Having trouble getting to work on time every day? Don’t want to travel with the group and prefer to travel alone to your destination? Is it too late to meet your friends outside because the driver is not at home? Neither mom nor dad is ready to take you to your tuition classes? Well, now you don’t have to worry about all these problems because Aravind Sanka and his two business partners Pavan Guntupalli, Rishikesh SR solved these issues with their unique business model – Rapido.
Rapido is an Indian online bike taxi aggregator. It operates in 100+ cities across the country and also travels to various places in and around them. It records more than 15,000 registered riders every day. Having said that, let’s delve deeper into the journey of Rapido and know about its success story.
How Did It Begin?
The journey of Rapido started in 2015 when the company was launched. At that time, it was founded on a logistics and supply-chain-driven concept which allowed clients to carry their goods with ease and comfort. Things were going well for Rapido, but one of its co-founders and IIT alumnus, Aravind Sanka realized that shifting gears from B2B to B2C would provide greater room for development of the company.
In the B2C model, the company could no longer deal with trucks and they had to switch to bikes to meet the growing transportation needs of customers. And using cars would mean an additional financial burden for the company, as well as a slew of competition, traffic, and delays. Therefore, with the sole purpose of easing the journey of their customers, Sanka and his other two partners, Rishikesh SR and Pavan Guntupalli started working initially with a small team of 15-20 people, who sowed the seeds for Rapido and made the success of the business possible with their sheer hard work, persistence, and dedication.
The founders of Rapido clearly understood one thing that Ola and Uber would never be cheap to everyone on a regular basis, and the traffic in major cities would only become worse. Hence, they devised a strategy to avoid some of the more obvious issues and built a successful online bike taxi aggregator platform.
Obstacles In The Road
Despite its impressive growth and success, Rapido confronted significant obstacles that could hinder its further expansion. One of the biggest challenges that Rapido faced was the stiff competition from other bike-sharing companies.
Secondly, Rapido had to keep investing in its infrastructure and technology in order to maintain its position as a leading bike-sharing service provider. However, overcoming all the obstacles in the road, the company managed to grow its reputation in the market.
Rapid Growth Of Rapido
The Bengaluru-based company reported a 12.5x jump in its revenue in 2021. The company earned interest income and capital gain on the sale of mutual funds. It aims to cross the million mark a day but already boasts of having 5,00,000 captains (bike riders), who have served 10 million customers across 90 locations.