Meet MyQ, the Lagos startup changing the way you travel forever
This is the second post in our “Meet the Winners” series as we prepare for Seedstars Summit in March 2016. You can meet our Seedstars Moscow winner Texel here. Our friend Nicolas Bry, SVP of Innovation at Orange Vallée, sat down with Ishiaku Gwamna, the brains behind our Seedstars Lagos winner MyQ, a queue management application, which organizes and manages vehicle queuing, while also providing ticketing information in the transportation industry.
NB: MyQ is a mobile application that provides queue management, passenger loading and ticketing services to the transportation industry. If this reduces the current boarding time, we all thank you for this service!
IG: MyQ is an awesome application that lets you check out all the transport companies, their stations, destinations and ticket prices. But that is not all, there is more; it also lets you see the number of vehicles currently loading and available seats real-time then get a ticket from that. So our solution is to organize manage and serve station and fleet management, vehicle queuing passenger loading and ticketing information in the terminal/station.
NB: Who are the typical users of your service (airlines boarding staff? Bus managers? Railways?)? Is there an app for end-user as well?
IG: Just the average road passenger!
NB: What are the main benefits of your platform for them?
IG: Seamless E-Ticketing + Convenience + Amazing Customer Service. As a passenger you get to access all travel information from all transporters on a unified platform live at it is in their respective stations.
NB: I’m curious about your business model and target markets- how do you monetize your activity? Is it through a license fee that the airline has to pay?
IG: We have three revenue streams:
- Commission on Ticket Sales;
- Advertisement on Vehicles;
- Vehicle, Driver, and Passenger Insurance.
NB: What is your geographic target market? How do you plan to market your platform to the rest of the world? Can you leverage on partners from the traveling industry?
IG: Geographic target market is progressively Nigeria -> Africa -> South America.
NB: Who are you competing with?
IG: Our competitors are:
- Ticketsimply
- Sputton
- Oya.com.ng
- Bus.com.ng
What we provide differently to the customer is live data as it is in the station, ticket reservation (and cancellation) and payment upon arriving to the station for boarding. To the transport operator, we provide stations and fleet management, vehicle and driver management vehicle queuing, passenger loading, e-ticketing and auto-manifest.
NB: Have your heard of these services: http://www.qurami.com/en/ and https://www.smartq-app.com/inicio which offer to the end-user a virtual queuing via his smartphone?
MYQ is actually an e-ticketing app for passenger that also serves as transport information management system. Using this system, it is possible to monitor, from all terminals, the vehicles and drivers information, vehicles assignment to drivers, vehicles queuing and passenger loading process, passenger ticketing and check-in and ticket sales volume.
NB: Tell us about your team, who you are, where you’re from, what are your skills, how you met, and what is your mantra? Send us a picture of your team!
IG: We are a group of enthusiasts that have a flare for solving pressing societal problems through creativity, innovation and technology. We came together with a common interest to housing the solution and using technology as a vehicle to present it to the world.
NB: What would you describe as a success for your venture?
IG: Our Mission is to harmonize all road transportation information on a single platform to ease traveling experience for the customer.
The Objective is to become the most preferred road transport ticket acquisition channel in the Nigerian transportation industry.
Our business philosophies are: Simplicity, Customer-centricity, User-friendliness, and Satisfactory service. Achieving the above means success for our venture.
