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Back in 1995, when my wife Rashmi and I started CE Info Systems (now popularly known as MapmyIndia), we were following our dreams. After building well-set careers in IBM and General Motors in the U.S. for over a decade, we decided to move back to India in the early ‘90s. Everyone around told us we were crazy and unrealistic. But we wanted to build a business in India that would contribute to our country’s growth. Soon after we took the plunge, we accidentally hit upon a business idea.

We were in the U.S. executing a software project for IBM and decided to visit COMDEX, a trade show in Atlanta. There, we chanced upon a booth where a company known as Mapinfo was demonstrating digital maps and GIS software for the U.S. We were enamored by these digital maps and were amazed at the power and intelligence they could deliver to businesses.

Digital maps did not exist in India then, and our economy was just opening up. We realized the massive potential that digitally mapping every corner of India presented. Businesses and governments stood to gain significant intelligence about the Indian region if they could overlay information—population, markets, infrastructure, assets—on top of these digital maps. We decided right then that this would be our mission from there on.

Over the last 15 years, MapmyIndia has grown from that seed of an idea to 700 people, 400 of whom are MapmyIndia’s field surveyors who tirelessly drove through the length and breadth of India, creating highly accurate digital maps for millions of kilometers.

At every stage, we faced obstacles, but we have been able to convert each of these into opportunities. When we started out, we were self-funded and realized that digitally mapping India was going to be an extremely expensive exercise. To fund our endeavor, we decided to focus on the B2B market, creating digital maps and location-based business intelligence solutions for corporates and governments. We aligned these projects to continuously build and update our intellectual property—the digital map data set of India.

In 2004, we hit another ceiling: we realized that while more and more businesses were adopting digital maps, the true potential of the Indian market could only be tapped if we could benefit consumers’ everyday lives. That’s when the idea of MapmyIndia as a consumer brand offering online maps and GPS navigation hit us. Skeptics said that India is not made for GPS and maps for consumers, that creating an accurate digital map of a chaotic country such as India was impossible. Taking this as a challenge, we first launched the free MapmyIndia.com map portal and then, in 2007, MapmyIndia’s GPS navigator. Both these offered consumers, for the first time, a chance to find their way easily across India with the help of tools rather than depending on unreliable directions from people on the street.

In the last six years, we’ve seen a sea change in Indian consumers; they’ve started to adopt online maps and GPS navigation in a big way. GPS has not only become a buzzword, it’s also coming built-in with several mobile phones and cars. And today, MapmyIndia offers navigation solutions in every space.

Despite the success, I’ve learned that I should never take my ear off the ground. That keeps me grounded, tells me when it’s time for course correction, and gives me new ideas—the fuel that drives an entrepreneur.

RAKESH VERMA is the Managing Director of MapmyIndia.
©Entrepreneur January 2011

Tags:
digital maps, GPS, MapmyIndia, Rakesh Verma