11 Years, Millions of Miles, Zero Regrets

When Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig started this journey, they had a vision to fix a broken industry. Over the last decade-plus, we’ve tracked millions of miles, navigated a global pandemic, completed several strategic acquisitions, taken the company public, and evolved alongside an industry that never stands still.

Now, as Navan celebrates its 11th anniversary, one thing has become clear: The way businesses move and spend has changed forever, because we spent those years obsessing over every point of friction in the system — learning from our customers, our missteps, and the market.

Those years of trial, error, and iteration have crystallized into 11 hard-earned lessons about where T&E is headed — lessons you can put to work for your own business.

1. Growth Requires Grit (and a Hex Key)

Scaling a global platform isn’t easy. When I joined Navan 10 years ago it was called TripActions, and we were less than 10 people. We didn’t have a “facilities team.” On my first day, I built my own IKEA desk — and we’ve been building ever since.

That DIY energy — the willingness to roll up your sleeves and solve the immediate problem — is how we grew the team to 3,000+ employees and turned going public from a pipe dream into reality.

I still think about that first IKEA desk. On listing day, it didn’t feel like an overnight success story; it felt like the natural next step for a team that just keeps showing up and building.

2. Your Tech Stack is a Reflection of Your Culture

Clunky, outdated systems don’t just slow work down — they send a message. When you make people fight “dinosaur tech” to do basic tasks, you’re telling them their time is less valuable than keeping the status quo.

When I joined as the first salesperson, I’d talk to companies that had used the same legacy travel system for 20 years. Instead of walking through a 40-page deck, I’d ask to sit with a few of their travelers and watch them try to book a trip.

It usually took them half an hour and a few emails to do something that should take two minutes.

The “aha” moment wasn’t about our product features. It was leaders seeing, in real time, how much frustration their employees had normalized — and what that said about the experience they were willing to accept for their people.

In the end, your tech stack is part of your employee experience. Every tool you choose tells your team what you value more: their output, or their time and sanity.

3. Customer Obsession Wins Loyalty

You don’t earn loyalty by making life easier for your org chart; you earn it by making life easier for your customers.

In the early days, we had a customer whose employees were using very old iPhones that couldn’t support our app which was built on the new OS. On paper, the “right” answer was to wait for a refactor or ask them to upgrade over time. Instead, we bought the entire team new iPhones. It wasn’t scalable — but it was the fastest way to remove friction for them.

We obviously can’t ship hardware to every user at our current scale. But the principle holds: put the customer’s problem ahead of your internal constraints. That mentality — being willing to stretch for the user, even when it’s uncomfortable — is what separates a true partner from a vendor. When you make their pain your problem, they remember.

4. Every Dead End Hides Your Next Breakthrough

Back in early 2020, when the world literally stopped traveling overnight, we didn’t just hunker down — we pivoted. We realized that while people weren't flying, companies still had massive “spend” problems with remote work.

Funnily enough, we always knew we’d build a payments and expense product — as it’s such a friction point for travelers — but we didn’t think we’d get there for years. We fast-tracked Navan Expense (then TripActions Liquid) in record time. I remember the energy of those Zoom calls; it wasn’t panic, it was a “huddle up” moment. We went from a travel company to a travel and fintech powerhouse because we refused to wait for the world to “get back to normal.”

We listened to the friction our users were feeling, and now we can’t imagine Navan without it.

5. The Best Technology is Invisible

Complexity is the enemy of adoption. If your travelers need a training manual to book a flight or file an expense, you’ve already failed.

When we were building the early versions of our expense product, we realized that “automation” shouldn’t mean a faster way to fill out a form — it should mean the form disappears. We spent months obsessing over the “no-touch” experience, where the system knows the spend is in policy and just handles it.

The solution is never to build a better interface for a bad process — it’s to redesign the process so the burden isn’t on the employee. If you can’t make the technology invisible to the user, you aren’t actually solving the problem; you're just digitizing the pain.

6. Build Bridges, Not Bolt‑Ons

Being an all‑in‑one platform doesn’t mean trying to replace everything your customers already rely on. The real win is when your end‑to‑end solution also plays nicely with the ecosystem around it.

