Taxi apps and the market

I am not sure anymore. What I mean is I am not sure of our current project, Taxiwise. There seems to be missing something in what we do. I have finished the product. The design done. The development done. Even though the development isn’t fantastic in terms of perfection, it is done. The interns did a fantastic job. I learned many shit this year. Especially working in a team, learning about git version control, push/pull and all that.

But what’s missing?

Was it that drivers didn’t like what we do? Was it because passengers didn’t book rides? I think it is all bunded in one. How can we engage drivers in using our app? How do we engage the users to book a ride? It’s quite hard. As you know, theres like a gazillion fucking taxi apps out there. We are just one little app in their archives of downloaded apps.

One thing I speculate is that we gotten lazy. Before I point my fingers to people whose job is to get drivers, I want to say that our team learned a lot. But anyway, that’s another blog. We had met with Kai Tak Cruise Terminal and some hotels, but that’s where it got stuck. They don’t have the urge/need to have a free trial with us. Because most, if not all, when you want a taxi, it’s when you are shitting in your pants or bleeding from your gut. Besides that, you take the MTR, correct? And if you’re an expat, taxi drivers do know 75% of the time what the hell you saying anyway.

So what’s the issue?

The issue is that it isn’t the right fit. We aren’t fixing a big enough problem to make it useful. Of course translation works, but what else? Really, it’s nothing and I have learned a lot through the time here. You gotta work smart. What happens if we scale? Going to another country/city will cost us and also their rules and regulations are much different than Hong Kong.

We fought and we fought well. Time to draw our swords down and surrender.