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Ask HN: Ideas for Building Critical Mass for Taxi Sharing App

2 points by alooPotato 16y ago

Hi HN - I'm working on a side project (also writing a paper on it for class) to help users share taxi rides to save money/time. It lets users enter their trip information ahead of time and matches users with others who have similar trips (they can also chat and see each other on the map to help find each other). It is a mobile app (iOS now, more later) with app engine on the backend. Of course, the utility of such an app is highly dependent on the number of users using it (a common problem in web businesses). I have a shortlist of ideas to help build this critical mass but would love some feedback/ideas from HN users. 1) Look for high travel density areas (high number of taxi departures) and market specifically there. Some examples would be getting airports, hotels, campuses, etc to help market the app (value for them is it reduces congestion is a useful service for their customers). 2) Partner with environmental groups or student clubs to get small armies to market directly to users (goto airport taxi stand lines helping to match users and asking them to get the app) 3) Since this app is about saving users money, one way to encourage usage is to simulate this benefit until there is a critical mass of users. The idea here would be that if you tell us about your trip at least 24 hours in advance and we can't find you a match then we will credit your account with $X. Once you reach $Y, we send you a coupon for a free taxi ride. THis obviously has the potential to be very expensive and a target for abuse so both would have to be mitigated. 4) Viral distribution - push a users trips to their social network to match them with friends with similar trips. While an obvious feature, it doesn't seem likely to work as this probably already happens informally and you need a large number of users to actually find a match. 5) One potential way to monetize this app is to charge a lead gen fee to cab/limo companies. However, we could pass value onto end consumers as a discount on their ride. The idea would be that if you use the app to find a match and book a cab with us, you get a discounted fair (because we sell the lead to a cab company in exchange for you getting a lower fare). I realize these aren't necessarily scalable marketing ideas, but they do have the benefit of being localized to specific geo areas. This is important as you'd rather have your users in concentrated clusters to improve matching. I'm not as concerned with monetizing the app (I built it because I want to use it), but ideas here are welcome. Also, I have a prototype built. If there is interest I can record a screencast demo if anyone wants to see it...

OmarIsmail 16y ago
This is what I would call a "micro-groupon". Essentially you have a shareable service that becomes cheaper the more people use it. The time scales are also different since it's more of a "flash" sale than anything. The one way that people break out of the chicken and egg situation is by using the "Bowling pin strategy" (more info here http://edgehopper.com/ http://edgehopper.com/). So you start with one niche and then scale out intelligently from there. Again, this is what Groupon did by starting in SF and then growing from there. Based on this my advice would be to start in SF - as they seem to be the early adopters of the world. From my experience there finding a cab is a major pain in the ass. However, the times that you'd use this service are when you're taking a pretty expensive cab ride, usually from the airport. With SF how many people take cabs from the airport vs the BART? If it's not a lot, then you have some difficulty. Is there a city in the world that has a lot of people taking cabs from the airport? Actually, now that I think about it. Any "route" where a sufficiently large number of people would regularly be paying a substantial cab fare would almost certainly have an alternative means of transportation. Whether this be public transportation, shuttle services, etc. More often than not I think you'd find that society at large has already implemented your taxi sharing. In which case you need to identify those very specific places where the market is lagging behind and therefore your app has real utility there. At which point you'd have to aggressively market your app in those markets to gain real penetration and hope for critical mass. To be honest, the use case is so limited I have a difficult time seeing how you'd get that critical mass. Though your idea has given me another idea. An app that lets taxi drivers schedule with individuals directly. How many times do you take a taxi where the driver will give you their card and say "Give me a call if you want a ride?" Well, if you have an app that connects drivers with riders in an easy fashion, then you can get into a situation where everybody's incentives are aligned. You can get the driver to give the rider a discount, the driver does this for guaranteed income, the rider does it for the discount, and you do it because you get a small cut. You can then expand into a "group ride" policy because your already having a person plan out their route.
- alooPotato 16y ago
  The one way that people break out of the chicken and egg situation is by using the "Bowling pin strategy" (more info here http://edgehopper.com/ http://edgehopper.com/). So you start with one niche and then scale out intelligently from there. Again, this is what Groupon did by starting in SF and then growing from there. Sorry I was unclear - all 5 of the ideas were meant to be implemented in specific locales then expanding. Is there a city in the world that has a lot of people taking cabs from the airport? Every airport that I frequent regularly has this problem: Boston, NYC (x3), SF and Toronto. I think this would not be useful in some of the developing countries. I'd be willing to bet this would be useful for any airport where 1) there is a significant metropolitan core in a small constrained geographic area and 2) Where labor costs are high enough that the majority of the cost of the cab comes from driver wages/compensation. Actually, now that I think about it. Any "route" where a sufficiently large number of people would regularly be paying a substantial cab fare would almost certainly have an alternative means of transportation. Whether this be public transportation, shuttle services, etc. More often than not I think you'd find that society at large has already implemented your taxi sharing. Agreed but every mode of transport has a cost/convenience tradeoff. Public transit is generally cheap but takes some time. Single occupancy cabs are at the other end of the spectrum. And if you plotted every mode I don't believe the curve would be linear. Take for example shuttle services that are common in the US, specifically one from Boston airport to MIT. They typically serve ~8 passengers and cost roughly $20/person in my experience. This is fairly expensive relative to a cab that shares a ~$35 cab ride even among just two people. At $17.5/person it is much much faster to get to your destination in this method. There seems to be a sweet spot served by shared taxis specifically. The above is just for airports - another environment where this may work is in dense urban environments for short trips. I'm picturing going crosstown in Manhattan. For it to be useful, there would need to be sufficiently large number of users such that matching friction would be low enough that it didn't impact already low travel distances. Though your idea has given me another idea. An app that lets taxi drivers schedule with individuals directly. How many times do you take a taxi where the driver will give you their card and say "Give me a call if you want a ride?" Well, if you have an app that connects drivers with riders in an easy fashion, then you can get into a situation where everybody's incentives are aligned. You can get the driver to give the rider a discount, the driver does this for guaranteed income, the rider does it for the discount, and you do it because you get a small cut. You can then expand into a "group ride" policy because your already having a person plan out their route. UberCab? Rather Uber

