Spokesmen | Team Beeline
We’re suckers for a maker. Explains a lot of the career choices we’ve made. But we’ve always reserved a special place for the true MacGyvers. The gadget builders. And in a world where everything shiny and clever seems to be made in California, we were pumped to meet some homegrown tech talent right here in London town.
Mark and Tom met in the heady world of consulting. But steered by their desire to create physical things, rather than more PowerPoint presentations, they started Beeline — a brilliantly simple handlebar-mounted digital compass for cyclists.
We sat down to find out what they’ve learned from their 18-month rollercoaster ride from back of a beer mat sketches to overfunded kickstarter and upwards of 5,000 pre-orders. Here’s what they had to say:
1. Don’t overthink it
“We were both ready to try something new in our careers and so we met in the pub to think up ideas. Nothing came. So we had a few beers and just got chatting. Mark was moaning about being late because he’d got lost on his bike. He claimed if he’d known which way was north he’d have been on time. So we talked about putting compasses on bikes. We both liked the idea and thought we’d give it a crack.”
2. Take baby steps
“That day in the pub we thought, ‘In three or four months we’ll be watching the money roll in’. Not quite. We started with a very basic Android app built by someone we knew in Kenya for £100. Then we paid some guys in Pakistan another £200 to make it better. Then we tested it on our mates and they loved it. So Mark took three months’ unpaid leave and by the end of that we had our first working prototype. Only then did we find the design help we needed to make the product attractive to investors.”
3. Do it yourself even if you’re doing it wrong
“We started making the hardware ourselves after watching a lot of YouTube videos. And Mark spent the majority of his three months’ leave teaching himself to code, but the end result was a working prototype. It was a large block of wood with wires sticking out of it, but it was a working prototype! We were clearly doing everything the wrong way. But being a couple of coding cowboys saved a load of money and gave us a proper appreciation of timescales when we got the real technical people involved.”
4. Beware the salary trap
“Of course, this is easier to say in your 20s but don’t be afraid to take risks. We were lucky — Tom didn’t have a job as he’d just returned from Africa and my employer allowed me to take three months off. Maybe if we hadn’t been in career transition we’d never have given this the time it needed, but we were always going to try.”
5. Add rocket fuel
“Progress slowed after we’d built the prototype. We had to do some freelancing to make ends meet and were getting frustrated. That’s when we decided to get external help and met Map Project Office — a team of industrial designers. We agreed to spend much more money than we actually had, but backed ourselves to find the investment. Trajectory went up, speed of development increased and all of a sudden we were looking at a sellable product.”
6. Ride your luck
“When I look back at the moments that have carried us forward — meeting the coders that got us started in Africa, the guys we’ve met through Map, Chris Boardman retweeting an article about us and being introduced to Charlie — a Cambridge undergrad who’s an absolute genius and has written all our code — I can’t help feel a lot of serendipity has played its part.”
7. Finally, take all the help you can get…
“Through this whole journey we’ve been so impressed with how open and friendly everybody in the start-up community is. People just love helping. At one point it felt like all we did was go for coffee with people but those people have been so valuable. We seem to have avoided all the bad ones and only worked with the good ones. Long may that continue!”
To appreciate quite what these guys have pulled off, be sure to check out Beeline for yourself. And of course, you’ll find Tom & Mark’s SPOKE picks right here.
