I usually draw a lot of flak from my friends and family for not driving myself to work even though I can. Personally, I prefer to use public transport because the interactions that I have with people while commuting are far more valuable that the comfort of commuting in my own car. More often than not, it gives me wonderful insights into the thought process of the aam aadmi - the common man. It keeps a check on my perception of reality, and helps me stay connected with the 'real' reality. It was a discussion with my colleagues about one such intriguing conversation that I had with a fellow commuter in the metro, that inspired a big technological innovation.
Out of sheer coincidence, I happened to bump into the same fellow commuter in the metro - not once, not twice - but thrice, on consecutive days. Dressed in a neat uniform, complemented with a walky-talky and a baton, the security guard was (obviously!) on his way to work, just like me. Our interaction on the first day was limited to a customary nod of acknowledgement of each others presence, after which I busied myself with my smartphone for the remainder of the journey. We happened to bump into each other the next day too, and we acknowledged each other with a smile and had the awkward conversation (the 'Oh, so we meet again. You're headed to work too! Where do you work?' one.) When I bumped into him the next day as well, he struck up a polite conversation with me and it drifted towards work. Being unsure of how I could possibly explain my work profile at Baxi, I simply told him that I help in making apps for a bike taxi service. Though he had heard of Baxi and had seen our uniformed drivers around the metro station, he had never given Baxi a shot and had preferred to use autorickshaws for the last mile commute to his workplace. On prodding him in the right direction, he (very pointedly) mentioned that this was because everyone doesn't have a smartphone along with subscription to data to be used with apps, like me. Though I was a little shocked at the accusatory tone he used, I calmly explained how a Baxi could be hailed off the road as well, but he was only partly convinced. He still maintained that such services are bound to be expensive and not meant for the common man at all! For me, this was a rude awakening to the fact that the general perception about app-based services is that they're for the elite to use, with their shiny new smartphones and their oh-so-fast 4G data packs. Clearly, this was not what we meant Baxi to be.
When we started rolling out our service last December, we shared a common vision. We wanted to make life easier for urban commuters. All of us appreciated the fact that known tricks of the cab-aggregation model can't be copied and applied in this context without adding a flavour of 'jugaad'. The arrogance of success is to believe that what you did yesterday will continue to work sufficiently well in future. For me, to innovate or not to innovate was not even a question. Nowadays, we all appreciate the value of innovation, especially when it solves problems. Research showed us that only a third of smartphone users in India subscribe to data services from telecom operators. The remaining majority does not have access to data services, and the ones who do have this privilege don't have the luxury of reliability. Don't we all just hate it when we need data on our phones and the battery is about to die? Or when your network provider claims to have the largest 4G network but fails to delivery connectivity? Or even when you've exhausted your data pack watching videos of cats playing the piano. The list can go on and on... It's the story of our lives, and we hate it. Imagine a (hypothetical) scenario where a crazy scientist goofs up and transports you to the good ol' 1990s. But there's a catch. The scientist’s goof up also transports 42 velociraptors from 75 million years ago to the same place as you. The only way you can outrun them is by escaping on a cab hailed from the future. There's obviously no data connectivity on your smartphone, because after all, you're in the 1990s. You're only as good as your capability to hail an app-based cab... in which case, you're going to end up being the dinner of 42 (very hungry) velociraptors. You wouldn't like that to happen, would you?
Frugality drives innovation, and this is precisely what happened. It led us to innovate. And we launched what would eventually become the world's first taxi app that works without internet. Difficult problems often have really simple solutions. The key to cracking this problem was something so simple that we felt silly (no, really silly!) for not having thought of it earlier. My Eureka moment occurred when it dawned on me that a regular cellular phone has predominant mode of communication (no, something even better than internet data) - something which everyone used in the stone ages. Well not really the stone ages, but before the era of smartphones and internet data. It's called the Simple Messaging Service, also known as *drumroll* SMS. We realized that we could use SMSes as a mode of communication between our servers and phones which don't have data connectivity. The technical challenge on our side was to re-mould our systems to orchestrate the process of connecting a driver with a passenger, without having the luxury of continuous location updates over a data channel. On detecting no connectivity to the internet, our app would collect the data that we require to find a suitable driver for anyone who requests a ride, and then send this information through to us via a single SMS. In response, our server would then send out multiple SMSes with appropriate updates. These updates would be intercepted by the Baxi app, which would adapt itself to show appropriate screens, the same way as our regular online app would - to give a seamless experience to the user. Having said that, there's nothing which a bunch of hard-working engineers (coupled with a few all nighters fuelled by a lot of caffeine) can't achieve!
