Making Mobility Reasonable and Efficient via Ride Sharing
NearMe Interview
Since November 2018, Plug and Play Japan’s 3-month acceleration program,
“Batch 2” has been running! We selected 59 startups in 4 verticals (IoT, Fintech, Insurtech, and Mobility) together with 21 large domestic corporate companies for the Batch 2 acceleration program.
This month we interviewed NearMe from our Mobility program, a startup which is working to solving social problems related to mobility with a taxi ride-sharing service.
NearMe is a startup aiming to contribute to regional revitalization by providing services that match various, in-the-moment needs through their instant matching platform. Currently, they operate a “taxi ride-sharing” service, which enables instant matching of people who want to go in the same direction by taxi.
With this sharing service, users can avoid the long wait for taxis when they have missed the last train and can arrive at their destination more efficiently. By providing an effective mobility system, they can build more convenient living conditions for suburbs and solve shortages in alternative transportation methods when trains are delayed or not running. They aim to solve problems in areas where the population is aging and where there are many shoppers, by promoting the use of taxis. Their service also helps tourists use taxis more effectively.
In this interview, the CEO, Mr. Koichiro Takahara, talked about the establishment of NearMe and the future of its development.
In this interview, the CEO, Mr. Koichiro Takahara, talked about the establishment of NearMe and the future of its development.
Koichiro: First of all, when I was at Rakuten, I had many opportunities to work with the founders of startups, such as the companies that Rakuten acquired and I empathized heavily with their commitment, vision, and the work style they created for their businesses. For my final 3 years at Rakuten, my business had me working with startups in the US, and during the last year I was moving around the world — half of the year in France, half in the US, and occasionally in Asia. While I was in various countries and regions, I noticed that it was hard to really experience the local people and culture. Even if you look it up on the internet, finding information that has been created by the locals is quite difficult. This is especially the case when it’s a country where you cannot speak the language. I wanted to build a service that allows tourists to experience local things and to connect with the local people. From that point, I started thinking about how I can create a system to eventually lead to regional revitalization.
Well, when I was thinking about where to start, I remembered the long wait time for taxis in Japan. I live in the suburbs, and I missed the last bus so many times when I was trying to go home from the Metropolitan area. I used taxis frequently, but in general, I saw people waiting around 30 minutes, even when the direction where they all were going was about the same. As a way to solve this inefficiency, I started with an instant matching platform for taxi ride sharing. I hope it can eventually lead to regional revitalization by solving local mobility problems. When I abstracted a combination of ideas that I got from my experiences, such as connecting local people and tourists, information transmission from locals, and so on, I realized what I want to do is an “instant matching” of local needs. So, based on my experience in Rakuten and with various entrepreneurs, I decided to turn my idea into a business by myself as a startup.
Saori: I see you are focusing on areas in each country, so do you have any specific area that you are seeing as your target market?
Koichiro: Overall, the ride-sharing market is starting to be regionalized. NearMe is considering deployment by region first of all in Japan and Asia. But in Vietnam for example, we see there is an ideal market for ride-sharing to solve traffic congestion. There are two kinds of ride-sharing, using a private car or using a taxi. However, in Japan the actual riding rate (the proportion of people riding in taxis per distance that taxis actually travel) is only 40%; that means that more than half of the assets are not utilized in the current situation. Already there is a shortage of drivers, and this low actual riding rate combined with only one person riding at a time is a serious problem. Considering that ride sharing is effective in using these underutilized assets, I decided to target taxis. In Japan where aging is also progressing, I think that ride-sharing is a way to contribute to solving the elderly’s mobility problems as well. We also aim to increase efficiency in the face of the declining population in rural areas. However, in Asia, we think that it is better to preferentially target cities that need to ease traffic congestion.
Saori: Although only two full-time employees are currently working at your company, I heard that you are focusing on recruiting marketing talent. While many early-stage startups tend to postpone the recruitment of marketing talent, why are you especially focusing on this point?
Koichiro: Currently for our ride-sharing projects, I am planning a taxi ride-sharing and carpooling for shuttles that can hold up to 9 people. These customer to customer projects depend heavily on them spreading through customers networks, so we must expand our recognition to that end. Therefore, consumer marketing is important. I want to secure users to a certain extent by focusing on a combination of time zones and areas. We need people who can drive efficiently to increase our user base. Especially, the opinions of people who have succeeded in creating their own services from scratch are very interesting. We want people who are not only creating products but also thinking about creating efficient marketing systems.
Saori: NearMe was also selected to an acceleration program for Nissay Capital and is actively using accelerators as well as Plug and Play’s. What is the reason for you to utilize such accelerators?
Koichiro: One reason is for funding. By being selected by the program, we were able to receive capital from Nissay Capital. Another reason is that we expect that there is some synergy to be found in collaboration with corporate companies. In the case of Plug and Play, they have 26 bases around the world, so we think that we can develop overseas quickly by collaborating with companies worldwide. For NearMe, it is important to develop strategic collaborations with companies that have a certain number of customers and to develop systems to fit our clients’ needs.
Saori: What kind of companies do you want to collaborate with so far?
Koichiro: There are synergies in industries such as travel, railroad, real estate, taxi, automotive companies and so on. It’s important that we get as many points of contact with consumers as possible. It’s also true that there is an opportunity to investigate future service creation by using the actual locations of PoC development. We believe that there is potential for cooperation with companies in other industries that we just haven’t foreseen yet.
For a few examples of collaboration, we can do a joint development of services in mobility and region discovery with travel agencies for inbound travel, or joint development to make mobility more convenient for real estate companies to raise a target area’s value. We would consider cooperation with railroad companies for that last mile of transportation after they exit the station. With taxi companies, we can make a mechanism of carrying customers using a mobile application, and with automobile companies, we can work on routing together to optimize shuttle usage to hold the right number of people and use data to make analyses that they can use for automobile development. I hope to cooperatively develop a system by utilizing a 9-seater shuttle, for example.
Saori: What about the collaboration with startups?
Koichiro: I think there certainly is a possibility. Getting connected with startups is very important. In terms of instant matching, I hope to create value with instant matching that enables people to get connected with local people. Currently, there are a lot of sightseeing sites evaluated by non-locals, such as travel review sites. There are “like” spirals caused by the people who saw that kind of sites, but the opinions shared on those sites are not necessarily the ones of the local people. I would like to create a system that enables locals to transmit information and make it accessible for tourists to refer. I want to contribute not only by solving mobility problems but also to support local communities through instant matching!
Plug and Play Japan’s next 3-month program, Batch 3, will start next summer in 2019! Startups who are interested in our next program “Batch 3”, please register your information through the below form. You will be informed when we open Batch 3 application admission.
Please reach out to us anytime if you have any questions about our program!
