Evangelizing cab aggregation space over 100 tier II and III cities: The story of MyTaxiIndia

During Techspark Grand Finale Shailendra Singh of Sequoia Capital urged budding entrepreneurs to identify large problem (pain-point) and build a solution around it, so that even they fail, they would end up with making significant mark. For Anshuman Mihir, founder and CEO of MyTaxiIndia, frequent hassle while booking cabs across different cities in the country made him to dive into startup pool. Mihir always dreamt of to have something on the lines of OTA major Makemytrip but he was waiting for one unique idea. “One day we got a booking for a big conference in Hyderabad. We have booked flight and hotel very easily but I find very difficult to book bulk taxis for our guest for 7 days. I almost called every big transporters in Hyderabad to book 65 taxis but I find on most occasions - availability of Taxi had to determined by making series of phone calls,” says Mihir. That was frustrating moment for Mihir, though he believes the whole episode gave him a great return that is MyTaxiIndia.com.Traction

Currently, the startup offers cabs for local and outstation usages including airport and railway station transfers across 115 cities in India. With MyTaxiIndia you can check the availability of taxi in real time for any particular date. While major players in the cab aggregation space focus in metro and tier I cities, MyTaxi India lets you to book cabs in tier II and III cities such as Mujaffarpur (Bihar) and Izol (Mizoram).

Segregating itself from other aggregators Mihir says “MyTaxiIndia.com is the true B2B car rental portal as it helps the travel agent to avoid pain to call multiple taxi operators,” adds Mihir. To avoid any inconvenience to users MyTaxiIndia has developed a software - Intelligent Booking system which allows it to understands the travel distance and time frame of every booking.

At present the startup receives around 20-25 bookings for local and outstation trip. “As of now we have 155 registered travel agents those are booking taxi with MyTaxiIndia and gaining 10% flat commission on every single booking. We are currently working over 100 cities online and offline with almost 3000 cabs under our umbrella,” says Mihir

Challenges, motivation to become entrepreneur & future plans

The biggest challenge MyTaxiIndia faced is to deliver same quality of standard service in tier II and III cities as it delivers in metro cities. Some of the major challenges it faced in small cities were taxi condition, commercial number plate, knowledgeable driver and punctuality. “When I went to smaller cities and met divers and local transporters I felt there is not much to do with them, we just need to discipline them and teach them the basics of hospitality and tourism,” adds Mihir.

Since his childhood Mihir dreamt of to become an entrepreneur and after completing his MBA he had worked two year to develop entrepreneurial skills. But the entrepreneurial itch was too hard to stand there so Mihir decide to quit his job and started MyTaxiIndia. “Currently MyTaxiIndia has a team of 25 young people who are determined to bring technology and management together in the best way possible for the Indian car rental industry," signs off Mihir. The company is also eyeing fund to scale and reach its goal in the next two years.

If we look at cabs aggregation space in India most of the players focus on metros and tier I cities while MyTaxiIndia is betting on relatively small cities . Last month during an interaction with YourStory Raghunandan G, co-founder Taxiforsure pointed out about significant growth potential in tier ll and lll cities like Raipur, Nagpur, Ranchi as disposable income is increasing in these cities and many premium services and hotels are being established, indicating that customers have an appetite. Taking such service in smaller cities is an interesting play, though penetration of internet and level of convenience in using it is not very encouraging.