The birth of a taxi: waiting for the market to explode was called rubbish

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A summary of the travel type app model

Sina Science and Technology Nan

The taxi driver, who is no longer driving his elantra around the road, is now parked in the corner of the business district, opening his new smartphone and waiting for the passengers to "come to the door".

What changed him was a "tick-and-click" app (Download). The app is very simple in principle, similar to the phone call service. The passenger clicks on the mobile phone "I want to use the car", and sends a voice to explain the specific location and where to go. Car information will be sent to the taxi driver near the passenger, the driver can be a button in the phone to rob and contact passengers.

"Irresistible", tick-tock Taxi founder Cheng Wei Use these four words to describe the development of this year. He revealed that no resistance was encountered, whether in the competent department, the taxi company or the taxi dispatch center. Beep and beep even with one of Beijing's two major taxi dispatching centers 96106 (another 96103) to achieve strategic cooperation, system interoperability, tick-tock 96106 custom client.

"By cooperating with 96106, tick-tock taxi coverage from more than 10,000 taxis to more than 30,000 vehicles." Tick-tock Taxi call information can be directly displayed in 96106 of the car terminal. Cheng Wei said that the current success rate in Beijing has entered 85%, not peak reached 90%, in addition to Beijing, in Shanghai and Guangzhou, there are nearly thousands taxi size.

"The basic communication between passengers and drivers is gone."

"Taxi hire has become a widespread phenomenon in big cities," said Cheng Wei, "the maximum value of a taxi is to match the needs of users and drivers, reducing the driver's no-load to improve efficiency." ”

In the eyes of the season master, the most important reason for taxi hire is the incomprehensible between passengers and drivers. "Taxis have a must-go direction every day. For example, my family in the village, the handover must go in that direction. Every month to have a regular meeting, I also have to go to five bridge direction. ”

"Now that the passengers come up, the first word is ' go? ' If I say ' go '. Passengers will be in the car immediately, no longer care where you want to go, is not to shift. "Season Master said, so many drivers if need to go to specify direction, would rather no-load, watching passengers waving at the roadside, do not dare to ask." Once asked, the direction is wrong, refused passengers, may be complained of refusing hire. ”

He continued, "There are tens of thousands of taxis every day, just like this on the road." Passengers and the driver even the most basic communication is not, say more than two words to ask ' you convenient to where ' can not be done. ”

The season master stressed that taxi drivers are often not picking up passengers on the road, but choosing the right direction. "It requires passengers and drivers to understand each other and communicate well." If the direction is right, no driver is willing to empty. So something like tick-tock is needed to solve the need-matching problem. ”

Cheng Wei to Sina Technology, said, tick-tock taxi advertising fee is 0, did not hit any ads, all the drivers are on-site promotion or word-of-mouth transmission, now every month there are thousands of new driver users.

"We didn't send a cell phone to the driver, they bought it voluntarily." Buying a smartphone and clicking a taxi is an investment for a driver, perhaps earning dozens of more dollars a day, but one months is thousands. Master tick a taxi this kind of call vehicle tool, may be the survival of the necessary means. "Cheng Wei said.

Formerly known as "rubbish" by predecessors

Cheng Wei, however, did not do so smoothly in the early days of entrepreneurship.

Tick-tock Taxi is on September 9, 2012 on the line, the first Tianquan Beijing only 16 drivers online, passengers want to call the car very difficult. In order to have the first batch of seed drivers, Cheng Wei had to take his team to the taxi company to promote a family.

"When I went to a taxi company to promote, there are 100 drivers sitting down to listen, I told them that mobile internet has made many industries more efficient, make money, you should try this new product." At that time, only 20 of 100 people had smartphones, and 8 people installed tick-tock taxi clients. "Cheng Wei said.

The problem soon came. Start-up early, the product is not perfect, tick-tock taxi background operation not only compared to power consumption, but also very consumption of traffic, coupled with the majority of drivers do not understand mobile phones, many drivers to find the door to theory.

"Once a driver came to our office, mobile phone to the sofa, said just spent a few days to use more than 10 trillion traffic, you have to pay my money." "Cheng Wei in Distress," said, "in many places to promote even when the driver Dial 110 report, said tick-tock Taxi is a special scam fraud, we have to spend a lot of energy and drivers to communicate." ”

Today, tick-tock taxi almost every employee is a part-time customer service staff, the station on the landline, often by taxi drivers call "harassment", repeatedly asked the use of tick-tock taxi.

In order to have more users, Cheng Wei found the industry friends of the United States Mission CEO Wang, hope to be able to promote the staff within the United States Regiment. Wang is a product manager and speaks without beating around the bush. He used the comment later, "This thing is rubbish, my living area can always hit the car, there is no need for this." ”

In order to prove the role of tick-tock, Cheng Wei left the hotel with Wang to call a taxi to wait at the door, and Wang can only queue at the hotel door and other taxis.

"Later, Wang gave us a lot of valuable advice. "Cheng Wei recalls that the beginning of the registration is too cumbersome, need to enter the password, gender, after Wang pointing, tick taxi no longer need to register, just verify the mobile phone number."

Income or "0"?

Speaking of income, Cheng Wei is unwilling to mention it more. When asked how to make money in the future, his answer is "Don't know". So far, tick-tock taxis do not charge users or charge taxi drivers. So basically, the income is still "0".

In the earliest version, tick-tock taxis have tried to charge users. Each time you call a car, the user needs to pay 3 yuan, beep and taxi drivers each have 1.5 yuan. However, fees limit the growth of users, tick-tock taxi simply direct free, if the user is willing to pay more money to the driver, so that they can more easily hit the car.

"The most difficult is the national taxi is Beijing and Hangzhou, Beijing is characterized by snow, the amount of snow orders on the soaring, south and east China is dependent on rain." Cheng Wei that the most important thing at the moment is to train the user to make an appointment to call the car, let the user form a 15-minute advance, the formation of an appointment with the app call car.

But rivals are also pouring in, and he counted a total of 12 of the same apps in the Apple App Store. Some are backed by trees, and some industry background is deep, perhaps the taxi will have a war sooner or later.

Before starting a business, Cheng Wei worked in Alibaba for 8 years, from Business-to-business to Taobao, and finally in charge of the business of the company Alipay. He used Alibaba analogy to illustrate the opportunity of the taxi industry:

"Alibaba to help small and medium-sized enterprises to do foreign trade promotion, plainly is the internet to subvert the exhibition industry." Taobao is using the Internet to subvert the small commodity market. In the past more than 30 years, there has been little change in the taxi ride, and now blue-collar workers are starting to use the mobile Internet to bring development to the industry, and the taxi industry has been pushed to the tipping point of change. ”