NAVAN

Visited Navan's SF office last month. Here's what actually stood out:

Navan's real customer isn't the traveler, it's the CFO approving the budget. That shift in who you design for changes everything about the product.

Three concrete things I learned:

→ AVA, their AI travel assistant, handles booking requests end-to-end. The team is laser-focused on customer satisfaction scores as the north star metric, not just bookings completed.

→ Their GTM playbook starts with suppliers (hotels, airlines), not end users. Lock in the supply side first, then scale demand. That's how they compete with legacy OTAs.

→ IPO readiness is shaping every product decision right now, Navan Edge and AVA aren't just features, they're the story they'll tell public markets.

Big thank you to Oliver Stahlmann, Senior Director of GTM Strategy & Analytics at Navan, for the candid conversation. You made a room of grad students think like operators.

And shoutout to NC State Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Master of Engineering Management to make Silicon Valley trip happen.