Pocket radar: a Filipino second mate with 100K followers turned his audience into a ₱999 collision-avoidance practice app

Marine Radar Lab is a marine radar / ARPA plus bridge simulator on Android for seafarers and cadets to practice collision avoidance. Launched in Oct 23, and got 2,338 installs in two weeks. The number isn't big; what's worth looking at is where it came from: almost entirely the audience the founder built over the years doing maritime education. The product itself has existed for ages; what no one can copy is the audience he has.

"The ship is moving, the targets are moving, and there is no pause button."

On the morning of Oct 5 2026, at 9:30, Filipino second mate Edwin Conag posted a long piece on his Facebook, opening with "I have to admit… I'm proud of this one."

He describes a scene every seafarer recognizes: cadets and people aiming for senior officer roles know COLREG (the international collision regulations) cold, can talk CPA, TCPA and relative motion, but freeze when they sit in front of a real radar. School simulators are expensive and hard to book, and once you're on a ship the responsibility is suddenly real. "The ship is moving. The targets are moving. And there is no pause button." His solution: put a radar simulator in every seafarer's pocket, so they can practice at home, during rest time, or while waiting for the next contract.

Two days later, on Oct 7, he posted again in the seafarer group "Maritime Sense," titled "We heard you": several cadets had messaged him that it was too expensive and they couldn't afford it, so the personal version would be cheaper. The post ended by adding that at launch, 10 active fans would be randomly picked to receive a Master tier, and asked everyone to like, comment and share. Under the post there were only 6 reactions and 2 comments, one of which was just two words: "How much".

Half a month later, the app went live on Google Play.

What it is

Open the app and you're already on a night watch in the Singapore Strait: lights from other ships outside the window, a small radar map in the corner, the wheel and engine telegraph at hand. Switch to the radar station, where gain, sea / rain clutter suppression, EBL and VRM are all knobs you can turn, with two EBLs and two VRMs. Use the trackball to put the cursor on an echo, press L to acquire the target, and you see its CPA, TCPA and BCR, with an alarm when it crosses the limits you set. Turn your ship and watch whether it passes ahead or astern. At the end of a watch you get a debrief sheet showing the closest a ship came to you on that watch: 0.10 nautical miles, too close, run it again. (Official site marineradarlab.seamanapp.com, 11-06)

The practice content includes 41 DECIDE encounter scenarios (crossing, head-on, overtaking, restricted visibility), scored against your watch log; 263 light-signal practice drills; and three "pilot-to-pilot" routes: Gibraltar, the Singapore Strait, Manila to Hong Kong. The top MASTER tier also lets a voice crew member hear your helm orders.

The opening block on the official site, "Sound familiar?", lists the pain points concretely: school simulators are shared with classmates and run out after a few scenarios; training centers may give you a single day on the machine; senior officers are busy with cargo and paperwork, and some won't let cadets touch the equipment at all; and at sea you can't afford to make mistakes. The page also states clearly that it is a practice tool, not accredited training, does not count as sea time, and cannot replace your radar / ARPA course.

It is made by Simplified Maritime, a maritime training brand in the Philippines that originally ran online courses and a membership community, and has now merged into Seaman App, an app meant to cover a seafarer's entire career. Radar Lab is the first product from this suite to launch on its own, and the next one, Marine Steering Lab (helm), has already been teased.

Where the installs came from: a second mate with 100k followers

Edwin Conag 的 TikTok 账号叫 @eaconag,昵称「2/O Conag」(2/O 就是二副),11-06 有 105,196 个粉丝、累计 205 万个赞、517 条视频。他的老视频是 COLREG 科普,播放最高的一条是 2023 年 11 月的「Is Starboard to Starboard allowed?」(右舷对右舷会船行不行),446 万播放;另一条「How to become a seaman」(怎么当海员)230 万。品牌的 Facebook 主页 Simplified Maritime 有 20.9 万粉。

The app was "serialized" in front of this audience:

(TikTok data from 11-06 scraping; Facebook posts are from public pages)

The Simplified Maritime page is also posting a short-video series, "Marine Radar Lab Part 1–21."

The pattern is clear: posts about the new product got from a few thousand to 58k views, far below his million-view hits. The installs came from people who already followed him; the content did not break out of that circle. I found no paid ads, media coverage or Reddit discussion, and nobody mentioned it on X in 30 days. Not appearing in the ad libraries doesn't mean there was no paid spend.

What the numbers look like

(Google Play install counts jump every two or three days; don't read too much into a single day's number)

It sold two or three hundred installs a day in its first week, mostly from its fan base. After 11-04 it dropped to fifty to a hundred a day. It charted only once: the Philippines Education Top Free chart, where it ranked #55 on 11-06. That chart is easy to get onto, and a few dozen installs a day can push you up it. No ratings, no reviews, never on Top Grossing. How much it actually sold is impossible to tell from the outside.

