A majority of people in the emerging markets rely on public transport. This is a multi-billion dollar industry yet no startup has revolutionized it yet.
Public transport in Africa is dominated by the informal sector. Car ownership per capita on the continent is lower than the rest of the world and this means most people rely on public transport for their day to day lives. This massive industry remains ripe for disruption. Shared minibuses and buses characterize the streets of most African cities with minibuses being seen as part of these cities’ culture. They are so ingrained in people’s daily lives that they have colloquial names for them such as tro-tro in Accra, danfo in Lagos, gbaka in Abidjan, sotrama in Bamako, matatu in Nairobi and daladala in Dar es Salaam. Midibuses too, such as cars rapides in Dakar and molue in Lagos. While the arrival of ride-hailing apps on the continent disrupted the taxi industry, they still remain unaffordable to most people. Startups like Swvl are trying to disrupt public transportation but their approach wouldn’t yield much. No startup has yet to take head on the challenge of revolutionizing the public transport system in Africa. And that’s where this startup comes in, to make this a reality.
All current players including Uber, Bolt, Careem, Swvl and SafeBoda stand no chance of disrupting the public transport industry in Africa because their models have one fundamental flaw—they rely on the use of smartphones for passengers to access their platforms. Not everyone using public transport has a smartphone. As you are interested in building this startup, you as the founder cannot achieve this goal if you fail to build a system that caters for all users. You must go over this hurdle. How do you build a platform that is accessible even to those who have no smartphones? There is actually an innovative way to come up with a workaround. This will be discussed in a moment.
Let’s first look at various pain points that are associated with public transportation that your startup will be addressing. The first pain point is, passengers often have to waste a lot of time waiting at a bus stop without any knowledge of the time a bus will show up. The experience is worst for those in rural areas, dependent on public transport, where wait times could last for hours, even half a day! This will become a thing of the past.
The second pain point is the trouble passengers go through to find the right vehicle, which will take them to their destination, especially if it is a route they have never used before. They rely on asking around until they get to the right vehicle and even after boarding they must continue asking fellow passengers if they have reached their intended destination so that they don’t get off the bus at the wrong place. This lack of information is fully addressed and no passenger will have to suffer like this again.
Minibuses and buses operating in this sector are usually privately owned. Their operators are incentivized to make maximum profits. As a result, they do not operate on time-based schedules, but rather on capacity-based schedules. This means a bus must get filled to capacity—so as to collect fares from all seats—before it can begin a trip. The value proposition of this startup to these businesses is that it will leverage on technology to help deliver bigger profits for them. If it fails to deliver on this promise then it will be out of business. For Uber, this is not a challenge because it is premised on making some extra cash for those with an empty seat in their cars. It is little wonder that those who attempted to take out loans to build a business on Uber’s platform got screwed as seen in this video of a frustrated driver arguing with Travis. In our case there is no room for this as the operators will leave the platform in mass exodus if we ever screw up their business. There is a great strategy on how to deliver on this value proposition. In fact, it is not just a strategy but a technological innovation that will set you far ahead of your rivals like Swvl.
Another pain point, both for passengers and bus conductors, is the friction involved in collecting bus fares. It is an all-cash transaction and the conductor must manually count bills and coins and return exact change. Oftentimes conductors have no enough change to facilitate every transaction. This is a challenge that will be fully addressed. There is also the mental strain on the conductor having to calculate the change due for each passenger based on the destination they are headed. Read on to find out how your startup lifts off this weight from the shoulders of conductors.
There is a mega opportunity that lies within public transport. One that none of the players in the world has yet to exploit. Yet the clues are all over the internet, but why isn’t anyone noticing? This startup shall take advantage of this opportunity to create a massively profitable product both for the platform and vehicle owners. It will solidify this startup’s bottomline and make investors salivate for its shares. Continue reading to learn more about how this startup converts this opportunity into a highly profitable venture.
Let's now focus on how each of these problems is addressed. If you have the mind of an entrepreneur and like to design solutions to problems, this will be very exciting to read. Actually, just go ahead and launch this startup. Don't worry how many people will have known these secrets. As with startups, it's all about execution. That is what determines who wins the market. Can you convince the best talent to join your team? Can you convince the smartest investors to back you up? Do you have the best marketing strategy to win over customers the fastest? Come on, take it, here comes ALL the secrets shared with you. Let's compete and see who wins over this billion-dollar market.
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