GEM DIGGERS AMA with DRIFE
It is hard to argue that continuous improvement or step change cannot be applied to something, if you really think about it hard and analyse its history you can always find ways to improve the way things are done.
For example, Industry 4.0, the evolution of manufacturing from steam powered machinery (Ind.1) through to the advent of electricity (Ind.2) and exploitation of it in the industrial revolution which also started the trend of automation (Ind.3), to what we are now seeing, the exploitation of the internet, its power to connect people, devices and automate processes and implement AI technologies. The rate of growth and development is staggering but.
But what does all this have to do with our most recent AMA…? Well the relevance comes because we are talking about delivering step change in existing industries.
With the power of blockchain that is exactly what is happening at DRIFE. Led by Firdosh Sheikh — CEO and Co-Founder, the team at DRIFE are ushering in a new evolution of the ride-hailing industry and they aptly refer to their creation as delivering Taxi 3.0 (More about this later in the Q&A)
When Firdosh and her team talk about a decentralised ride-hailing platform they are not just talking about a concept or that its basically Uber on blockchain. No, for the past 2 years they have been developing DRIFE, starting with a deep understanding of the ride-hailing ecosystem and they are coming into this global market worth approximately $260 billion with a fully developed product, with a network of over 8000 drivers in India and they are in talks with relevant authorities in several countries worldwide. Drivers get 100% of the fare and they have a unique governance system that allows both riders and drivers to make decisions as well as auction on ride pricing.
DRIFE is a decentralized ride-hailing platform powered by blockchain with the intent of empowering both drivers and riders without any existence of a central entity.
Read on to see the full Q&A between Ozzy and Firdosh from DRIFE in our recent AMA event…
Ozzy: How long have you been developing DRIFE and what’s your plan about DRIFE Pilot Launch, which city are you currently working to launch DRIFE in?
Firdosh: I started with the idea of Drife 2 years back and we spent a lot of time understanding the whole ride-hailing ecosystem and then we started digging deeper to understand what’s really wrong in this ecosystem.
And building a ride-hailing platform in itself is a very exhausting process because they are a lot of different kind of integrations that go into building a ride-hailing platform and then we wanted to use blockchain as an enabler for certain features within the application.
So yeah we took quite some time in building this but here we are with a fully developed application both for the drivers and rider.
We started working for the Bangalore launch in India as we have a very good network of driver and rider and the App was supposed to launch on the 20th of April last month and we had everything in place from testing the application internally.
But because of the second wave of Covid and city undergoing lockdown we have to stop everything in the first week of April as we could see things getting worse from there and we don’t want to start with something and then we have to stop in between because things are getting worse and again its something that’s not under our control.
Now we are waiting for things to get better and normal in Bangalore so we can resume with application launch in Bangalore India.
Ozzy: So…your whitepaper describes DRIFE as Taxi 3.0, can you please tell us how you are revolutionising ride hailing services with DRIFE?
Firdosh: The history of transportation is a history of evolution itself.
In our journey, we realised the whole dynamics of the taxi industry is about 2 different phases we saw.
Taxi 1.0 when we use to get connected with drivers directly, negotiate with them and used to take a ride, It was more of a traditional peer to peer ecosystem.
Then came Taxi 2.0 it is about the whole technological disruption that happened in the mobility space and the topic of mobility was never as interesting as it has become because of economic incentives in place with just a few taps in your mobile application every other ride-hailing platform started selling convenience to its consumer.
But in this whole journey of bringing convenience for consumers and making their life easy they created a huge gap and no doubt global taxi industry is evolving and it’s time for us to also evolve as well, that’s where we call ourselves Taxi 3.0 where we are bringing a dynamic shift, and bringing best of both the world with a way better approach where we connect drivers and riders directly and give back the power and the freedom that used to belong with them.
Thus Drife is a platform through which we are reimagining the way we book a taxi using a mobile app.
Ozzy: With many countries across the globe moving towards green energy and electric vehicles (EV), what is the stance that DRIFE is taking on this? Uber for example is actively working with EV manufacturers…
Firdosh: We have to change the way the world moves. And we’re committed to changing the way the world moves forward. With a large chunk of the global populace preferring eco-friendly products. In many cities around the world, more electric mobility is cleaner mobility. This means less local pollution and fewer climate-related emissions for cities, especially where electricity grids include an increasing share of renewable energy.
At Drife we will start incentivizing our driver-partners to make a transition to battery electric vehicle (Evs), And will bring in the “Green Drife” ride option.
Ozzy: How is DRIFE ensuring that drivers do not overcharge riders, since they can make their own decisions on how much to charge?
Firdosh: A Drife we actually do a basic fare calculation based on the local regulatory requirements
So it works this way We at Drife does the basic fare calculation based on the algorithm that we have in place and after that, we allow the driver to counter-quote based on the different subscription plan the driver has in place.
There is a maximum premium and maximum discount that the driver can offer based on the subscription plan that they have in place.
Thus we make sure that the drivers don’t have a monopoly when it comes to charging riders.
At the end of the day, the choice lies with the rider with which driver they want to travel with.
Ozzy: Driver independence is a clear objective for DRIFE, but what about rider satisfaction, how are you balancing the needs of both?
Firdosh: The first problem that we saw in the mobility space as a whole was of the commission that a driver pays on daily basis to the ride-hailing platform at the end of the day it’s a driver who is spending end-less hours behind the wheel and he deserves to earn what a ride pays.
But that was a very small problem. As we started digging deeper into this we realize the problem is bigger than that which in turn passes more problem to the driver and rider.
Yes, we are working for drivers independence but at the same time when we are able to give the freedom and flexibility to driver, we are able to pass on that benefit to riders as well.
At Drife riders will be able to pay more economical fare as compare to other platform because we don’t have a profit motive involved in the fare, Thus we are able to take away unnecessary component from the fare that a rider was paying which was never passed on to the driver.
At the same time we are giving this choice to the rider where they can make a decision about which driver they are willing to travel with based on the rating of a driver or the price that a driver is charging or the time that a driver will take to reach your location these are the different parameters from which you as a rider can select which driver you want to travel with.
Apart from this we are incentivizing the whole ecosystem where riders get to earn from the different level of participation in the ecosystem and this is not a one-time referral bonus that you as a rider gets. But it’s a more of a lifetime passive source of income that you was a rider open up for yourself when you take part in the Drife ecosystem.
Ozzy: That’s interesting, will riders be able to use those benefits for paying fares as well?
Firdosh: Yes they will be able to use the benefits earned to pay for fares
Ozzy: Can you tell us more about who you are talking to about creation of franchises for DRIFE, which countries and the level of influence your connections have?
Firdosh: That’s an interesting question we actually started with working on Drife’s pilot launch in Bangalore, India and the franchise model is something that we want to introduce at a later point in time when we have the model city up and running.
But before we even started speaking about franchisee we started getting request for expanding Drife in different geographies.
So there is two very interesting partnership that we are working on one is in Brazil another is in Paris. And two teams that we are working with have played a very important role in the launch of one of the biggest ride-hailing platform in the world. And were holding really very important positions with those companies.
For now, I cannot tell the name of the people we are working with or the name of the company they were associated with but this is going to be very big news when we will reveal names but it’s really exciting and most probably we will see Drife not only launching in Bangalore India but in Paris and in Brazil this year.
Apart from that, we are working with few partners in UAE to start our operations in Dubai. So in short a lot of exciting partnerships are in the pipeline
Ozzy: Attracting drivers and riders will be critical to the success of DRIFE, what marketing tactics are you using to get large numbers of subscribers to DRIFE?
Firdosh: Unlike other crypto projects which has everything to do with the crypto ecosystem. Drife is very different.
We have literally two different part of our application one is the real application which has real-life application and needs a lot of traditional marketing where we are working to get drivers and riders onboarded. We are very lucky in terms of getting drivers on board.
We have close to 10,000 drivers in a network who will be a part of the launch in Bangalore India.
But with the rider side activation, we are working closely with restaurants malls theatres to activate riders.
We are working with mainstream platforms as a mobility partner
Also following traditional activation mechanism, which involves first ride free, cashbacks and referral bonus. We are also working with local influencers to bring more riders on-board
Ozzy: You’ve made the point in your whitepaper that existing large players in this market have yet to become profitable, what is the game-plan for DRIFE to be a profitable and sustainable service for decades to come?
Firdosh: We are very thankful to the other platform that spent a lot of time and money creating this ecosystem . Unlike back in 2010 when it was so difficult for people to adapt to using mobile application to book a taxi. Even for drivers adoption was very difficult at a time. Now everybody understands how this whole ecosystem works. It becomes very easy for us in terms of marketing us.
Obviously, we are using Blockchain as a technology to enable certain services in the platform. Thus we are already saving a lot of cost as compared to the centralized ecosystem And if we are able to bring adoption in place it will become easier for Drife to become more sustainable.
And I personally want Drife to self sustain on its own where franchisees are able to take up the operation and drivers and riders will be able to take care of the network cost.
Anyways its a very long journey
Ozzy: What are you working on in the way of rider safety and comfort, how will you vet drivers to ensure they are operating legally?
Firdosh: We are committed to the safety of both driver and rider and in doing so we have certain steps in place that make sure both the drivers and rider feel safe in the Drife platform.
To start with, every driver has to go through the rigorous on-boarding process which includes their background verification, criminal check, and making sure they have a valid license and permit in place to be on-boarded as a driver.
Apart from that, we have face recognition for drivers to make sure every day we keep a random check on drivers to make sure that the driver who has registered with the Drife platform is a driver who is riding around.
Apart from that for riders, we have an emergency button during the ride which a rider can use to get help from the Drife platform itself, Every Drife franchisee has to set up their own command centre and emergency service centre which can help anybody in need.
I personally work on the safety and security of Drife, And the goal is to make everyone feel safe.
Ozzy: Is your contract audited, or in the process? What progress have you made on this front?
Firdosh: Our smart contracts are not yet audited but they are in the process of getting audited. We will be soon finalizing with the auditors with whom we want to go ahead with, we have few options in place but yeah that will be done very soon.
Ozzy: Is there anything else you like to share with us today that we haven’t already covered?
Firdosh: We have spent a lot of time building the Drife platform and now we are very close to the launch of the platform.
And they say the only thing that you need to “Disrupt” what they call is already disrupted is “willingness to fight”.
We are ready…Are you?
So Firdosh finished off with a strong message and challenge in this insightful AMA. Drife is sure to disrupt the ride-hailing industry with its product, already a strong following in Bangalore and many discussions underway globally, we look forward to watching this project launch and flourish.
Firdosh was really impressed by the number and quality of questions our audiences submitted of the AMA. She was please to announce the winning question below:
Winning Question: From @pababmar Loving this project and hoping to be an investor (and user) soon! I have a question regarding tokenomics. How do you plan on adjusting your model once the platform grows? As the number of tokens is capped, we can get to the point where we “run out” of slots for drivers. We could reduce the number of tokens required per drive which would be beneficial for holders too BUT how would this affect current drivers? Thank you!
It left quite an impression with Firdosh, she had this to say on the winning question:
“I liked the quality of questions and its depth to understand how Drife will change the unit economics to deal with the increasing demand” — Firdosh Sheikh, CEO & Co-Founder, DRIFE
To learn more about DRIFE please use the following resources and continue the conversation with them…
Website | Telegram Chat | Telegram Announcements | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | Whitepaper
