Good morning fellow Toastmasters and guests,
If it is you and me, we would just board a bus and finish our trip to Bandipur. Later we would bitch about the cab driver in Facebook and Twitter. But, Bhavish… the founder of Ola is different. He ended up creating a cab booking service along with his friend Ankit… to provide a reliable transport service for commuters.
Also read: Got an idea? Patent it
Ola, like any other startup started its operations in a small room with a hand full of developers. Today, they are a 7000 employee strong company. Why is Ola a hit in India? I will share with you the top 3 reasons which I like Ola the most:
1. Places the power back in people’s hands
The cab service transformed significantly in the last 5 years. At first came the radio taxi services such as Fast Track. In fact, Fast Track became very popular that people called any “radio taxi service” as Fast Track. However, you were able to book Fast Track taxis only by making a phone call or by going to a website. The wait time for Fast Track taxis were always very high. BOOM came Ola. It allowed you to book your taxi at the click of a button and in the nick of the moment. You can track where your driver is. You don’t have to give directions to your driver to find you. You don’t have to negotiate the fares with the drivers… and above all, it is a cheaper alternative to auto rickshaws.
It places the power back in people’s hands… literally through their mobile apps.
2. When we dream it, they make it
One thing that astonishes me about Ola service is the pace of their innovation. Ola’s valuation today is $5 billion and its annual revenue is approximately $1 billion. They make 500,000 trips a day. Does Ola make profit today... the answer is a BIG NO. They can turn-on the profitability knob any time. But, look at the services that they’ve launched in the last 1 year…
• they introduced Ola Money, so that you don’t have to pay in cash
• they introduced Ola Micro service .. cabs at Rs 6 per KM
• they introduced Ola Share … for sharing your rides
• they even introduced a free Ola Boat service when Chennai suffered due to historical floods
While traditional software companies would’ve taken several years to roll out these many features, Ola was able to introduce these services in just months. Their marketing engine is also very powerful. Today, they’ve 80% market share and it was due to their spirit of innovation. . You dream it… they make it real.
3. They WIN, by making us WIN
Ola service reminds me of the symbiotic relationship between the remoras and the sharks, in the sea. Remora is a cleaner fish which sticks to the body of the shark and cleans up the shark, by feeding on the dirt surrounding the shark’s body. Remora becomes happy because it gets its food and the shark is also happy because it gets a cleaner body. Similarly, in the Ola world… both the cab drivers and the customers win.
Ola drivers are of different age groups, from different places and speaking different languages. But, all of them are motivated to make more trips, all of them are trained to treat customers with respect. I heard that they make Rs.2000 to Rs.3000 a day. As a customer, I save nearly 30% on the cost of my rides… when compared to the money I would have otherwise paid to auto rickshaws. Also, I didn’t have to haggle with the auto rickshaw drivers to negotiate rates. Ola also saved me a lot of time… because I used the commute time to make phone calls and clear emails. Ola Wins by making both the cab drivers and the customers to Win.
Dear friends, I lost my car in the Chennai floods and used Ola service for about 3 months. So far, I’ve taken closer to 200 trips. Today, I’m a fan of Ola service. Ola has enabled several 1000s of cab drivers to make money, really fast. If you want to become an entrepreneur and build a successful company like Ola… keep these 3 guidelines in mind:
• Place the power in people's hands
• When they dream it, you make it
• You WIN, when you make them WIN