2 points by alooPotato 16y ago

OmarIsmail 16y ago

This is what I would call a "micro-groupon". Essentially you have a shareable service that becomes cheaper the more people use it. The time scales are also different since it's more of a "flash" sale than anything. The one way that people break out of the chicken and egg situation is by using the "Bowling pin strategy" (more info here http://edgehopper.com/ http://edgehopper.com/). So you start with one niche and then scale out intelligently from there. Again, this is what Groupon did by starting in SF and then growing from there. Based on this my advice would be to start in SF - as they seem to be the early adopters of the world. From my experience there finding a cab is a major pain in the ass. However, the times that you'd use this service are when you're taking a pretty expensive cab ride, usually from the airport. With SF how many people take cabs from the airport vs the BART? If it's not a lot, then you have some difficulty. Is there a city in the world that has a lot of people taking cabs from the airport? Actually, now that I think about it. Any "route" where a sufficiently large number of people would regularly be paying a substantial cab fare would almost certainly have an alternative means of transportation. Whether this be public transportation, shuttle services, etc. More often than not I think you'd find that society at large has already implemented your taxi sharing. In which case you need to identify those very specific places where the market is lagging behind and therefore your app has real utility there. At which point you'd have to aggressively market your app in those markets to gain real penetration and hope for critical mass. To be honest, the use case is so limited I have a difficult time seeing how you'd get that critical mass. Though your idea has given me another idea. An app that lets taxi drivers schedule with individuals directly. How many times do you take a taxi where the driver will give you their card and say "Give me a call if you want a ride?" Well, if you have an app that connects drivers with riders in an easy fashion, then you can get into a situation where everybody's incentives are aligned. You can get the driver to give the rider a discount, the driver does this for guaranteed income, the rider does it for the discount, and you do it because you get a small cut. You can then expand into a "group ride" policy because your already having a person plan out their route.

alooPotato 16y ago
The one way that people break out of the chicken and egg situation is by using the "Bowling pin strategy" (more info here http://edgehopper.com/ http://edgehopper.com/). So you start with one niche and then scale out intelligently from there. Again, this is what Groupon did by starting in SF and then growing from there. Sorry I was unclear - all 5 of the ideas were meant to be implemented in specific locales then expanding. Is there a city in the world that has a lot of people taking cabs from the airport? Every airport that I frequent regularly has this problem: Boston, NYC (x3), SF and Toronto. I think this would not be useful in some of the developing countries. I'd be willing to bet this would be useful for any airport where 1) there is a significant metropolitan core in a small constrained geographic area and 2) Where labor costs are high enough that the majority of the cost of the cab comes from driver wages/compensation. Actually, now that I think about it. Any "route" where a sufficiently large number of people would regularly be paying a substantial cab fare would almost certainly have an alternative means of transportation. Whether this be public transportation, shuttle services, etc. More often than not I think you'd find that society at large has already implemented your taxi sharing. Agreed but every mode of transport has a cost/convenience tradeoff. Public transit is generally cheap but takes some time. Single occupancy cabs are at the other end of the spectrum. And if you plotted every mode I don't believe the curve would be linear. Take for example shuttle services that are common in the US, specifically one from Boston airport to MIT. They typically serve ~8 passengers and cost roughly $20/person in my experience. This is fairly expensive relative to a cab that shares a ~$35 cab ride even among just two people. At $17.5/person it is much much faster to get to your destination in this method. There seems to be a sweet spot served by shared taxis specifically. The above is just for airports - another environment where this may work is in dense urban environments for short trips. I'm picturing going crosstown in Manhattan. For it to be useful, there would need to be sufficiently large number of users such that matching friction would be low enough that it didn't impact already low travel distances. Though your idea has given me another idea. An app that lets taxi drivers schedule with individuals directly. How many times do you take a taxi where the driver will give you their card and say "Give me a call if you want a ride?" Well, if you have an app that connects drivers with riders in an easy fashion, then you can get into a situation where everybody's incentives are aligned. You can get the driver to give the rider a discount, the driver does this for guaranteed income, the rider does it for the discount, and you do it because you get a small cut. You can then expand into a "group ride" policy because your already having a person plan out their route. UberCab? Rather Uber