Uber- A most valuable startup which revolutionized the concept of ride-hailing in the market and made it digital. We all are aware of Uber’s success, but many of us might not be knowing about their success path.
It was never an easy challenge Uber has taken.
Are you eager to know about the history of Uber?
In this article, I’ll be taking you to the ride of Uber’s journey to becoming such a hugely successful startup.
Let us throw some light upon a few phases of Uber’s success path.
How Uber Came into the Picture?
Uber, previously known as UberCab was launched in 2009. The founders of Uber Garrett Camp & Travis Kalanick got this thought when they were not able to find the cab on a cold winter night in Paris. That’s the point where this idea of the ride-hailing business came into existence in 2008.
Later, in March 2009 these two entrepreneurs launched the app first in San Francisco. According to one of the reports, Uber’s growth from launch to 2016 is around $11.6 billion. Below is the growth statistics of this on-demand taxi booking app.
- The gross booking of Uber in 2018 was 12 billion.
- Uber is available in approximately 63 countries and 785 metropolitan cities around the globe.
- Almost 77% of the US ride-hailing market is covered by Uber alone.
- 10% of the adults book Uber at least once in a month.
- By 2021 the Uber users are estimated to reach 500 billion.
- Uber’s female workforce encounters 40.2%.
Glimpse on Uber’s Strategy
For any startup enablers or entrepreneurs, to be successful in the market, it is important to understand the challenges faced by the customers. And then build an application that gives them a perfect solution to their problems. Something similar was followed by the Uber as well. Let us go through the challenges Uber recognized and how they solved it to provide the best User experience.
Traffic & payment Issues:
Sometimes due to not knowing about the various short paths people get stuck in the traffic. Sometimes making a payment was even a cumbersome issue for the users. Uber came with the smartest solution for it. Whenever users book a ride with Uber, the driver’s map will show the shortest path to reach the destination with less traffic. Hence, it can be a time-saving thing for the users. To provide ease in the payment to the users, Uber has integrated payment gateways in the application.
Fear of Unfamiliarity:
It is one of the frequent problems faced by people. Many of us fear to travel with the unknown driver due to insecure feeling. They only reason for it is they are not familiar with the driver. Uber took this issue in the priority and discovered the best solution to it. On the note of solution, Uber made available the diver’s profile, ratings and details in the app. So that users can get to know about the driver before taking the ride.
Issues in Knowing the Exact Location of Driver:
Earlier, people used to face problems like they were not able to know the exact location of the driver. Users especially get irritated when they are running out of time. Uber provided the easiest solution for it by enabling users for tracking the live location of the driver. With that, customers can even get a real-time notification for the ride they’ve booked. By giving a solution for such issues, Uber caught the attention of customers on a large scale.
So these are some of the biggest challenges that Uber solved. I guess now you exactly got the reason for its success and popularity. This was all about how Uber managed to become the most valuable startup in this era of digitization.
Planning to Build an App like Uber for Your Business?
Looking at the gigantic success of Uber, many businesses have started investing to build an app like Uber. If you are planning for a similar startup, here are the two points you should take into consideration.
- The first thing to note here is understanding the problems faced by the people just as Uber did.
- Once you recognize the user’s pain, then look for the best flexible and easy solution you can provide.
One thing I would recommend you here is to follow the same business model as that of Uber. As it is already successful in the market. If you want an app like Uber in a short period of time, then it is highly beneficial to directly go for the Uber clone. You can later even customize the clone as per your requirements. It is money saving and less time-consuming in comparison to developing an app from scratch. The cost of app development is half when going for Uber like solution.
Above all, to compete in the market, here are a few questions you need to get the answers first.
- Who are your biggest competitors in the market?
- Are you sure to get enough users who will download your app like Uber?
- What is your targeted audience?
- What unique thing in your application can attract users?
- What marketing strategies will you adopt?
Once you get the answers to these questions, it will be much easier for you to get the best out of your application.
2020: What’s Next in UBER?
Parting Thoughts
So, that’s all about the Uber’s success path and how you can achieve it. Always remember one thing, always have a look at the problem’s users are facing in their day to day life and provide the best possible solution for it. Hence, you can get the expected results for your business.