How it gets paid: designed around an overseas seafarer's wallet

This is the part most worth copying from the whole thing.

Early pre-sale buyers found the price too high, and he publicly cut it. The site now sells OOW Lifetime (OOW = Officer of the Watch): ₱999 one-time purchase, about $17. No subscription, no renewal, two devices, works offline for up to 6 months (no internet on a ship). The page says "Selling until Nov 30 2026", which is a nudge to buy now. More routes, inland waterways, and voice crew require the MASTER subscription in the app, and you need OOW Lifetime first. Play in-app prices run $6.99 to $99.99.

The payment method was also deliberately designed. The first line of the buy page asks: "Can't pay through Google Play from abroad?" Seafarers on ships abroad often have a Play account and payment method from different countries, and purchases get declined. So the web page takes PayMongo QR Ph: GCash, Maya, or any bank app scan. Enter the Gmail you use on Play when paying, then log into the app with the same Gmail and your access unlocks. If scanning is too much, DM the Facebook page and staff will activate it manually.

The other side is institutions: the site says crewing agencies and maritime schools can talk about seats, and they're building Instructor Tools. The individual price is set very low; the money is in MASTER subscriptions and B2B.

Who it's competing with

Similar tools already exist, but they're all small:

Maritime Master - Radar says it best. Similar features, done carefully, but after more than half a year live it has only 3 US ratings. The difference is Radar Lab has a second mate with 100k followers behind it. One practical point: most seafarers from the Philippines and Indonesia use Android, so Radar Lab was right to launch there first. The site says the iPhone version is "coming soon"; once iOS ships, the two will go head to head.

If it were you

C You can learn a playbook from this, but the thing itself can't be copied: two thousand-plus installs in two weeks came from a second mate's years of building 100k seafarer followers, which a copycat can't get. Product-wise, similar tools already existed and nobody knew about them without an audience. Maritime Master - Radar already tried that.

Who it suits People already in a licensed profession who have built an audience: seafarers, pilots, electricians, nurses, heavy equipment operators, with tens of thousands of peer followers. Follow his path: spend a few years on free educational content, then build a "hands-on practice" tool that peers are willing to pay for.

Who it doesn't suit Developers with no industry background or audience, who hope organic app store traffic will carry a maritime simulator. The Filipino seafarer niche already has someone holding it with an audience, and the US iOS app shows that a product alone won't take off.

How to do it Change the profession or the country; don't just copy seafarer radar. Look for professions where certification requires hands-on practice that's hard to schedule (seafarers in India and Indonesia, flight, electrical, and crane certifications in various countries). Build a "practice tool, not certification" product. Sell a one-time purchase in local currency, priced where local learners can just afford it. If users can't pay through Play, take local e-wallets on the web and activate by Gmail. Make it work offline. Keep the individual price low and make money from higher-tier subscriptions and seats for schools and companies.

How to get users Without your own account, partner with someone who has one, through revenue share or equity. Serialize the content like he did: a month before launch, post development updates, recruit beta testers, open pre-sales, run giveaways of premium tiers. When users say "too expensive," cut the price publicly; the price-cut post is itself promotion. Then post in industry Facebook groups.

When to move No rush; this isn't a window-driven business. The real timing point is his iOS release: once it's out, the Apple slot is gone too.

What would mean I misread it ① Installs rise again around the Nov 30 pre-registration deadline, Play starts collecting hundreds of reviews, or a school or crew-management company publicly signs on. That would mean the category is bigger than it looks, and copying the seafarer tool (switch the country, switch the exam) is worth serious consideration. ② The other way: if installs drop to single digits a day after November and reviews stay at zero, fan conversion has hit its ceiling. A 100K-follower account only brings in two or three thousand installs, and the "influencer plus tool" route tops out lower than it looks.

Data and sources

• Installs and charts: Google Play public figures, 10-29 to 11-06; 10-27 572 is a third-party estimate.
• Product, price, payment: homepage and buy page (marineradarlab.seamanapp.com, /buy), 11-06.
• Founder's long post: Edwin Conag's Facebook, 10-05; price-cut post: Facebook group "Maritime Sense", 10-07; pre-sale FAQ: Instagram, 10-22.
• TikTok followers, likes, and views: @eaconag, @simplifiedmaritime, scraped 11-06.
• Competitors: AntiCollision's Google Play page; Maritime Master - Radar's App Store page and launch post on Reddit r/maritime; SkipperCheck website.
• "The Philippines is the biggest seafarer exporter" is a common industry claim; not verified one by one here.