Pedro Meduna is the Founder and CEO of Emerging Markets for Tripda. He has founded and currently manages operations in 12 countries including Pakistan. A business graduate of Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil, Meduna has previously worked for leading private equity firm TMG Capital as well as consultancy giant, Bain & Company. In a recent trip to Pakistan, he shared the following responses with BR Research.
BR Research: What is the carpooling model that Tripda relies on and how is it different from other transport apps like Uber? Pedro Meduna: Tripda is a carpooling platform that connects passengers with drivers going in the same direction. In essence Tripda is a marketplace that intends to make long distance carpooling fun, safe and easy for users in Pakistan. Uber on the other is a taxi hailing application meant to facilitate short distance travelling.
BRR: What is the company's business model? How do you make money?
PM: Tripda's business model currently does not encompass generating revenue from its operations. Tripda has been fortunate to have long term investors who believe in our vision of carpooling a viable and sustainable part of the ever growing global sharing economy. Our initial focus has been on launching and scaling the company's operations in the markets where we operate. It is important to mention that we are not a non-profit company and we do have many interesting ideas to monetize, once we are able to develop a critical mass of users.
BRR: Tell us about Tripda's journey so far. When and how did you begin? When did Rocket Internet come in as a partner, etc?
PM: Tripda started its operations from Brazil in May 2014 and based on the initial success and validation of the concept, the company started to expand across 13 countries in Latin America, Asia and North America. Tripda launched its operations in Pakistan in December 2014. Tripda has recently raised Series-A funding worth USD 11 million from renowned investors such as Rocket Internet and a top rated US-based venture capital Company.
BRR: What is the benefit of a partner like Rocket Internet?
PM: Rocket Internet is different from a conventional venture capital company; apart from just investing, the company also provides its ventures with technological support, operations support that is critical in scaling the ventures and also in terms of recruiting the best talent in any market.
BRR: Uber has had major troubles in dealing with crimes in India. What safety measures has Tripda introduced to ensure safety of drivers and passengers?
PM: Safety and security of Tripda users is very important for us because we believe in building a sustainable carpooling community. We have introduced multiple features that enable drivers and passengers to evaluate the profile of each other before deciding whether to carpool or not.
Facebook login: users can only login to Tripda through their respective Facebook lD's which helps in assessing the creditability of users through number of friends, profile picture.
Phone and email verification: users are also required to validate their phone and email that will facilitate passengers and drivers to communicate with each other.
Community and ratings review: the community and ratings reviews feature allows each passenger and driver to rate each other after the completion of the journey. This helps users to evaluate the credibility of the person they intend to carpool with for future journeys based on their previous experiences.
Official Badges: if users verify their official email IDs, they will get badges that reflect their association with their respective organisation. For example if a LUMS student would verify their official email ID, they would get a LUMS badge on their profile.
Ladies Only: for female users who only want to carpool with women, the ladies only feature allows them to keep their rides private and visible only to fellow female users of the Tripda carpooling community.
BRR: When did you launch in Pakistan? What is the response so far? (Kindly compare quantitatively to other markets where you exist).
PM: Tripda launched its Pakistan operation in December 2014 and has been one of the fastest growing markets globally. Tripda has close to 100,000 users globally enabling thousands of users to carpool in a safe, fun and convenient manner and registering month on month of over 100 percent.
BRR: So far there has not been any marketing surge by Tripda to the likes of FoodPanda or other e-commerce portals. How do you intend to reach out to Pakistanis and raise awareness about Tripda?
PM: Tripda has a different business model and hence we have decided to follow a bottom-up approach to achieve growth in Pakistan. We are targeting niche communities of students and young working professionals that already have a certain level of trust within. We intend to partner with multiple universities to help developing multiple carpooling communities across major cities in Pakistan such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
BRR: What is the typical profile(s) of Tripda users?
PM: The typical Tripda user can be classified into two categories; university students and young working professionals. Tripda has young users who consider carpooling in order to share the cost of their trips but stick to using the service because of the experience.
BRR: What is the company's brick and mortar presence in Pakistan (offices, number of team members and their responsibilities)? How may this increase?
PM: The Company started its operations in Pakistan from Karachi where the company head office is located and is being managed by Mr Ahmed Usman, who is the Country Manager. The company has expanded its operations to other tier 1 cities in Pakistan such as Lahore, Islamabad and Hyderabad.
BRR: What sort of market intelligence are you able to gather and collate? Can you share any insights about the domestic market as compared to other markets?
PM: Due to the lack of a developed public transport system in Pakistan, people already carpool while going to their offices and university campuses on a daily basis. Through Tripda, we are enabling our users to expand the opportunities to carpool across different cities with different users who they may not know personally, but may share common preferences, friends or bond such as same work place, university.
We see in Pakistan, an even larger need for our product and great potential for expansion when compared to other countries due to the large population, young demographics, increasing internet and smart phone penetration.
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