Google - Beans.ai = 0 - 1
Google Maps is great ... but also blind. The software in fact has no data at all when it comes to apartments located inside building complexes ... And you see ... for delivery guys that's a problem. They waste hours and hours every day to find the right door where to deliver a parcel. That's why Beans.ai exists. The startup has collected tons of data from apartments and created a system to guide delivery guys directly in front of your door in no time!
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Before Christmas I talked to the founders of Beans.ai ($17 million raised in Series A).
Here's their story.
Back in 2016-2017, Nitin & Akash were both living in a building complex in San Francisco and noticed their online orders often got misplaced.
Damn!
To find out why, they went "undercover" to do some deliveries themselves and discovered that on average 1 out of 4 deliveries had high chances to get misplaced!
Why???
Because delivery drivers have zero visibility when it comes to locate things like apartment numbers, entrances and elevators to get in front of the right door.
And guess what? This data does not even exist on Google!!!
So, what to do?
To overcome this issue, the founders did something super cool.
First they drove to different building complexes to take pictures of physical billboards with the maps of these buildings & apartments.
Then, they developed a system where to upload these maps, elaborate data and generate doorstep geocodes to help drivers get to their final destination without struggle!
The result?
The startup's software today is used by companies like FedEx & UberEats and 1 out of 50 deliveries in the US is estimated to go through Beans.ai technology!
Massive!
But here's my question for you: where do you see Beans.ai grow the most in the next 20 years?
Personally, what I'm most curious about is how Beans.ai's data could be leveraged for autonomous last-mile deliveries ... basically when robots will be delivering parcels to your doorstep!
Think about it.
Not even Google has data to reach the level of geo-accuracy inside buildings that Beans.ai has managed to achieve.
Which better company than Beans.ai to guide delivery-robots to your door?
...
Knock Knock.
"Hello mr. Giacomo ... bzzzz ... here's your delivery ... bzzz ..."
Written by @Giacomo Bottoli
