‘do it ourselves’. Or better yet, to be able to do it ourselves. That means thinking in interdependencies and creating our own CMS, helpdesk software etc. We believe that the ability to create such things will lead to more flexibility and help our crew to build the skills needed for the future. This is very far ahead in time however.
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The software applications we use now (Squarespace, Tidio, Grid and Notion) allow us to work very fast and adept. We have already achieved MVPs of several tools (Decarbonizer, Shore Power, Peakshaving, etc.) and each tool will lead to faster lead times for other tools.
At the moment, the only true milestones we foresee are the development of tools for each of the technologies listed in the Decarbonizer. These are for the most part:
Batteries
Hydrogen
Shore power
Alternative Fuels
Policy, Rules & Regulations
Wind Propulsion
Floating Solar
Methanol
Ammonia
Time/money permitting we will include all other methods of reducing carbon emissions where possible.
Financial projections and investment need
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See our section about cash flow in part 3.
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(2023-06-18) Currently we have 6 paying customers, four of which are subscriptions worth €899 (or more) per month. Check out the Notion Projects database for more information.
(2022-04-01) We have 2 non-paying clients at the moment and about 2/3 general questions per week on the platform.
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De nada. We like to bootstrap where possible, but one of our core values is collaboration. As such, we believe there might be investors with whom we can work together and create a win-win.
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We estimate that we need about €15.800 per tool and to have the helpdesk manned for a year for this tool. At the moment however, we bootstrap our tools according to the demands from our clients. More money would mean a faster execution of the roadmap. The same work would still need to be done however.
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You can view all these in the tool above. You can use the tool to properly understand the sensitivities, price assumptions etc.
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We would need in the order of €158.000 to build the entire suite of tools and man the platform for a year. This would be the maximum investment requirement. Depending on your preferences, we can discuss whether this is something you wish to fund, or whether you wish to fund smaller parts of this investment (for instance a single tool).
The problems our world and our clients face.