For years, we told customers, “Use our card to get the magic.” Then a CFO of a massive enterprise told me, “I love the tech, but I’ve had a 30‑year relationship with my bank. I can’t just walk away.”

That conversation crystallized a bigger lesson: Long‑term partnership means meeting customers where they are, not asking them to unwind decades of relationships and infrastructure. Navan Connect came out of that mindset — an example of linking our all‑in‑one T&E platform to existing bank relationships instead of trying to rip and replace them.

The broader principle holds everywhere: Build a cohesive platform, but make it flexible enough to plug into the tools and partners your customers already trust. Build bridges between ecosystems, not walls around your own.

7. Design for the Traveler

Most companies still design around RFPs and feature checklists. At Navan, we design around one thing: the person on the road who actually has to use the product.

When we saw travelers getting stuck at check-in because a faxed credit card authorization didn’t go through, we didn’t try to make faxing slightly better. We asked, “What would make this moment effortless for the traveler?”

That’s why we built an AI agent that calls the hotel, confirms the reservation, and handles payment details automatically.

I experienced this myself last fall when my flight was delayed and my arrival slipped past midnight. Before I landed, our AI voice agent had already called the hotel to make sure my room wouldn’t be canceled.

That’s the standard: Build for the person standing at the front desk at 12:30 a.m., not for a list of features on a page.

8. Human Support Still Matters

Behind every booking is a human being trying to do their job. When things go wrong, they don’t just need software, they need someone in their corner.

During the major airline meltdowns or when a volcano erupts in Iceland, our support floor looks like a NASA control room. I’ve seen our team stay on the line for 6 hours straight just to make sure one traveler didn’t end up sleeping in a terminal.

AI helps us move faster and handle scale, but it doesn’t replace empathy. We don’t just “resolve tickets”; we get people home. That human element is a big reason our CSAT remained at 96% for the entire fiscal year 2026 — even when the travel industry is in total chaos.

9. AI Has to Do the Work, Not Just Chat

We’re moving past chatbots and into a new era of AI agents that actually get things done on your behalf.

For years, customers have told us the same thing: Travelers don’t want another interface; they want the thing handled. They care about proximity to their meetings, access to the right amenities, and a room setup that lets them rest and recharge.

That’s why we built Navan Edge as an agentic layer, not a chatbot. It uses a decade of our experience and knowledge of traveler behavior and preferences, combined with a massive inventory network, to anticipate needs and make smart decisions in the background.

I feel this every time I’m on the road. My ideal hotel is walking distance from my last meeting, has a late-night gym, and a room far from the elevator so I can actually sleep. Edge learns and acts on those patterns automatically. The goal is simple: Give every employee the kind of proactive, personalized support that used to be reserved for a handful of executives with dedicated EAs.

10. Success Is Not a Straight Line

Before joining Navan, I was looking at larger startups, but I took a “practice interview” with Ariel and Ilan and ended up staying for more than a decade.

None of that was on a five-year plan. On paper, joining a 10-person startup in a niche, broken industry made no sense. But the best decisions rarely look obvious in the moment — they just feel impossible to walk away from.

Looking back, every inflection point for Navan felt like that: a bet, not a guarantee. You don’t get to IPOs, rebrands, and reinvention by following a straight line. You get there by being willing to take the next ambitious swing.

11. When Your Product Becomes a Verb, You’ve Won

The ultimate goal isn’t just to build a tool; it’s to build something people actually love using.

I had a proud “full circle” moment at the last US Open. A customer in the next box over saw our Navan gear and shouted that she “Navans” her expenses all the time and absolutely loves it.

Venus Williams’ second set was unforgettable — but that’s not what I remember most about the event. It’s that moment of brand loyalty. Hearing our name used as a verb, that really stayed with me. That’s why we do this.

Looking Ahead to What’s Next

The last 11 years were anything but linear. We’ve rebranded, rebuilt, reinvented, and learned more from our customers than any roadmap could capture.

These 11 lessons aren’t a victory lap; they’re a starting point. We’re going to keep listening, keep iterating, and keep pushing the industry forward — alongside the finance leaders, travel managers, and road warriors who keep us honest.