Minds Behind Maps Harold Goddijn: The Full Story of TomTom, Selling Millions of Devices, the impact of the iPhone & mapping today - MBM#52
Harold Goddijn is one of the co-founders & the CEO of TomTom. TomTom has pivoted many times, from it's beginnings making PDA software in the early 90s, stumbling onto map applications, building its own hardware to millions of devices sold in a day, to its current form today. TomTom is a fascinating company in the mapping industry and I'm excited to share a conversation with the person leading it all, Harold Goddijn.
Episode Sponsor: SkyFi
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About Harold
Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.
- Psion
- TomTom Go
- The Overture Maps Foundation
- My interview with Mark Prioleau the Executive Director of Overture
- Books & Podcast Recommendations:
- Napoleon: A concise biography from Davis A. Bell. (Affiliate Link)
Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:58) - Sponsor: SkyFi
(02:07) - Harold describes himself
(03:49) - Being an entrepreneur
(06:53) - TomTom in the early days
(11:26) - Why get into mapping in the early days?
(17:41) - Technical hurdles to mapping
(21:06) - The not-so-smooth relationship with data providers
(25:55) - The 2000s down turn
(28:52) - Launching TomTom Go
(30:11) - From a downturn to sudden growth
(33:31) - Going IPO without raising capital
(35:18) - 2008 was a rough year
(41:40) - Pivoting the company
(45:35) - What is TomTom today?
(47:42) - The challenges of making maps today
(53:04) - Working with car manufacturers
(56:44) - Products for entreprises vs consumers
(01:00:53) - One map to rule them all?
(01:05:12) - How does TomTom make money while providing a free map?
(01:07:07) - Why collaboration with Meta, Amazon & Microsoft?
(01:08:04) - What is Harold excited about for the future?
(01:12:27) - Mapping attracts many people
(01:14:59) - Appreciating beautiful maps
(01:16:03) - Advice for entrepreneurs
(01:22:55) - Book/podcast recommendation
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- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work