Imagine you are on a business trip in a foreign city trying to arrive as fast as possible at the venue. But you’re facing a challenge: You are in a distant place and you need to identify the fastest way to get to the desired destination! One possibility is to check the internet or using an app. But both options are very time-consuming.
Here comes THE fastest solution: The ESNC winner of the UK Regional Prize iGeolise offers a product called “TravelTime”. This online platform turns miles into minutes while considering all available transport facilities.
Before joining the ESNC in 2012, the iGeolise business success was at its very beginning.
Discover how the ESNC winner iGeolise’s won more than 100 clients in 15 countries and learn more how to turn your business idea into real success. AZO Content Manager Matthias Engler (ME) interviews Peter Lilley (PL), Co-Founder iGeolise Ltd.
6 Questions to iGeolise
ME: Please give us a sneak peek of your product and the team behind it.
PL: The main product of our company iGeolise is the TravelTime platform which makes websites and data searchable by travel time. Big consumer-facing websites in the UK such as Zoopla, Rightmove and Jobsite use the platform to enable their users to find locations according to their commute time and transport mode of choice. Other firms analyse their own data by travel time – e.g. sales areas, store catchment area, and office relocations. Our service is live in 15 countries and the platform ranks and sorts one billion locations a month and returns results within 0.7 seconds. Our next objective is to expand with TravelTime on a global level to keep on track with the replacement of searching a location ‘within X miles’ by searching something ‘within minutes’. We are convinced that nowadays, minutes mean more than miles.
ME: What was your company’s biggest challenge so far?
PL: We faced two big challenges so far. The first was a technical one. Our aim was to generate ‘instant’ results to guarantee a high consumer satisfaction. From the consumer’s perspective, results should return immediately, thus within 1 second on screen. Our customer’s experience showed that for every 10th of a second over 1 second, 10% of the audience quits the searching process. This was challenging, but we’ve done it. The second biggest Challenge was a commercial one, namely to win the first client. Before taking part in the ESNC, we had no luck in getting a first client. After having won the UK Regional Prize of the ESNC in 2012, the British newspaper The Guardian wrote an article about us. Countrywide Estate Agents, one of UK’s leading providers in estate agency took notice of us and became our first client.
ME: Can you explain the three main ingredients of your recipe for success?
PL: There are lots of usual “A to B” routing apps available on the market. If you already know your destination, they are great. TravelTime is different – we enable our users, for example travellers to search for ‘hotels within 30 minute walk’ or a ‘public transport to the conference centre’. We crunch masses of data ‘instantly’ and users can display their map according to their preference, for example on a map, as a list or as a text message. This service is unique on the market. Our ingredients for success can be easily expressed: Have a great idea; don’t take any more investment than you need; employ people better than you are and don’t set the IT development team deadlines. If you employ the right people, they’ll do their best as fast as they can and your team can celebrate considerable successes together.
ME: What do you expect from the ESNC? How did the competition and its network help you to kick-start your business case?
PL: Being one of the ESNC winners in 2012 resulted in a huge media interest in our company. As a consequence, we won our first client, Countrywide Estate Agents. Today we have more than 100 clients and our services are live in 15 countries. We were also invited to apply for the ESA BIC Harwell, UK. Our application was successful, so we received a £41,000 grant and obtained great business support during our incubation from May 2013 until June 2014. This means that the ESNC really jump-started our business!
ME: Let’s reach for the stars – what is going to happen in your company’s future?
PL: Our major goal is to replace every ‘within X miles’ search filter with TravelTime. Globally. By December 2017, we plan to be live in all European countries, North America and a few more countries, too. Half of all web search sites intend that users search for places they want to visit, for example restaurants, shops, dates, hotels, properties or companies. When travelling, time is more important than distance nowadays. TravelTime returns twice as many relevant results as results based only on distance, and boosts conversions. Our service thus presents a real advantage for individual consumers and companies.
AZO: Anything else you want to share with us?
Check out our website and app:
http://try.traveltimeplatform.com/maps-sign-up/
About the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC)
The ESNC’s annual search for new services, products, and business innovations is designed to encourage the use of satellite navigation in everyday life. Over more than 10 years, it has evolved into the leading innovation competition comprising partner regions worldwide, the largest space-related incubation network and the most relevant European GNSS stakeholders. The ESNC’s newest feature is Europe’s largest E-GNSS Accelerator, providing more prizes, services and three further business incubations. Sign up now until 30 June at www.esnc.eu.
