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Viral TikTok video sails Maryland CEO's app into new wave of success

Posted at 7:32 PM, Jan 19, 2023
and last updated 2023-01-20 02:29:53-05

His goal for years, was to promote his boater navigation app and now he's navigating a whole new wave of success.

The success is all thanks to a viral TikTok post by his daughter Megan that's new now moving through millions of phone screens and hearts.

The seconds-long video was an honest snapshot of the father chasing his dream that would birth a dream itself.

"It's a whole different playing field after this past weekend," said Jeff Foulk, the CEO of Argo, a navigation app.

He spent years trying to crack code to attract new users to the app he created years ago.

"It's a little be like Waze, Yelp and Facebook or a social platform all thrown into one but very much boater centric," Foulk shared.

The app was a golden idea that he worked hard to perfect hoping word of mouth would do the trick, but his biggest cheerleader stepped in from the sideline and hit a home run.

"My daughter posted that video and the overwhelming support we got was just incredible," Foulk shared.

"He didn't know I took the video. I showed him at 100 likes and he was like okay, I showed him at 1000 likes and he was like okay. Then it just kept going," Foulk's daughter Megan recalled.

The numbers exploded until they looked up millions viewed the video among thousand who shared and commented on it.

"It was the views but when it started translating to downloads and emails, it wasn't a million, it was several million," Foulk explained.

The CEO, then, had a good problem on his hands.

"The app could not handle the number of downloads and number of people. I told me developers I thought we were ready for this they said yea we were ready for the boating season. We weren’t ready for Tic Tok to send in millions and millions of people all at one time," he said.

17.5 million views later, the app has hit number 1 for navigation in the Apple app store, doubled in downloads and has more than 15,000 5-star reviews all in just 4 days.

"I hope my dad can take a moment and just feel really proud of himself," said Megan Foulk.

He's taking that moment in now, but it's a spark to what he hopes will fuel a movement from right here in Maryland that sets sail world-wide.

"I never thought I would get every boater, but if I got every boater in this Marina using the Argo app, I would be absolutely thrilled," he said.

Captain Foulk and his family hopes more people will download the free app and try out their premium version that offers extended features for $20/year.

For more information on how you can support Argo, visit here.