“Location is so fundamental”
By: Elijah Zarlin
Earlier this year, we were thrilled to welcome Mike Cottle to Mapbox to lead strategic sales. Mike and Mapbox go back years. He is a map industry veteran having led sales at deCarta and more recently in the automotive and autonomous market at RideCell and BestMile.
We asked Mike to share his perspective about the acceleration he’s seen and why he’s so excited about the opportunities for companies today in location.
Why maps?
Location is so fundamental to so many businesses. So it’s a great opportunity to engage with very diverse companies. It’s obviously organic to anyone that delivers things, but it also brings value to companies that have nothing to do with logistics and delivery — everyone from healthcare companies to restaurant chains. Figuring out where your next outlet should be is a decision based on location information. Not just a dot on the map, but all the surrounding information that goes into that; demographics, traffic flow, what else is around them. Every day I get to help solve a different business problem with a different company’s own unique spin and nuance. It’s very much adding value to a company, not just selling a piece of software.
What’s most exciting about how the technology has evolved?
It’s been really amazing to witness the democratizing of this technology and making mapping available to the masses. I’ve seen it evolve in the mid-nineties from something an analyst would use or a few people in a company have access to, to now being available to every part of a business through analytics tools like Tableau, or on everyone’s handsets in every single app that includes some form mapping or location technology.
It’s like the old days of computing where computers were in a mainframe behind the glass wall, and then slowly but surely the technology made its way onto the desktop and everyone had a PC. In the same way, mapping has gone from a bespoke technology that only certain people had access to, to now being available to consumers and business people who are making decisions. And with the improvements in mobile technology and higher connectivity, location is touching more people in more ways than ever.
What are the biggest opportunities for automotive companies?
A lot of the things that we were evangelizing four years ago about connected navigation are now finally being accepted and adopted by the automotive community. In the past, there were blockers around data usage and cellular coverage, or how you get the most relevant map data down to the customer in the vehicle. Now, the trends in the industry are moving us past these issues. LTE coverage has grown, and 5G is around the corner. Connected navigation is making a lot of sense.
The flexibility of the technology means they can build something that’s unique and differentiating, and will help set apart their product offerings. But it’s not just the surface-level sizzle. Our tools let OEMs build the actual infrastructure—the plumbing from a map data point of view—that enables them to turn an HD map into the foundation of their toolkit that provides accuracy, control, and a totally differentiated experience to the driver.
What are some of the challenges that location can solve in mobility more broadly?
There are so many challenges that exist in the industry, everything from how do you ensure that you direct the right vehicle to pick up a passenger, not just based on euclidean distance, but based on traffic and how the approach on the right side of the street should work. You don’t want to be directing a vehicle that’s approaching from the wrong side of the street and the person has to go across four lanes of traffic with their luggage to get in an Uber, which happens to all of us.
If the underlying technology that companies are relying on isn’t flexible enough or precise enough, you can’t address a lot of these use cases. That causes customer dissatisfaction. It causes things like canceled rides because riders are receiving incorrect ETAs. I see a great opportunity for Mapbox with the tools and technology we have to solve some of those underlying problems.
What’s your favorite car memory?
I’ve owned brands of vehicles from all over the world. My favorite was a Porsche 911 I got in the late ’90s. I remember taking a trip up to Napa with my wife. It was one of those beautiful California days. The top was down. It epitomized the image you have of the open road as your adventure zone.
Why were you excited to join Mapbox?
I’ve actually become more passionate about being here in these initial few months because I see that there’s so much potential. The technology is so strong. The people and the energy are really phenomenal. I’m excited about helping the team deliver more of a consultative solutions approach to our technology. So much work has been done to solve some incredible problems and deliver some major solutions already and I’m excited to help accelerate that with the experience I’ve had in this space, and to be able to bring that passion to our customers as well because I may have seen some of the problems they’ve been dealing with — whether it’s a business analytics problem, a site selection challenge for a real estate company, or a delivery and logistics problem for a delivery company — and we can now offer an awesome set of technologies to them. Those are the things that really get me excited.
Elijah Zarlin - Brand marketing - Mapbox | LinkedIn
Perspective from 15 years in mapping: Strategic Sales lead Mike Cottle was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.