Thanks to GPS/GNSS, we are all habituated to using our smartphones to navigate from A to B. When you are a pedestrian this approach quite well most of the times but imagine riding a bicycle and trying to look at your phone to figure out which direction to go. Yup, it is harder. In a sense, it just takes the joy out of riding a bicycle. Wouldn*#8217;t be great is if we had a device to point us in the direction that we want to go i.e.*Jack Sparrow*#8217;s compass*repurposed for navigating from A to B, if you please! Such a device sounds like a *#8220;great idea*#8221; but is there a real business case here? At a time where (successful) hardware startups are hard to come by, Beeline, a London-based startup believes that they have a product that we would all need *#8211; a connected navigation device that makes it easier for us to navigate and make journeys fun again. I had the pleasure of chatting with Tom Putnam, the co-founder of Beeline to learn more about their vision, the challenges of running a hardware startup and life in London. Read on!
Q: Tom, thanks for taking the time! Beeline is a hardware company that is reinventing the compass for the digital age! When did you decide that you want to start your own startup and what were the events that lead you to decide to take the plunge into entrepreneurship? A:*I think I’d always had it in the back of my head that I’d like to start something myself. Certainly at least since I started my first job which was interesting but it made it clear I’d much rather be doing something myself. That was a full suit and tie corporate job so it would have been a bit of a plunge to go straight into entrepreneurship. So I took the baby step of working for a well funded Rocket Internet startup in Kenya for a couple of years to learn the ropes first. I was ready at just the same time my good friend Mark was ready *#8211; so we jumped together and set up Beeline. The Beeline Team Q: Your first product “Beeline for bicycles” is basically a simple, connected hardware that makes it easy for cyclists to get from A to B while enabling them to share their journey with family and friends. Care to convince us why we need a gadget to do this instead of using an app on our smartphones? A:*Too easy! Let’s assume you agree with me that continuously pulling your phone out of your pocket to check is far from ideal. The alternative then is strapping your £/€/$1000 smartphone (and extension of your arm) onto the front of your bike to take on the rattles of potholes, the weather gods and the sticky-fingered thieves of the city. Quite a gauntlet. That’s before we consider how long your phone’s battery will last on full navigation. Q: The “Compass Mode” on Beeline is just brilliant. It’s definitely one of those things that is so simple yet none of our navigation apps have it (to the best of my knowledge). Were you riding your bicycle with a compass? How did this feature end up on beeline? A:*We arrived at that by starting with the concept of a compass and making it smarter rather than taking a satnav and making it dumber. As experienced cyclists, we felt that a compass was almost enough most of the time and if only if locked on to your destination (rather than north) it would be the perfect tool *#8211; hence Beeline (and the original compass mode) was born. Although we’ve now added much more sophisticated routing, this is still my favorite way to ride. It’s so much more explorative. By picking your way through back alleys and opening yourself to serendipity you find that places you thought you knew are full of surprises. https://beeline.co/pages/multiple-navigation-modes?utm_source=Geoawesomeness*utm_campaign=TheNextGeoMultiple Navigation Modes on Beeline Q:*Navigation and routing play an important role in your product. You have the “route mode” that gives people a route that is optimal for riding a bike. What’s next? Have you perhaps thought about the safest route, the greenest route, and all the other possibilities?* A:*Absolutely. Up to now, we’ve been using Google Maps’ API which leaves a lot to be desired for cycle routing. So we’re building our own routing engine which will allow much more flexibility in how it’s optimized. Allowing people to prioritize, as you say, *things like safety, speed, efficiency or maybe even just “niceness” of the route based on the feedback of others.
Q: I can imagine that all the crowdsourced cycling routes is a data scientist*#8217;s treasure. Could you perhaps tell us more about your plans there and what is in store for your customers?* A:*I can’t share everything, but as you can imagine there’s a whole wealth of insight to be drawn from looking at where people choose to cycle when only loosely guided. For our data scientists it is indeed a treasure trove *#8211; not just digging into trends and patterns, but thinking about what does all this mean in terms of decisions humans make. From the users’ point of view, the end result should be cycle routes that simply feel great *#8211; without feeling the complexity of all the work that’s going on ‘under the hood’ Q: Beeline uses Google Maps and your routing algorithms. Could you perhaps tell us more about your tech stack? What programming languages you use, etc! A: Sure, here is a quick overview of our apps and website. Android:*Fully written in Kotlin, using RxJava, RxBle, Firebase, Google Maps.
iOS:*Fully written in Swift 4.2, using RxSwift, Firebase, Google Maps.
