#23 – New Business: Create an Uber Driver Community

“New business idea: RideShareNaija.com is a Nigerian-based online platform that serves as a resource to improve Uber drivers’ finances and ride sharing experience. The platform provides drivers with lessons learned on maximizing revenue, addressing taxes, insurance requirements, and navigating the tough terrain of being a ride sharing driver…….the business can later expand into providing online courses, training drivers on how to make additional income; a weekly podcast that brings guests like drivers and executives at Uber and Bolt to share their thoughts on current events in the industry.“

Uber first launched its services in California in May 2011 and expanded to Lagos, Nigeria in July 2014. Another ride sharing service, Bolt (formally known as Taxify) launched in Estonia in 2013 and expanded into Lagos in 2016. Today, these two services have expanded into other Nigerian cities such as Abuja, Ibadan, Owerri, Calabar, Kano, Benin City to name a few.

According to Technext, both services enroll approximately 30,000 drivers. Overall, ride sharing services have brought a positive impact to the Nigerian economy, unemployed individuals who have access to a car, can now earn a decent income driving passengers. According to Naijauto.com, a Lagos ride share driver earns approximately 400,000 naira (~$1,000) a month. After gas expense, maintenance and insurance, a driver can expect to earn an income of about 200,000 naira ($500). This is pretty good considering that the monthly minimum wage in Nigeria is 30,000 naira ($80).

Being a ride sharing driver does possess its own difficulties, below are some of the challenges Nigerian drivers face:

• Unruly passengers, who sometime threaten drivers
• Passengers who possess drugs and sometimes implicate drivers
• Passengers who refuse to pay
• Female drivers, who are harassed by male passengers
• Unexpected changes to ride sharing commission fees and policies

The objective of most drivers is to earn a good income by maximizing their revenue and reducing their cost.  Some of the challenges outlined above sometimes lead to drivers’ resentment towards the ride sharing company and passengers. These drivers seek forums to find other drivers to share best practices, tips and ways to maximize their income with minimal distress.

These challenges are recognized in the United States and there are blogs, forums and social media groups for drivers to come together to help improve their ride sharing experiences. These forums include sites such as uberpeople.net and therideshareguy.com. Uberpeople.net has about 160,000 members and therideshareguy.com receives about 236,000 page views a month. The traffic on these websites have provided the founders the opportunity to make money through ads from companies that target drivers such as insurance companies, banks, telecoms and car parts retailers. In addition to the website, the Rideshare Guy has expanded into other money making ventures such as a newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, consulting and product sales.

Source: therideshareguy.com

Even though drivers in Nigeria probably face more difficulties than their American counterparts, we were unable to find a similar platform in Nigeria that supports them. We could tell that there is a need for this community because we identified a post in Nairaland: If You Are Uber Partner In Lagos, Please Share Your Experience Here; this post was created in October 2015 and has since generated almost 3,000 pages of comments and responses as well as over 2.2 million views. This illustrates that ride sharing drivers in Nigeria are craving for a platform to share there thoughts, lessons learned, frustrations, but nothing exists, so they result to chatting on Nairaland forums. This provides a business opportunity, let’s call it “RideShare Naija”.

What it is
RideShareNaija.com is a Nigerian-based online platform that serves as a resource to improve drivers’ finances and ride sharing experience. The platform provides drivers with lessons learned on maximizing revenue, addressing taxes, insurance requirements, and navigating the tough terrain of being a ride sharing driver.

Website Resources
Website would provide information around the following:

• Available ride sharing jobs and expected income e.g. Uber, Bolt, ChopNowNow, Jumia, GoFood, AreaChops etc
• Driver advocacy
• News around ride sharing including change in policies that impact drivers
• Forums where drivers provide tips on where to buy cars, inspections, traffic patterns, how to deal with passengers and law enforcement
• Managing costs including insurance, taxes, car maintenance etc

Execution

• Visit theRideshareguy.com to determine the appropriate format for the website
• Visit Nairaland.com and view comments to identify the ride sharing topics that generate the most interest.  Learn the culture of the forum by identifying the pains, issues and information the group seeking.
• Combine the structure of the rideshareguy website with the content on Nairaland to develop your own website
• Promote your site on Nairaland and contribute to ride sharing discussions with your website link
• Write a post such as “5 ways to improve your Uber earnings”
• Promote that post on Facebook targeting drivers

Product Expansion
Below are a few ways to grow this website into a full fledged business once you have a good following:

• Provide online courses, training new drivers on how to make additional income
• Start a weekly podcast/YouTube channel that brings guests like drivers and executives at Uber and Bolt to share their thoughts on current events in the industry
• Send out a weekly newsletter on important news in the industry
• Sell car related products e.g. cup holders, phone holder, phone car chargers, etc. (consider private labeling)
• Start a Nigerian Ride Share Trade Organization, where the goal is to mature the industry in Nigeria. Similar to other trade organizations, you can make money through membership fees, conferences, education, certification etc.