As for the aam aadmi commuters - internet or no internet, just open the app, press a button and that's when all the magic happens!
Out of sheer coincidence, I happened to bump into the same fellow commuter in the metro - not once, not twice - but thrice, on consecutive days. Dressed in a neat uniform, complemented with a walky-talky and a baton, the security guard was (obviously!) on his way to work, just like me. Our interaction on the first day was limited to a customary nod of acknowledgement of each others presence, after which I busied myself with my smartphone for the remainder of the journey. We happened to bump into each other the next day too, and we acknowledged each other with a smile and had the awkward conversation (the 'Oh, so we meet again. You're headed to work too! Where do you work?' one.) When I bumped into him the next day as well, he struck up a polite conversation with me and it drifted towards work. Being unsure of how I could possibly explain my work profile at Baxi, I simply told him that I help in making apps for a bike taxi service. Though he had heard of Baxi and had seen our uniformed drivers around the metro station, he had never given Baxi a shot and had preferred to use autorickshaws for the last mile commute to his workplace. On prodding him in the right direction, he (very pointedly) mentioned that this was because everyone doesn't have a smartphone along with subscription to data to be used with apps, like me. Though I was a little shocked at the accusatory tone he used, I calmly explained how a Baxi could be hailed off the road as well, but he was only partly convinced. He still maintained that such services are bound to be expensive and not meant for the common man at all! For me, this was a rude awakening to the fact that the general perception about app-based services is that they're for the elite to use, with their shiny new smartphones and their oh-so-fast 4G data packs. Clearly, this was not what we meant Baxi to be.
When we started rolling out our service last December, we shared a common vision. We wanted to make life easier for urban commuters. All of us appreciated the fact that known tricks of the cab-aggregation model can't be copied and applied in this context without adding a flavour of 'jugaad'. The arrogance of success is to believe that what you did yesterday will continue to work sufficiently well in future. For me, to innovate or not to innovate was not even a question. Nowadays, we all appreciate the value of innovation, especially when it solves problems. Research showed us that only a third of smartphone users in India subscribe to data services from telecom operators. The remaining majority does not have access to data services, and the ones who do have this privilege don't have the luxury of reliability. Don't we all just hate it when we need data on our phones and the battery is about to die? Or when your network provider claims to have the largest 4G network but fails to delivery connectivity? Or even when you've exhausted your data pack watching videos of cats playing the piano. The list can go on and on... It's the story of our lives, and we hate it. Imagine a (hypothetical) scenario where a crazy scientist goofs up and transports you to the good ol' 1990s. But there's a catch. The scientist’s goof up also transports 42 velociraptors from 75 million years ago to the same place as you. The only way you can outrun them is by escaping on a cab hailed from the future. There's obviously no data connectivity on your smartphone, because after all, you're in the 1990s. You're only as good as your capability to hail an app-based cab... in which case, you're going to end up being the dinner of 42 (very hungry) velociraptors. You wouldn't like that to happen, would you?
Frugality drives innovation, and this is precisely what happened. It led us to innovate. And we launched what would eventually become the world's first taxi app that works without internet. Difficult problems often have really simple solutions. The key to cracking this problem was something so simple that we felt silly (no, really silly!) for not having thought of it earlier. My Eureka moment occurred when it dawned on me that a regular cellular phone has predominant mode of communication (no, something even better than internet data) - something which everyone used in the stone ages. Well not really the stone ages, but before the era of smartphones and internet data. It's called the Simple Messaging Service, also known as *drumroll* SMS. We realized that we could use SMSes as a mode of communication between our servers and phones which don't have data connectivity. The technical challenge on our side was to re-mould our systems to orchestrate the process of connecting a driver with a passenger, without having the luxury of continuous location updates over a data channel. On detecting no connectivity to the internet, our app would collect the data that we require to find a suitable driver for anyone who requests a ride, and then send this information through to us via a single SMS. In response, our server would then send out multiple SMSes with appropriate updates. These updates would be intercepted by the Baxi app, which would adapt itself to show appropriate screens, the same way as our regular online app would - to give a seamless experience to the user. Having said that, there's nothing which a bunch of hard-working engineers (coupled with a few all nighters fuelled by a lot of caffeine) can't achieve!
As for the aam aadmi commuters - internet or no internet, just open the app, press a button and that's when all the magic happens!
