We recently reported on a partnership between Cape Town based startup, Zapacab and HumanIPO Academy with the involvement of Weaver for the official launch of the mobile taxi hailing service in the Mother City, that gave attendees the opportunity to test out the service for the first time.
Tom Jackson of HumanIPO said that the launch of HumanIPO Academy aims to provide South African startups with a platform from which to promote themselves to investors and users.
As a Cape Town based startup that aims to make it easy, safe and efficient to order a cab from your mobile phone, we decided to give Zapacab the floor and take a closer look into where it all began for these local entrepreneurs.
Founded by current CEO Rupert Sully with a background in social marketing, B2C and building online market places, Zapacab was born out of the lack of an efficient, and arguably broken, taxi hailing service system in South Africa. “Dispatch systems are inefficient, resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes,” says Sully “and could be optimised by adding a tech layer.“
For starters the Zapacab team did some vital research into the current taxi service landscape in Cape Town and a little in Johannesburg as well spending the first half of the year investigating the best way to get a cab in Cape Town. This process involved looking at speed, convenience, cost and safety.
In Cape Town, fleets dominate the market and even though there are hundreds of cabs available to passengers, they predominantly only choose a single brand as their company. This means waiting times of minimum 30-40 minutes every time you want to go somewhere. Having spent the last 7 years in Cape Town, Zapacab Operations Manager Matt Aberdein personally knew the frustration involved.
Then came building the app which now lets you order a taxi from where ever you are straight from your mobile phone, once you have confirmed your location and entered your mobile number. Having a larger pool of cabs to call on (including Unicab, SPORT, Rikkis, MyCab and Marine) already reduces the waiting time down significantly to about 5 – 20 minutes. That‘s quite a chunk of waiting time saved.
Users also have access to the driver’s name, mobile number and in the coming weeks the driver’s picture and car license plate number bringing additional security to the service, so you know you’re jumping into the right ride.
It‘s never easy launching a startup and Zapacab found driver training, convincing fleets of the benefits of the service and changing the way people think about getting a cab the most challenging aspects of the venture.
Zapacab were the first to make an app, as well as an operational, move in Cape Town. As for any reference to the competition Sully says, “We are building an app that is similar to international models, and therefore we are able to learn from them. South Africa is a significantly different market though, so we are fortunate that international models can not necessarily just enter and work. We are striving to provide a solution for existing cabs that will benefit the passengers that currently use cabs, and hopefully convert a few others. And we definitely believe we can greatly reduce the drinking and driving in SA!“
Up next, Zapacab are working on some interesting stuff including ratings and payments but are focusing on complete stability for now and ensuring that when you hit the button for a cab, there is one at your door within 5 minutes.
Zapacab is now also available in Johannesburg and further afield, have begun the exploration of the Kenyan market.
But right now, Zapacab love what they do. Explains Sully, “It‘s awesome to be helping such a huge mix of people: We help all types of people who request cabs as well as add value for the drivers in their day to day working lives.”
