Sri Lankan Taxi Apps Frenzy!
Me Too Wanna Be App-Trap in “Winner Takes It All Markets”
Every now and then, a brilliant mind stumbles upon an extraordinary use case — a mere 1% of the time. This typically involves taking a well-established business concept, tailoring it for a distinct demographic, and transforming it into a streamlined digital application, craft, or solution. The objective? To bring it to life and put it into action. If the circumstances align just right, or are meticulously aligned, things start progressing smoothly. And then, if fortune smiles upon them, something remarkable occurs — they achieve viral success and generate staggering profits. This is how the Unicorn List came into existence.
Unicorns became commonplace, with smartphones driving the economy. Now there are enough twenty-thirty-something millionaires in abundance. Envy of the status quo. That makes some get the delusion that conventional business wisdom plays no role in these. How quite so? This delusion was a multitude in the last decade, mainly with new tech sensations like Uber, Airbnb, and Lyft or by the localized mini versions of the same, such as PickMe, becoming commonplace.
As always, proper business strategy, acumen, the right team, and sometimes deep pockets or the right mentors/investors play a key role in these new types of sensational business success stories.
This very phenomenal Unicorn business created a huge blind spot or “Reality Distortion Field” and a real money pit for many venture capitalists, investors, as well as for most traditional business tycoons who got the envy of “the lean startup” and tried to replicate the same success by the “If these kids can do it, so can I” me-too theory.
If you dig deep, this is not the real case. The Unicorn list is created mainly due to mobile internet. Then the sensor-driven smartphone created the Mobile Revolution. Almost all these very viral success stories are born out of sheer opportunity windows exploited by smart acumen men. Executed right in time at the right location, where 99% of the time, a technological, demographic, or some other key business factor changed/shifted for a new business opportunity window opened, co-created (invention) or emerged (innovation) by sidelining core business factors.
There is one fundamental difference in most of them in that, if you define just one right formula/strategy in the Internet Space, Bingo! You are instantly across-the-board international, and as a bonus, your scale is the largest ever in human history. The old same-same local logistic demographic niche control unit assumptions, business boundaries, and pillars are completely different, or they can be shattered like sand dunes if you pitch the right formula.
Human history is marked by paradigm shifts — Firewood to Coal, Steam to Gasoline, Gasoline to Petrochemicals, Mainframes to Personal Computers, PCs to Software, Generic Software to Application-Specific Software, Application Software to Networkware, Networkware to Browserware (Web apps), and Web apps to Native Apps (PC/Mobile). Each shift opened bigger-than-life opportunity windows, birthing groundbreaking business ventures. Visionaries who seized these moments, executing with precision, created what we now call Unicorns — billion-dollar startups that disrupted or piggybacked on conventional business models, leveraging mobile internet-centric strategies.
The Apple iPhone sparked the Mobile Revolution, turning Dot Com Boom dreams into reality. Wired dial-up telecoms gave way to always-on, on-demand wireless connectivity through 2G/3G/4G/5G networks. This shattered traditional business assumptions, enabling 24/7 global access for all. Cloud computing, built on web infrastructure, amplified this shift, while Biotech or Blockchain may herald the next wave.
Bill Gates once envisioned “a PC on every desk,” but even he didn’t foresee the wilder reality around the corner: smartphones. The iPhone, alongside iOS and Android, put supercomputers in the pockets of all 7 billion people, with always-on apps summonable from anywhere. Yet, giants like Microsoft misread this mobile opportunity — remember Nokia’s Windows Phones?
Such oversights are not uncommon. History shows that even the most reputed tech pundits and business tycoons often fail to predict or embrace the next wave, only to be outmaneuvered by an unknown upstart dismantling their multinational empires overnight.
The iPhone’s App Store kicked off with quirky hits like Fart Apps and Angry Birds, evolving into giants like Twitter, Facebook’s mobile app, Uber, Airbnb, WeChat, and Instagram. These apps unlocked a phenomenal business scale and reach unprecedented in human history, making it possible to hit 100 million customers virtually overnight. Suddenly, the entire 7 billion global population became a target market. A 20-something with a novel idea could launch from their bedroom and reach the world in a single run.
But success demands more than a bright idea. A solid business acquisition model and follow-up revenue strategy are crucial. Fancy, hyped, copycat apps rarely survive against established players with deeper pockets, existing markets, proven revenue models, and overwhelming resources. Your best idea can become dog food for giants, as seen with Snapchat Stories vs. Instagram Stories or Grab vs. Uber, where users are already hooked on the dominant player.
In just eight years, the app ecosystem ballooned into a billion-dollar Fortune 500 industry. The mobile revolution’s sheer scale birthed a new Unicorn List, spotlighting previously unheard-of startups that redefined business possibilities.
The mobile frenzy sparked a wave of “me-too wanna-be” copycats chasing the fame of successful apps. These can still become major go-to-market successes if they target a unique demographic, business model, or innovative pivot. The mobile scale is so vast that even niche markets boast tens of millions of users. Carving out a niche among 7 billion people seems easy — and it can be — if you know where to focus and execute with a sound strategy.
Why Do Over 90% of Startups and Apps Fail?
Most startups fail because they lack a robust business acquisition model and revenue strategy. Fancy, hyped copycat apps rarely have a unique reason or market to compete with established giants. Your best idea is often dog food for players like Facebook, Uber, or Airbnb, who boast deeper pockets, established markets, and overwhelming resources. As seen with Snapchat Stories vs. Instagram Stories or Grab vs. Uber, users are already hooked on the dominant player.
