Guidepoint in the News

We've been getting some ink of late, in part because we're a "success story" in Southeast Michigan. Unfortunately, that puts us in rare company these days. The Michigan economy's travails have been well documented in the local and national media, and everyone knows that the Big Three are struggling. Our CEO, Rand, has been telling people: "We need to stop calling it the Motor City!" In his view, that moniker just carries too much baggage and aligns us -- emotionally, financially, psychologically -- with an industry that is struggling to survive.

Rand is a classic entrepreneur: restless, edgy and driven. Guidepoint is his 13th company and, he freely admits, not all of his endeavors have ended up making money. "About half have done well and made money for investors," he says. "The other half...not so much."

Anyway, here are two stories about Guidepoint and Rand. One is from the Oakland Business Review and the other from an online publication called MetroMode Media.

Buy-here-pay-here product

There are an awful lot of GPS vendors out there that focus on the used-car dealer channel, also known as the "buy-here-pay-here" channel. I'm not sure I really get the value proposition because they sell a unit and then every time the dealer "pings" the unit, they charge them for a hit -- usually 50 cents or $1. The dealers use the GPS location if they need to repossess the car, which I get, but that amount of airtime alone isn't enough to make the business model work. We're all like cell phone companies, so we effectively sell data and, in our case, services. For this buy here pay here business, unless the dealers are tracking the vehicle regularly, it doesn't really make it that worthwhile as a business endeavor. That's not to say there aren't other worthy business applications for this market, but it's not as simple as selling a black box and some pings.