Backend:*Firebase, Javascript, node, Google Maps.
Q:*Beeline is funded by an angel investor, was initially funded by family and friends and Angel investors. What was the reaction when you told them you are building a hardware startup?
Q: Tom, thanks for taking the time! Beeline is a hardware company that is reinventing the compass for the digital age! When did you decide that you want to start your own startup and what were the events that lead you to decide to take the plunge into entrepreneurship? A:*I think I’d always had it in the back of my head that I’d like to start something myself. Certainly at least since I started my first job which was interesting but it made it clear I’d much rather be doing something myself. That was a full suit and tie corporate job so it would have been a bit of a plunge to go straight into entrepreneurship. So I took the baby step of working for a well funded Rocket Internet startup in Kenya for a couple of years to learn the ropes first. I was ready at just the same time my good friend Mark was ready *#8211; so we jumped together and set up Beeline. The Beeline Team Q: Your first product “Beeline for bicycles” is basically a simple, connected hardware that makes it easy for cyclists to get from A to B while enabling them to share their journey with family and friends. Care to convince us why we need a gadget to do this instead of using an app on our smartphones? A:*Too easy! Let’s assume you agree with me that continuously pulling your phone out of your pocket to check is far from ideal. The alternative then is strapping your £/€/$1000 smartphone (and extension of your arm) onto the front of your bike to take on the rattles of potholes, the weather gods and the sticky-fingered thieves of the city. Quite a gauntlet. That’s before we consider how long your phone’s battery will last on full navigation. Q: The “Compass Mode” on Beeline is just brilliant. It’s definitely one of those things that is so simple yet none of our navigation apps have it (to the best of my knowledge). Were you riding your bicycle with a compass? How did this feature end up on beeline? A:*We arrived at that by starting with the concept of a compass and making it smarter rather than taking a satnav and making it dumber. As experienced cyclists, we felt that a compass was almost enough most of the time and if only if locked on to your destination (rather than north) it would be the perfect tool *#8211; hence Beeline (and the original compass mode) was born. Although we’ve now added much more sophisticated routing, this is still my favorite way to ride. It’s so much more explorative. By picking your way through back alleys and opening yourself to serendipity you find that places you thought you knew are full of surprises. https://beeline.co/pages/multiple-navigation-modes?utm_source=Geoawesomeness*utm_campaign=TheNextGeoMultiple Navigation Modes on Beeline Q:*Navigation and routing play an important role in your product. You have the “route mode” that gives people a route that is optimal for riding a bike. What’s next? Have you perhaps thought about the safest route, the greenest route, and all the other possibilities?* A:*Absolutely. Up to now, we’ve been using Google Maps’ API which leaves a lot to be desired for cycle routing. So we’re building our own routing engine which will allow much more flexibility in how it’s optimized. Allowing people to prioritize, as you say, *things like safety, speed, efficiency or maybe even just “niceness” of the route based on the feedback of others.
Q: I can imagine that all the crowdsourced cycling routes is a data scientist*#8217;s treasure. Could you perhaps tell us more about your plans there and what is in store for your customers?* A:*I can’t share everything, but as you can imagine there’s a whole wealth of insight to be drawn from looking at where people choose to cycle when only loosely guided. For our data scientists it is indeed a treasure trove *#8211; not just digging into trends and patterns, but thinking about what does all this mean in terms of decisions humans make. From the users’ point of view, the end result should be cycle routes that simply feel great *#8211; without feeling the complexity of all the work that’s going on ‘under the hood’ Q: Beeline uses Google Maps and your routing algorithms. Could you perhaps tell us more about your tech stack? What programming languages you use, etc! A: Sure, here is a quick overview of our apps and website. Android:*Fully written in Kotlin, using RxJava, RxBle, Firebase, Google Maps.
iOS:*Fully written in Swift 4.2, using RxSwift, Firebase, Google Maps.
Backend:*Firebase, Javascript, node, Google Maps.
Q:*Beeline is funded by an angel investor, was initially funded by family and friends and Angel investors. What was the reaction when you told them you are building a hardware startup?