Countless Silicon Valley veterans, venture capitalists, and tech giants like Google (Wave, Google+), Apple (Ping), and Microsoft have burned billions trying to challenge first-movers like Facebook or Twitter. Why do they fail? These are “Winner Takes It All” markets, where the first-comer grows exponentially by owning the user base. No matter the feature set, slick UI, or technological edge, success hinges on solving the user acquisition problem. Multimillion-dollar budgets, ads, or giveaways can’t buy users if the app lacks a strategic edge — be it a demographic pivot, cultural niche, or disruptive innovation.
History proves this harsh truth. From Nokia, Palm, and Blackberry to MySpace and Hi5, no one has dented Facebook’s dominance, not even after scandals like Cambridge Analytica. Only apps with unique advantages — WhatsApp replacing SMS, WeChat leveraging China’s Great Firewall, or LINE offering cardless payments — survived by carving out distinct niches. Even then, threats like WhatsApp were acquired by Facebook rather than defeated, much like Microsoft crushed Netscape with Internet Explorer.
The mobile app economy, like the Dot-Com Boom or 16th-century Tulip Mania, is littered with “me-too wanna-be” apps. Take Colombo, where over 50 taxi-hailing apps clutter the Play Store. With a limited user base, most are doomed to be no bigger than a “සිල්ලර කඩේ”. Without a killer strategy or niche, these apps are dead on arrival, unable to compete in markets where winners take all.
It’s simple if we do the math. PickMe might have started with five three-wheelers, two developers, and a small investment of Rs. 5–10 million, but once it gained traction with over 30,000 drivers registered, it became a startup valued well over Rs. 1 billion. It now handles the bulk of Colombo’s taxi rides. In just 3–4 years, PickMe has surged ahead with a solid revenue scheme. Even industry leader Uber, a $50 billion behemoth offering hefty driver incentives, can’t overtake PickMe’s ride-sharing dominance in Colombo.
NB: PickMe’s 2025 Stats updated.
PickMe, with over 110,000 active drivers and a 70% ride-hailing market share, generated Rs. 7.05 billion in FY2024 revenue, with a projected Rs. 10.72 billion in FY2025 and a valuation of ~Rs. 15–20 billion
Let’s do the math.
Say, now take half of these 50-odd never-heard-of taxi apps-one would have cost at least Rs. 3Lks to Rs. 1M to develop, with, say, an average of 5Lks per app, which totals Rs. 1.15M in investments/months of development cycles. Time wasted is a penny for PickMe, and PickMe is a dime for Uber. None could have even gained a third-place name in Colombo. Once someone starts to dominate a “Winner Takes It All” market, it’s pretty hard for any new entrant to go viral against a market leader-in our example, the Taxi Hauling Industry. It doesn’t matter if you have a hefty investment budget, promotions, or a feature set advantage planned. People are already hooked to a “good enough” service where there is “NO” real incentive to switch to another similar service. It’s just another app lost in 2.5M of App Store wilderness.
Do you hear Hi5 or MySpace anymore when all your friends are on Facebook? No.
As YouTube sensation Marques (@MKBHD) pointed out, even teenage sensation Snapchat and its CEO-daubed as the best product men in Silicon Valley-had no absolute chance against the Facebook behemoth (also Instagram and WhatsApp), where already billions of people are signed in. It doesn’t matter what real innovation you bring to the table; to rip off that very innovative feature of Snapchat is just an overnight job for Mark’s Facebook machine to replicate, as has been shown countless times-Twitter Vine Live Videos, Instagram & WhatsApp Stories, Facebook Live, etc. No chance. Period.
What’s sad is when there are another hundred small, specific niche user cases waiting to be created, crafted, and catered to as new markets, instead of going head-to-head in a tug-of-war with a market leader. You can look into real new or untapped user cases to start your new venture-away from where whales fish.
Given, for heaven’s sake, Colombo is not the next most desired hotbed to start your fancy taxi hauling app-not anymore, not now, maybe not until a driverless autonomous Tesla Robotaxi fleet is ready to be deployed on Colombo streets.
Still, if you really must do another taxi-hailing app, okay, true enough, your traditional cab services are dying and losing their core customers to Uber or PickMe. Let it go. Start as a logistics delivery app (also exploited now), or why not try to act as a regional proxy, agency, or fleet for Uber and PickMe itself as a service? Or why not do a recreational, sports, logistics, or delivery hauling specialized app for cycles, motorbikes, small lorries-say, Demo Batta has a good start with pickmyload.lk, etc.-as a go-to-market strategy? Still, remember, for PickMe, it would be just adding another tab to their already acquired users and drivers app.
And if you still insist that you should and could build it, have money and time to burn to build another Uber or PickMe copy-clone, go somewhere in a godforsaken remote part of the country, world, demographic, or city where these services are not available yet. Try working from there instead. I bet you’ll have a better success rate and ROI on that mission.
Still, it’s better to check out a successful new foreign app user or business case, bring in that new idea, and fit it to a local model-like PickMe did with three-wheelers instead of applying it to cars to implement an Uber clone locally, which was the winning stake for PickMe.
- If you need hints on where there may be some prospective startup app opportunities, we can sit and talk, give me a #dm @Chanlanka
Cheers, and good luck with your next venture!
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