A second ramen shop where the lunch crowd is

The challenge

Three empty storefronts are up for lease, and he has a week to choose. He drives past each one at lunch, counts noodle bars by eye, and guesses who could reach him in a January snowstorm. Pick wrong, and the lease runs five years.

How the flow works

With xMap Flows, Kenji built Compass. Compass is an AI employee: a flow of 6 blocks.

1. On the first of each month,

   First of each month (Schedule)

2. Compass draws everything within fifteen minutes by car of each storefront,

   15 minutes from each site (Travel area)

3. finds the noodle bars, offices and colleges inside,

   Noodle bars and offices (Nearby places)

4. works out the lunch crowd for every rival,

   Lunch crowd per rival (Calculated field)

5. puts the best site first,

   Best site first (Sort and limit)

6. and emails Kenji the answer.

   Kenji’s answer (Email)

What it solves

• A week to pick a site: solved by Travel area and Sort and limit
• Rivals counted by eye: solved by Nearby places and Calculated field
• A five-year lease: solved by Sort and limit and Email

The result

Compass is clear. Kensington has nineteen offices and two colleges within fifteen minutes, and only one ramen shop. Inglewood has six rivals. Kenji signs for Kensington that Friday, and the new shop sells out its first weekend.

Kenji stopped driving around to guess. Now he knows where they are hungry.

An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.

The flow, block by block

1. 1

   First of each month

   Schedule

   Starts the flow on a timetable.

2. 2

   15 minutes from each site

   Travel area

   The area you can reach within a travel time (15 minutes by car) or a distance by road (10 km), on foot, by bike or by car, from each incoming place or from places you pick.

3. 3

   Noodle bars and offices

   Nearby places

   Places around a point from xMap’s own places database (300M+ places, refreshed every month): pick the types of place (more than 5,000, such as Restaurant, Cafe, Pharmacy, Hospital or Gas station, or a whole group of them) and how far to look.

4. 4

   Lunch crowd per rival

   Calculated field

   Adds fields worked out from the others: a number, a text or a yes/no.

5. 5

   Best site first

   Sort and limit

   Puts the items in order, and can keep only the first ones: the 10 best rated, the 20 nearest, the highest fit scores.

6. 6

   Kenji’s answer

   Email

   Sends one email per run with all the items, or one email per item.

Templates to build it

Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.

• Districts with no pharmacy close byBlocks with many people and few pharmacies, ranked.
• Where young adults lack mental health careBlocks with many young adults and few mental health services.
• Neighbourhoods with many people and few notariesWhere many people live far from a notary, block by block.
• Areas with few halal restaurantsBlocks with many people and few halal restaurants.
• Where to build senior livingBlocks with many seniors and few care homes.
• Where young professionals rent: co-living sitesBlocks with many young professionals and city life, for co-living.

Industries

Learn how it works

• Drive time vs radiusTwo ways to draw the area around a site, and when each is good enough.
• Location intelligenceUsing where things are, and what is around them, to make business decisions.
• POI data (points of interest)Records of places such as shops, clinics and offices, with their category, position and details.
• Compare sites side by sideTwo or three spots measured the same way, one column each, the best of every row marked and the best site and why.
• An instant site report of any spotPaused for now while xMap improves the data behind it. Reports already made still open.
• The xMap Flows browser extension: what is around this businessOn a company’s website or a place on a map, one click shows its market and the AI employees to hire for it.

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