Challenge Esri's Monopoly
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A new mapping company called Felt is challenging Esri's enterprise mapping dominance by creating a collaborative mapping platform that combines consumer and B2B approaches. The strategy mirrors Waze's approach to Google Maps, but for enterprise mapping solutions.
Key Points:
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The Market Opportunity:
- Esri is a $1B+ revenue incumbent in GIS (Geographic Information System)
- Currently dominates government/enterprise mapping with 20,000+ cities as customers
- Has maintained monopoly through college partnerships and government relationships
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Felt's Approach:
- World's first collaborative mapping tool
- Two-sided strategy:
- Consumer-facing interface for general use (hiking, trip planning)
- B2B revenue model selling data and mapping tools to businesses
- Initial wedge market: Wildfire prevention
- Uses data to predict wildfire locations
- Sells mapping data to cities for wildfire reduction
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Business Model:
- Let consumers use platform and create valuable mapping data
- Monetize by selling data and tools to B2B customers
- Similar to Waze's consumer-to-enterprise approach
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Competitive Advantage:
- Modern, user-friendly interface unlike traditional B2B products
- Collaborative features allow crowd-sourced data collection
- Founded by experienced entrepreneur who sold previous transportation startup for $100M
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.