Dash and Crash

Dash Navigation has sent 50 people running otherwise known as 2/3 of their staff. Scrooge visits startup land.

While the product concept is cool, they really needed to take their hardware to a decent industrial design company instead of the monstrosity they winded up with. Then the quote for the reason it is big, bulky, and ugly has to be a classic quote for when you have nothing to say. The claim was that with all the high tech in the device it had to be that size. Well, in case you have two brain cells that can exchange synaptic impulses you might see that a traditional GPS device and a cell phone taped together would be smaller and look better than that hardware.

Back to the realities of this startup, it seems getting hardware out was a necessary evil for them to develop, test, and refine their software. Now that the ugly part is out of scope for them (they're cutting the hardware part out of the business model) they can focus on selling their software solutions to other GPS manufacturers or be acquired by one who will likely add connectivity to upcoming models. Now Dash won't have to compete with the major brands on hardware and features. However, economics don't make for a perfect story for connected GPS devices.

Who wants another monthly subscription? The winner will likely either do a Bluetooth connectivity that connects to the car operator's phone or something similar, so existing data contracts can be leveraged and expensive module hardware can be pulled out of the unit's bill of material. Ease-of-use is primary concern there.

In this economy people are looking to cut expenses not incur new monthly fees. Give them a neat concept that can be ad subsidized (which might be a tall order in this economy, you know my feel on ad based biz models if you've been reading here) or be a low annual nut to cover and people may use it.

Dash Navigation is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA.