Flash Cabs – The Bumpy ride so far.

Cars are like abusive lovers! They entangle you with a comfortable bubble that draws you in, the moment you are all set and cozy then boom! Abuse. Haha the intro is dramatic, I know… and has very little to do with the rest of the story I am about to tell …. But hey, I had to start somewhere. 

Since my very first hustle, Flash Entertainment (The Movie shop) founded in 2012, I had never given up or closed shop on any venture. I come from the school of thought of never say die, never leave a soldier behind. I would quickly learn that, all that pep talk was for action flicks, reality required improvisation, readjustment of sails and even if the situation demands it, closing shop.

The year is 2017, I was juggling between being a small business owner, event organizer and my newly set up print shop inside of a movie shop. If there was money in it, I was down for it. Online taxi hailing apps had caught on worldwide, Nairobi and Mombasa were covered by mostly Uber which has since then become synonymous with taxi hailing applications. I kept wondering why these companies had no interest in the rest of towns like my own. Unbeknownst to me, there were market and demographic surveys that ruled out our beloved town. Things like the composition of the middle class and the size of their disposable income.

A friend from campus who stays in Mumias had a couple of cars that he hired out or sometimes gave them out as taxis, the traditional one. There was need for regulated taxis in this town, where you could budget and not be at the mercy of the driver. Most of these guys would just pull a figure from their rear and claim that’s it. Like say town service would swing in the range of 300 – 500! So my friend and I had coffee, (OK we didn’t do coffee, It was beer) gave me one car to start off with. One was not enough, but you can’t build from the top right? I know Egyptians can, but I am no Egyptian. Gave word out there, that I was looking for a driver. Some guy made the cut, slightly older than I was comfortable being boss to, but I just had to make do.

I had no app to help determine fares, new jerksh*t about running a taxi business, but here I was in the deep of it. With a Flashy name like Flash cabs we gained some bit of traction. I dedicated a line +254726636100 towards taxi hailing. Some days were good, 3 to 4 calls in need of Taxi services. Some days I would stare at the phone and even restart it thinking it had lost its network. The driver was to kick back an agreed sum per day and I would In turn kick it up to my friend, the owner of the car. Sometimes the driver would make payments in time, sometimes not so much. 

Social media has a way of making everything larger than life, with my good presence on the interwebs, I might have created the impression to netizens that I own a fleet of like 50 cars making all sorts of runs in Bungoma. I would get some calls that would make me laugh and just wish that were true. A friend of a friend called and offered to develop an app for me. I complicated myself because I knew I had very…very little to offer in return. 

Business was bad and besides the maintenance and repairs, I was barely covering any of the operational costs. The concept was terrible and I had spread myself too thin. 

I was introduced to some guy who specialized in car hire. He would take care of my hire clients and kick something my way. That stopped with immediate effect when some chaps hired a car, disappeared with it only for me to receive a call from Kakamega cops that the car had been used to rape some young lady. I had not signed up for this kind of drama honestly, between the repairs on the daily, little business and what turned out to be an unreliable driver; I had no choice but to fold. I did not give it much thought. I simply called my friend, balanced books and organized for a drop off of the car. Six months into it and I was drowning! Letting go at the moment was the best and the worst decision I ever made. Really good for my sanity (which was paramount) and really terrible taking into account all the buzz I had started to create.

With no official communication to my clients, I just stopped pushing the brand Flash cabs, redirected the few (clients) who still called to my regular taxi guys and that’s how I slowly killed it. I would feel really bad sometimes like I left a member of my troop on the battlefield, but time truly heals. After sometime the guilt wore off. I focused on scaling the branding business which was doing quite well. We incorporated the branding business and even moved to a bigger location.

Fast forward to 2019 a friend from high school had been transferred to Bungoma by his employer. Turns out I was the only person he knew in Bungoma, so I had to show him around. As we were catching up, he asked where the Taxis were. I just laughed and told him … ‘on an indefinite hiatus’. I could tell a tinge of disappointment in his voice and I wondered why, later on he disclosed how he has 2 cars and was hoping he could join them in my company. My quick rejoinder was, you mate; are two years late! Persistent dude this one, kept bugging me on reviving Flash Cabs and I just never had the wherewithal.

One day blogger wakajuaness ran a story on his popular blog spot wakajuaness.com that a son of the soil had set up an online hailing platform. The news was bitter sweet. Here was someone going to succeed at something I had failed at miserably. Happy because we could now have regulated taxis in this town. I shared the news with my friend and even encouraged him to join one of his cars into the Bungoma start up. As we were holed up somewhere exploring his platform, my friend who has design chops noticed some design flaws in their platform. At that very moment it hit me that I might have an offer for these guys! Ran it by my friend and he approved. Ran the same by my better half and she found no fault, just skepticism on whether we will be received with open arms, you know how people are with their businesses.

We met the guys; offered all the buzz we had garnered in 2017 in the name Flash cabs since it was way more perceptible than what they were using aaand a cash injection in the form of branding and advertising support which at that particular growth stage are the lifeline of a business. The guy we met was all smiles and we could have been duped that he was agreeable to our pitch. Seems like he wasn’t or maybe the co-director because he never got in touch after the 24 hours period he had given. 

My friend, not so happy about being stood up, declared that we should build our own platform. I wasn’t so sure about this but what was the worst that could happen. I told him to go ahead and if he could come up with something I was definitely in. 

Took him about 1 month to build the passenger app and another for the driver’s app. It was daunting as this was his first rodeo in the application development field. Must admit I was quite intrigued and impressed at his dedication to the whole thing. We finally started tests sometime in late October. We finally set up shop early November and let everyone know that Flash Cabs was back, and this time with an app! We didn’t know how long Google takes to approve an application uploaded to play store. Hahaha! It was an awkward three to four days as I had to literally send to everyone the app via WhatsApp. Public relations is my forte and I managed to explain away the technicality. The nickname Buber came about when locals would incessantly ask if our platform worked exactly like Uber, so, Bungoma Uber morphed into Buber.

We got the approval and the uphill task that is getting people to download our application started. I shouted myself hoarse on all my social media handles! Friends and family did too, and we still had not unlocked 500 downloads. Now that was not the main problem, demand quickly surpassed supply. We started using my now co-directors car which was compliant, (had gone for PSV inspection and had PSV insurance) and it was not enough! We could not outsource because very few were willing to receive the little cash we were charging. We were stuck, there was a need to get a second car real quick, remember this not how this model works. Ideally, the community was to jump on board and register as drivers using their cars with low engine ratings. Those who came either lacked this or that. Some brought cars and expected to be paid Kes 2000 per day, we politely turned them down as that was not sustainable and simply not our business model.

We pulled resources and decided to get ourselves a second car. After endless drama with our clearing agent we finally had a second car. This was a week or so to Christmas of 2019. We just had a second driver who used to do the night shifts with the first car. We gave him the new one. It was under my custody and I was flat broke after gallivanting in the coastal region in the name of buying a car. The car had 3rd party insurance, one day I had nasty dream, woke up sweating profusely. Called my driver and told him no ways the car was going to work nights without comprehensive insurance. So every evening I would drop him off and take the car with me. 

After about 7 days I managed the first installment that was necessary for my comprehensive cover. I received the Insurance sticker on Christmas Eve. The same day I had decided to break for the holidays. We got home at around 8.00 pm and I handed the sticker to my driver. It was a busy night as different people were making merry at different entertainment spots. My two drivers were busy the entire night, mine particularly must have worked himself into the wee hours of the night. At five o’clock I receive a call, “boss I have been involved in an accident. I rammed into a stationary truck while performing an evasive maneuver from an unruly oncoming driver.” 

In my eight years of business I have developed such a tough exterior, all I asked was if he was okay. Told him to send pictures of the scene and wait for the cops. I went back to bed and I actually slept! I informed my family who were shocked at how casually I was taking the news. My friend/co-director was in Nairobi so there was little he could help me with. I called a friend back in Bungoma to help with the towing and decided to enjoy my Christmas. After push and pull with the cops the car was finally taken to my insurer’s garage of choice.

After a serious marketing drive prior to the introduction of the second car we were doing pretty good business. If you are wondering how two cars had the ability to service the entire Bungoma town market, don’t sweat it. Adoption of our model was excruciatingly slow, so yes given the rate at which guys were jumping on board, two cars were about enough. Here we were thrown back to the drawing board. We were back to survival mode. We were literally begging guys to join in, but guys love their cars idle and not making any money for them. I remember some guy with a compliant car gave us his car to help take care of our extra load. We agreed on terms only for him to unceremoniously turn around and yank the car away from us two days into the deal. 

Three months lapsed and my car was ready. You would understand my uneasiness entrusting the car into the hands of some other driver. Despite my tight schedule, I would double up as a cabbie on some evenings I wasn’t so beat. At this point we now had three other drivers, four myself included. Heck we had even Introduced Kabuber! (Our tongue in cheek equivalent of Uber chap chap, derived from Telkom’s Kaduda phone) My business partner and I were just finalizing plans of a major activation targeting popular entertainment spots and hotels. Those plans and the little traction we had regained were sucker punched by news of the prevalent Coronavirus. There was an immediate slump in our business as movement was curtailed. We had to cancel our promotion plans, we even rejected applications from new car owners who wanted to join in. There was no business for the six we had by the close of April 2020. I did every cost effective marketing trick in the book and nothing really did it. So we focussed our attention on making the product better and creating capacity for when the restrictions will be lifted.

I have never caught a break with the Taxi business. What fuels me is the massive gap in my environment and the boundless opportunities that can come with it. Do not be fooled, this is no low hanging fruit, If it was, the rest of the platforms would be all over this market. It is unique and its uniqueness once figured out might just be what propels us into a very bountiful future coupled with steadfast service delivery. Our biggest challenge is the massive awareness campaigns we have to do in order to garner any form of adoption. Most clients would rather call me the proprietor than go to the application and request for a ride. 

The root cause of the dissonance being, the period when we did not have capacity and most would not find any driver online. This blog post will double up as an appeal to our dear clients, that before you call the office please make sure to have requested on the application first and maybe lacked a driver, only then can you call in. 

You can miss a driver if you are out of range or the drivers are currently engaged. That’s why we placed an in app feature that allows you to directly dial the office in such an event.

I still have that never say die mental frame. Despite the extreme curve-balls the universe has thrown my direction in regards to the taxi business, I have taken them as lessons and I intend to forge into the future with a stronger backbone.