The Ones to Watch: Lorenzo Caffarri, ubiCabs

ubiCabs.com makes finding and booking taxis and minicabs more convenient by using location-based technology to connect users with their nearest minicab and taxi services.

 

The spark was to see long lines of empty taxis going around or waiting at taxi ranks, particularly at off-peak times. If you think about it, that’s an enormous lost business opportunity. I then found out that taxi drivers make up to 7,000 miles a year travelling around with no customers!

 

In my previous job I was managing IT projects for a supply chain company. So the inefficiency of the long taxi lines was really striking me. Most of the travel industry has already put mechanisms in place like dynamic pricing to make an efficient use of resources. For example, book early or during off-season periods and you can get great deals. However nothing as such exists for the taxi / PHV industry, so after a great deal of research, I was quickly convinced that there was a real opportunity to make the industry more transparent and efficient.

 

Bootstrapping! Both Jay and I had just finished 18 month long MBAs before starting ubiCabs, and after that long without a salary, you don't have much left to invest in a business. So we’ve had to learn to do things leanly, or for free, wherever possible. Early stage entrepreneurs need to borrow, ask for favours, go-offshore and look hard for people or resources that are available. This has really forced us to focus on the essential things to move forward.

 

So far we’ve self-funded ubiCabs but are currently in discussions with venture capital firms and expect to raise a first round in the next few months. We are confident that the idea has great market opportunity and investors are starting to believe in the concept too. Just recently Uber, a start-up that is doing something similar in the US, has received $11m financing!

 

Jay Patel, my co-founder, is in charge of the marketing side. The most important decision we made is that we will use mostly online channels.  The web makes it easier to target and convert customers as they are just one click away from downloading our apps. It’s also really easy and cheap to try different marketing strategies and measure the relative impact.

 

We’re now looking to expand the founding team and bring in additional technology expertise into the company ahead of launching fully across London.

 

We still have to sign up a few cab operators to cover the whole metropolitan area, but we have an extremely compelling proposition for companies and the feedback so far has been really positive.

 

Put together a stellar team. Find great people with complementary skills who are passionate about your idea and whom you work well with.

 

Also, take advantage of support offered for start-ups. ubiCabs is one of a small cohort of start-ups being run out of the London Business School incubator. We’ve had access to office space, meeting rooms, internet and an entrepreneurial community of experts on campus to help us grow.

 

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