A VC in Vacationland

The M4 had opened all the way to Bristol in 1971 (Photo credit: brizzle born and bred)

My good friend Adrian Gonzales had the following news item on Logistics Viewpoints. Interesting freeium model to penetrate the SMB routing marketplace? We'll see:

Out of
the UK, an interesting startup called Speedy Route launched a free, online
multi-stop routing solution. Here are some excerpts from the website:

Speedy
Route calculates the best route when visiting multiple locations and then
returning back to the start. It is ideal for delivery drivers, sales people on
the road, or anyone who needs to make multiple stops. Speedy Route re-orders
the locations you enter into the best optimal order, so that every location is
visited once before returning to your start location in the shortest and
quickest way possible. Speedy Route also provides full driving directions
between all stops.

Speedy
Route is brought to you by Magic Hat Solutions Ltd. Speedy Route is currently a
free web service, but we reserve the right to charge a fee to use the
service in the future [emphasis mine]. Speedy Route incorporates
Google Directions in its results, and uses portions of the Open source software
OpenOpt to help calculate the optimal route.

On the
one hand, you can dismiss this solution as a "toy" compared to more
sophisticated routing and scheduling solutions. But on the other, this solution
coupled with a freemium business model (it's clear the company plans to charge
users in the future to solve more complex routes) might be an effective
approach to penetrate the low end of the market. To me, this is another example
of how software companies continue to experiment with go-to-market strategies
and deployment models to cost-effectively service the SMB market.