Johnny Drummond
AI-Native Developer · Solo Founder, Xplor.io
Based in Mallorca, Spain · CET / GMT+1
Built the largest independent canonical yacht database outside the industry's incumbents — integrating 10 major brokerages and triangulating cross-broker provenance on 5,500+ listings — as a solo developer using an AI-native workflow.
Founder and sole engineer of xplor.io, a B2B yacht charter discovery platform shipped end-to-end over 18 months on Nuxt 3 / Vue 3 / TypeScript / Supabase / Vercel. Before this, 20+ years as a superyacht captain — which is where the product instincts come from.
Platform
Largest independent canonical yacht database outside YATCO and Boat International
Architecture
AI-first: Claude API, pgvector + HNSW, intent extraction
Domain
20+ years maritime leadership translated to product development
Stack
Full-stack TypeScript on Nuxt 3, Vue 3, Supabase, Vercel
Platform Built
View liveFounder & Solo Developer
2024 – PresentXplor · xplor.io · Mallorca, Spain
12,757+
Vessels
10
Leading Brokerages
1,055+
Broker Orgs
18
Months
A full-production B2B SaaS platform for the luxury yacht charter industry — built solo, from zero, with Claude Code as primary IDE partner, Cursor secondary, custom MCP tooling for repeated workflows. AI-first architecture with semantic search, natural language intent extraction, automated broker discovery, and intelligent proposal generation.
- –Built the largest independent canonical yacht database outside YATCO and Boat International: 12,757+ unique yachts with broker-claim provenance tracking
- –Integrated inventory from 10 of the global yacht industry's leading brokerages — YATCO (25-year-old industry MLS, integration in progress), Burgess, Edmiston, Fraser, Northrop & Johnson, Camper & Nicholsons, Ocean Independence, Y.CO, Bernard Gallay, Arthaud Yachting — covering ~33,000 cross-broker listings
- –First platform to triangulate 9 of the world's highest-value yachts across 6+ independent broker sources (TITANIA, SHERAKHAN, SuRi, LADY BRITT, Spirit, VERTIGE, TRIUMPH, SEVEN SINS, Asahi)
- –Built broker registry of 1,055+ verified brokerage organizations via a custom sitemap-driven extraction pipeline
- –Implemented pgvector semantic search with HNSW indexing — natural-language queries like "70m+ in the Med next August under $500k/wk" resolve in milliseconds
- –Engineered a canonical-matching layer with length-gate disambiguation, preventing cross-yacht data corruption at 30K+ URL scale
- –Multi-role RBAC across five user types: owners, brokers, crew, charter clients, admin
- –Shipped MessagingHub: 40+ modular Vue components, real-time Supabase subscriptions, reactions, replies, read receipts, file attachments
- –Shipped Charter Hub: per-section locking, DocuSign contract signing, guest travel coordination, activity voting
- –Built a Three.js radial spatial canvas at /marina-v1 rendering 2,265 yachts in real-time as an interactive discovery surface
- –Integrated production-grade rails: Stripe Connect, DocuSign webhooks with signed-PDF dispatch, Postmark transactional email, AIS Stream live vessel tracking
- –Voice-input layer (useVoiceSearch.ts) for AI-powered natural-language search
- –Instagram Platform API integration — Meta App Review approved for instagram_business_basic
- –3% referral revenue share on completed charters routed to central agents — positioned as a tool for brokers, not a replacement
Technical Architecture
AI & APIs
Claude Code, Cursor, Claude API (Anthropic)
Frontend
Nuxt 3, Vue 3, TypeScript
Backend & Data
Supabase, PostgreSQL, Row Level Security
Infrastructure & Services
Vercel, Stripe, Postmark
Approach
- –Ship-first.Prototype in hours, refine in days, deploy in real time.
- –AI-native, not AI-dependent.Claude Code primary, Cursor secondary, custom MCP servers for repeated workflows. Comfortable writing from scratch when the task calls for it.
- –Founder-level ownership.I treat every codebase like it's mine — because it usually is.
- –Remote-native.Mallorca (GMT+2), async-fluent, all timezones.
Previous Venture
Founder & CEO
Sept 2021 – Jan 2024Ourworld Meta · Blockchain / Web3
Founded and led a blockchain startup developing an NFT exchange platform, built around a founding mission of directing the majority of profits to environmental causes.
Maritime Career
Charter and owner trips across the US East Coast, Bahamas and Caribbean.
Full operational responsibility: navigation, safety, refit management, budgeting, accounting, payroll, insurances, customs and immigration. Concurrently managed charter and sale of S/Y Zenji (2011–2013).
Worldwide itinerary; refit management; led purchase of S/Y Asahi for the owner in 2011.
Worldwide itinerary; refit management; led sale of Santa Maria and her tenders for the owner.
Maintenance, navigation, safety and refit management.
Installation, maintenance and commissioning of all mechanical components; assistant to Chief Mechanical Engineer.
Qualifications & Education