Jonny Simkin of Swiftly on Creating Products for Government and Municipalities, Navigating Public Sector Procurement, and the Power of Verticalized Data

How do you create a verticalized data company that provides accurate and real-time information without completely changing the existing user experience infrastructure?

In this episode of The Capital Stack, we have Jonny Simkin, the Co-founder and CEO of Swiftly, talk about the process of building a govtech data platform. Swiftly is a big data platform that helps public transit agencies improve operational performance, service reliability, and real-time passenger information.

Listen in to learn about the value of verticalized data companies and the importance of them developing sticky long-term solutions. You will also learn the importance of using existing infrastructure and data to improve user experience without completely changing things when creating a data platform.

What You Will Discover:

·       [00:49] How Jonny got interested in public transit after discovering the technology opportunities in the transport industry.

·       [02:53] When the transportation technology revolution happened and how Swiftly rethought the entire data flow for riders.

·       [09:29] How they use existing infrastructure and data to improve riders’ experience without completely changing things.

·       [13:23] Why Swiftly pivoted to a data company to make it easy and scalable for app developers to access accurate information.

·       [15:34] The value delivered by verticalized data companies and the importance of developing sticky long-term solutions.

·       [19:19] The importance of investing in producing the most accurate and complete information to benefit everything downstream.

·       [20:48] Why changing people’s behavior is harder than naturalizing data to make it meaningful.  

·       [22:36] How they overcame the fear of messing up to navigate the public sector procurement.

·       [24:44] Random questions with Jonny!

Memorable Quote:

·       “If the data you’re producing is not accurate and does not add a substantial amount of value, it does not matter how good your application layer is.”- Jonny [19:28]

Connect with Jonny:

·       Website: https://www.goswift.ly/

·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathansimkin/