MyTopo doubles its marketshare with software company acquisition
BILLINGS—Acquisition of Maptech Inc.’s land navigation division last fall opened a new market for MyTopo, an online custom mapping service known for its custom-designed and printed topographic, aerial and hybrid maps for recreationists.
The acquisition included the Terrain Navigator line of software used by firefighters, wildlife managers, geologists and other resource professionals, a new market for the company
“We doubled our client base with the purchase,” said Kevin Toohill, CEO and founder of MyTopo.
Toohill expects the evenly split nature of his business will continue going forward in part due to MyTopo’s predominance in the recreation market.
“There is a wide range of competition in online mapping, but there are not many places where you can get the customized printed product we provide,” he said.
After customers go online and design the specific map they need, MyTopo prints the waterproofed map and ships it within 24 hours.
MyTopo employs 11 people full time. Part-time help is added during the summer and fall outdoor recreation seasons.
Having been in business for a decade, Toohill sees many advantages to being located in Montana
“Any barriers there might have been 10 years ago due to isolation have gone away with the availability of connectivity and the growth of the Internet. We have developers in the Boston area, and we can access their expertise as if they were here sitting in the same office,” Toohill said.
There are also significant cost-savings, he adds. The company is moving a data center from Boston to Billings so that it can manage databases gained through the acquisition as well as host all of its public web services.
“It is going to cost about 1/10th of what it would cost to operate the center in Boston,” Toohill said.
The recession has had little impact on the demand for MyTopo’s products, and Toohill expects that trend to continue. If fact, given the emphasis on infrastructure in the federal stimulus package, he expects that demand for the navigational software will increase.
The company is also exploring mobile mapping technology, although Toohill isn’t ready to jump into anything new just yet.
“Our plates are full with the acquisition. We are trying to take the best of both businesses in terms of technology and operations, and mesh them together. So over the next several months, our goal is to do that well and have a great base to build on,” he concluded.
