SeaAhead Catches up with Kevin Rosa of Current Lab

Image courtesy of Dave from Allegro Photography

BlueSwell’s Cohort III has officially completed its fourth week! While developing their individual strategies for success, each startup focuses on a different theme each week. Week 3 was customer discovery.  

Customer discovery isn’t about selling to a customer; a product or service must solve a real problem for people. Customer discovery involves gathering real-time feedback about who’s implementing your solution and how they’re doing it. This information can be used to hone your business model.  

For our first interview with Cohort III’s startups, we caught up with Kevin Rosa, founder of Current Lab. Current Lab creates high detail forecasts using the ocean’s currents, temperature, and other data points to improve the efficiency and safety of maritime operations. Current Lab’s system is mostly used by professional sailing teams, but Kevin is exploring how to make this valuable data available to more stakeholders. In other words…he’s hoping to discover new customers.

SeaAhead: Describe Current Lab in a nutshell.

Kevin: Current Lab does ocean forecasting. We create “weather maps” of the ocean’s currents and temperature at higher detail and accuracy than what’s publicly available. Current Lab’s system is like a weather forecast for the ocean – we use data and physics and supercomputing to run forecast models that show users the ocean conditions for the upcoming hours or days.

SeaAhead: Did the idea for Current Lab come in a flash of inspiration or did it build over time?

Kevin: A lot of what Current Lab does came out of my PhD research, but I also grew up in Rhode Island surrounded by the sailing, fishing, and Naval industries. I fell in love with physics in college, particularly a branch called classical mechanics. It’s the sort of physics Newton worked on - things that you can visualize in your mind like planetary orbits and cannonball trajectories. I was working on boats after college when I learned about physical oceanography, which is basically applying classical mechanics to the ocean. 

I went to grad school for oceanography and I got interested in coding and decided to focus my research on using supercomputers to simulate the ocean. The first computer ocean model I built was Narragansett Bay, which is where I’m from. One of the first people who contacted me was actually a scientist studying lobster larvae who wanted to use my data to figure out how currents carry the larvae to Narragansett Bay. 

SeaAhead: Had you ever considered that kind of application for your model?

Kevin: I was surprised there weren’t more ways for scientists to get access to this kind of data. These ocean models aren’t just useful for physicists. It’s for biologists, or chemists, or anyone who can use it. If even fellow oceanographers don’t know what the currents are doing, then probably other potential end-users don’t either.

SeaAhead: When did you decide to pursue Current Lab full time? 

Kevin: I was offered a job at a blue tech startup in Silicon Valley who wanted me to come run their ocean modeling. I nearly took it, but then, I had the realization that if I’m going to gamble on a startup, I’d rather bet on myself. I’d gotten a few contracts forecasting currents for professional sailing teams – including Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics – and decided to go all in. I quit my job and have been full time at Current Lab for over a year now. 

SeaAhead: How have your priorities changed in the past year?  

Kevin: Initially, I was focused mainly on the professional sailing market. But this past year, I’ve done more customer interviews and discovered how valuable this technology could be towards solving big problems like reducing emissions in shipping and assisting offshore wind development. 

SeaAhead: What feedback have you heard from potential customers or partners that was surprising?  

Kevin: It’s been surprising how little folks are incorporating ocean data today. I assumed they had tools like this already. Companies are dropping experimental autonomous vehicles into the water, and they don’t know how much they’ll need to correct for currents or where the vehicle will drift if it dies.  

Tug and barge companies recognize that currents are a huge issue for them because they’re pulling slow, heavy barges through strong tides. But they’re not really using software to tell them the best route or what time they should depart to burn the least fuel. I haven’t seen good solutions yet that have been adopted by that industry.  

SeaAhead: Which other BlueSwell founders are you most excited to learn from? 

Kevin: Cooper van Vranken from Ocean Data Network is collecting really valuable data that could feed into Current Lab’s forecast models one day.  

I’m also excited to learn more from Sara Remsen at Fathom. She’s already founded a successful company and has valuable insight and connections.  

SeaAhead: What challenges have you encountered that are specific to bluetech, and do they bring any unique opportunities? 

Kevin: Bluetech is a lot less developed than many tech areas. I think you have a much better opportunity to make a much bigger impact as an early-stage company. 

SeaAhead: What are some upcoming advancements in bluetech that you’re excited about?   

Kevin: I’m excited about the upcoming offshore wind projects in the Northeast US and all of the jobs and innovation that industry will bring. There’s also a new ocean-observing satellite being launched in a few months that will provide a highly detailed picture of open ocean currents which I plan to incorporate into Current Lab’s forecast system. Autonomous vehicles and satellite data collection are so valuable because sending humans out to the middle of the ocean is too expensive and inefficient and is why we’ve been data deficient for so long.  

Of course, data collection is essential but we also need to turn that data into better forecasts, which is where Current Lab comes in. 

BlueSwell was designed to help founders like Kevin find their value propositions in early markets in preparation of scalling their ventures for impact and investment. If you would like to learn more about Current Lab’s uses for your industry, please reach out to info@current-lab.com. Turn in later this month when we talk to the next cohort member about building their go-to-market strategy!

Interview by Madeline Upson, Marketing Lead at SeaAhead.