Revolutionizing Sailing Experiences with IoT: The GoSaily Case Study
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Private Cloud
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Equipment & Machinery
- Marine & Shipping
Applicable Functions
- Maintenance
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Building Automation & Control
- Time Sensitive Networking
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Training
About The Customer
GoSaily is a web app that serves a community of sailing enthusiasts. It connects private sailboat owners to sailor crews through a two-way marketplace. The platform allows sailors and boat owners to start personal connections and become “friends”, share messages in their private chat, ask or offer advice about sailing gears and equipment, and post, reply, and comment on a brand-new community forum. The platform also allows users to post ads for boat rentals with or without a captain. The users of GoSaily are primarily private sailboat owners and sailors who are looking for a sailing experience or want to charter a boat without a captain.
The Challenge
GoSaily, a web app that connects private sailboat owners to sailor crews, was initially built with code in 2015. However, the founders, Stefano Failla and Paola Ginella, faced challenges in maintaining the platform due to high costs and time-consuming processes. The Italian sailboat market was relatively small, and GoSaily had to compete with well-funded competitors who were willing to invest heavily in web and social media marketing. The platform had gained a niche in the market, but the business model was not economically viable. The founders were looking for a solution that could reduce the running costs of the platform while maintaining the same number of features that GoSaily users already had. In 2018, due to personal reasons and lack of time, the founders decided to temporarily close GoSaily and switched to a simpler Wordpress site for promoting their local sailing activities.
The Solution
In 2017, the founders decided to convert GoSaily to a no-code platform using Bubble. Bubble offered advanced no-code functionality and the right architecture that allowed them to build their app and scale. It took them three months to rebuild all the features already existing in GoSaily. The platform was relaunched in 2020 with significant changes to the business model and many new features. Instead of following a two-sided marketplace model with complex money management activities, they switched to a basic subscription model where all user accounts were free of charge, and only boats listed had to pay a small fee for a yearly subscription. They also added features like an internal chat available for sailors “friends”, the friendship connections, the gear and equipment expert advice section, the crew ads, and the new sailor community forum.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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