Waze faced extinction when Google launched free turn-by-turn navigation. Investors panicked, but the company survived by targeting daily commuters and securing an unexpected investment from Microsoft.
When we started, Waze was free and it was the only one that was offering turn-by-turn navigation. And the reason is that we created our own maps. And then one day in 2010, Google announced their free turn-by-turn navigation. Turns out that they were working for the last two years in building maps of the US and they enabled that on Google Maps. Basically everyone in the industry told us that we are doomed. Our own investors told us that, look, if we can sell the company for 20 or $30 million today, do it. because you are not going to be successful. Now, obviously, we turned the corner and it turns out to be very successful. And to that level that eventually Google acquired us, right? And the reason is that the use case was different. Waze was focusing on the daily commuters. So we wanted people to use our application twice a day, when you go to the office and when you come back home. And Google Maps is something that you're being used not that frequent, right? In general, I would say if I ask 100 people how often they use ways, they will tell me every day. If I ask them how often they use Google Maps, they will tell me when I need it. But all the investors in the world turn out, turn our back on us. But eventually we were lucky in the sense that once Google announced their turn by turn navigation, turns out that the rest of the industry were took by surprise. And Microsoft decided that, wait a minute, we don't have our own map, so let's invest in ways. So we ended up getting investment from someone that we did not expect.
