Sometimes the problems that arise in a fast-growing tech startup are ‘good problems to have’ and earlier this year, the sheer growth in the number of new customers wanting BindiMaps installed on their premises started to slightly overwhelm our little BindiMaps team.

Most of us wear multiple hats, not because we’re awesome at everything, but because we’re not a big enough company to have many people working just on what they’re awesome at. Today, our founder and CEO Anna still checks the post box and signs for courier deliveries.

But when a customer signs on to have their premises covered by BindiMaps’ indoor navigation technology, there’s a lot involved in the planning, design and implementation on-site. This has previously been managed by our hard-working Chief Product Officer (CPO), Tony, and Chief Commercial Officer Mladen, and sometimes some of us will help out too. 

Every month, more installations are underway, all across the country. If we continue to grow at the current rate we may add another 230,000 square metres of BindiMapped building space by the end of 2021! That will be 460,000 square metres more than we mapped in 2020, and 20 times more than we did in the previous two years.  It’s too much for the part-time hours of an already-busy CPO!

So today we’re very excited to announce that we’ve managed to recruit someone we’ve always considered to be Australia’s best-qualified and most-experienced professional in the field of planning and managing the installation of technology for wayfinding in indoor locations, John-Ross Baressi.

John-Ross studied orientation and mobility at La Trobe University and for the past 17 years has been working in this area for Guide Dogs Victoria, most recently as Innovation & Project Coordinator, Senior O&M Specialist.

“We’re so excited to have John-Ross join us at BindiMaps,” says our founder and CEO, Anna Wright. “John-Ross is not just bringing more than a decade of essential experience in the vision and mobility field, but he’s also widely known and respected in the industry for his in-depth knowledge of the technologies involved in helping the community navigate their way through large, complex precincts, campuses and buildings such as malls, corporate, government, and education campuses, transport hubs and more. We can’t wait to see the difference he’ll bring to BindiMaps!”

For his part, John-Ross sees BindiMaps as the next logical step for him. “I’m excited to join BindiMaps at this crucial inflection point in the growth of the company, when I think we all believe the opportunity before us is many times greater than the growth we’ve had to date,” he said.

“Australian property owners are already hearing about BindiMaps through positive word of mouth referral and successful case studies, and before we know it, we’ll need to begin planning for our international expansion. In Australian indoor navigation terms, BindiMaps is already a big deal, but the total amount of indoor built space in Australia would be dwarfed by any of our small Asian regional neighbours, much less the US, Europe, China and India. It will be my job to ensure our customers have the same great experience from BindiMaps wherever they are in the world.”