Today we have Simon Siu, founder of Hong Kong taxi app Flytaxi who has years’ experience in leading mobile projects. Simon is a passionate entrepreneur in solving daily life problems. Recently he’s trying to solve this daily problem of calling a taxi in Hong Kong.
He is in charge of leading development team, negotiating deals with drivers and rolling out promotional campaign for customers. According to Simon, up to now 1,500+ HK taxi drivers have downloaded flytaxi driver apps.
What is your startup?
Flytaxi is the taxi dispatch platform to match taxi riders and drivers. Currently, there is always gap between taxi demand and supply. This platform is an ideal way for them to get connected and match taxi bookings efficiently.
For riders, they no longer need to call drivers and tell booking details verbally with the possibility of passing wrong information to driver. For driver, they know exactly the details of coming ride so they will have better planning and control. At the same time, minimize the cab idle time when there is no customer nearby.We have 1,500 app downloads from drivers and we just launched Customer app.
How did you come up with this idea?
Early this year I came back from vacation trip. I helped my friends to book a few taxis. During the ride, I just come up with an idea to make taxi bookings a lot more quickly and more convenient. And no need for us to memorize taxi plate number when we were getting tired after the flight. We can just make taxi bookings with a few clicks on our smartphones. When the platform is big enough, the app is a great tool to both drivers and riders.
Who are you targeting and how big is the market in HK?
We are initially targeting at customers in Hong Kong who have smartphones, in need of speedy and quality taxi service. Since our technology is scalable, Flytaxi can extend reach to asia pacific area, with customized features for each region. Market size in Hong Kong is enormous. There are 10,000+ night-shift taxis , 20 daily rides per driver with HKD40 per ride on average. Daily turnover is around HKD 8m. That number is for night-shift drivers only.
What are your future plans for your startup?
Our current focus is to raise capital, expand our team, capture more attention to customers and drivers in order to grow our existing dispatch platform further. Taxi booking by smartphone is a hot market. It is still new and growing rapidly in Hong Kong. We are targeting 100k downloads in coming 6 months.
1 Benefit and 1 Challenge in the HK startup scene?
Benefit: Nearly every Hong Kong school-age and working-age own a smartphone. The rate of adoption to a good apps is incredibly high. Especially Flytaxi app where everyone in Hong Kong can be potential user, they might get a taxi ride 1-2 per week.
Challenge: Entrepreneurship is not common here. Talented individuals are conveyed to work at financial institutions or big corps and earn bucks of stable income. In HK, it sounds a bit crazy for one to quit a job and start a venture.
Download It Here.
Flytaxi on Startbase.Hk: Flytaxi
Simon on Startbase.Hk: Simon
