Underdog Founders - Guillermo tries to beat Google Maps at its own game
If founders gave up every time they heard the words "what if Google builds this", we'd still be in the 90s.
How hard can it be to slap payments on top of Google Maps?
Guillermo (right) decided to build a company and find out.
I met Guillermo back in January, after Underdog Founders #02 went viral.
He came across as a founder that doesn’t get intimidated by the hard thing about hard things.
Guillermo decided to start Meep to solve his own problem.
5-hour traffic jams in Bangkok were a big contrast to Tokyo’s smoother connections and timely public transport.
Guillermo saw how tools like Google Maps were great to understand -how- we should move around, but didn’t give users the convenience to pay directly in-app.
When you travel a lot, you don't want to open 3 apps and create new accounts everywhere you go.
Meep was born to make it easier for all of us to move around, thanks to him and co-founders Borja and Armando.
They started with Malta - the perfect test island - nothing too big and overly complex.
They finished the first version of the planner and…it told users to walk. Everywhere.
Even if it would take them 40 minutes to get to the airport, and probably carrying luggage.
They totally underestimated the difficulty of deploying a smart planner. The complexity of optimizing transportation for different user needs.
Not only was the problem harder than expected - the more they showed Meep to users, the more they heard that it didn’t have anything different from any other route planner.
Ouch.
In the early days, Meep was a desert.
The few transport companies who did agree to list on the platform, got disappointed when the app wouldn’t show them as the recommended choice for a route - their generosity and support wasn’t being returned.
Locals were used to their typical routines when moving about - so when the planner told them they should go somewhere else, they often wouldn’t change and missed the value.
One day, an early tech hire had enough and jumped ship - taking the team’s morale with him.
Ouch, -but- they learned the importance of having an agile team that adapts its workflows.
The 1st win finally came when they landed EMT Málaga, in Spain, who promoted their solution to locals on local media.
Things started to look up from there:
-The team wins a contract with the biggest transport operator in Spain - Alsa.
-Headcount grows to 20, 30, 40, currently at 54.
-Meep wins “Best Mobility Startup” in Spain in 2021.
-Last year they won a 7-digit deal in Spain for Aena, one of the biggest airport operators worldwide.
They’re now active in more than 20 cities in Spain, Portugal, UK and others, finding success after white-labelling their tech to strategic clients.
Guillermo made it out of the trenches because he set out to solve a problem he knew well, and didn't think "what if Google builds this?"
If you know investors in the mobility space, add Guillermo on LinkedIn.
Underdog Founders 04 - Guillermo Campoamor, CEO of Meep.
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Cheers,
J