Driven by the desire to address the twin challenge of lack of ride-hailing services and the sizable un-serviced market in Nigeria and Africa at large

Digital ride-hailing or e-hailing platforms have become a mainstay in many African markets, reshaping the way we think about personal mobility and work in the transport sector. In 2020, revenues generated in Africa’s e-hailing industry was estimated to reach USD2.5 Billion, with Nigeria accounting for around USD292 million of this revenue and 15% of the continent’s 48.6 million e-hailing users.

Pickmeup has carved a niche as a leading brand for on-demand rides across Nigeria backed by years of experience built on convenience, reliability and unmatched customer service, all powered by a proprietary technology platform.

In this insightful interview, Michael Okaredje, Founder & CEO of Pickmeup bares his mind on the giant strides by Pickmeup in opening alternative pathways to the economic growth of Africa’s largest economy, offering opportunities to reshape lives while improving economies.

Give a brief introduction of yourself, your background, and an overview of Pickmeup. What motivated you to start the company in the first place and what inspired the name?

I studied computer science after which I’ve built a successful career in the oil and gas sector. Today, I sit on the board of an energy company in Nigeria’s South-South region.

My decision to go into the startup scene was born out of a desire to address the lack of ride-hailing services in my city and the sizable un-serviced market in Nigeria and Africa at large.

That was what prompted me to found Pickmeup – I decided to develop a product based on my extensive knowledge of the terrain and the consumers.

We wanted something simple that will easily reflect what we do and also resonates with the people, hence the name Pickmeup.

Pickmeup is a transport technology platform that allows people to book safe and reliable rides in minutes using their smartphones. The app is extremely simple and very user-friendly – people can download the app, and within seconds set up a personal profile with a name, phone number, and payment preference, which could be by card or cash. And then they can start booking rides immediately.

What’s your target market and market size? And how has the traction been so far on the customer side?

The target market is estimated to be around 206 million people in Nigeria and $71.9 billion total addressable market.

The target market includes an array of profiles – from individuals looking to escape the hassle of public urban transportation to corporates and public institutions that wish to organise smooth day-to-day transportation for their employees. Currently, over 50,000 people rely on our app to move around their cities.

What makes Pickmeup different? In other words, what are your unique value propositions, and how cost-effective is the service?

Pickmeup was founded based on a unique understanding of the market terrain and customer base, which sets us apart.

It does not just help people move around with convenience and at affordable rates, it also offers a number of unique features for all parties involved in the process.

Riders get to enjoy features such as a live chat function to resolve queries in real-time, greater fare transparency, and the option of favouriting a driver to prioritise them for future rides.

And we’ve discovered that the addressable customer base is beyond just smartphone users. While smartphones are crucial to Pickmeup’s operations, we also use a central dispatcher hotline to receive ride requests from customers that prefer phone calls to mobile apps, and then integrate them to the system afterwards.

We are known for doing the small things that the bigger competitors are missing and are able to tailor the experience to Nigerians a lot more than they can.

In the face of stiff competition in the Nigerian market, how has the company evolved during the pandemic?

Many industries were directly affected by the pandemic. Notably, ride-hailing apps witnessed a decline in use, so our rides cratered naturally as cities went into lockdown and Nigerians began to self-isolate.

But there has been an uptick in demand with the easing of movement restrictions and we have continued to gain momentum post-Covid lockdowns. This is especially because car ownership is low in this part of the world, so people are more willing to travel with Pickmeup, as we give them an assurance of safety and hygiene amid the pandemic.

We really prioritize safety, even above customers or making money.

Presently, before you can use our service, you have to wear a mask, else the driver can choose to reject you. Also, we ensure our drivers have hand sanitizers in their cars and customers actually appreciate that. That’s really helped the business.

We took a number of cost-cutting initiatives even though they weren’t enough to fully offset the economic fallout from the pandemic. In our operations, we had to introduce a comprehensive set of safety policies to ensure the safety of drivers and riders.

With every crisis, there are sure to be lessons. While the lockdown measures reduced ride bookings, the isolation period simultaneously fuelled expansion in food and package deliveries, as people turned to online shopping. That underlines the importance of building a diversified business so, from transport mobility, we are moving into food delivery, payments, and social e-commerce very soon.

What do you consider the main opportunities and obstacles in the industry?

There are still a lot of opportunities in the ride-hailing industry. Public transportation in the country’s urban cities is still very chaotic and prone to accidents and local taxi cabs do not alleviate the situation. Although existing ride-hailing companies are helping to solve the problem, there’s still a lot of market to capture as most car-hailing companies focus on Lagos and Abuja only. So while someone in Kano or Ebonyi makes use of fintech services due to the fact that they’re not tied to location, one may not find a ride-hailing service there. So it’s a matter of expanding the industry to the many cities still underserved and then you have a boom, just as we’ve seen in fintech.

However, a challenge is regulatory uncertainty on the motorcycle hailing segment in Lagos State, the commercial hub of Nigeria and a major market for e-hailing but where motorcycles had not always been welcomed.

Then there are the constant quarrels with drivers, who are by the day demanding more from ride-hailing companies, in terms of compensation and welfare.

What difficult choices have you had to make in the course of this journey and what are the lessons learned?

Generally, starting a business or going into entrepreneurship is tough and challenging on all fronts. I have made some difficult choices in the course of this journey and I continue to learn and grow. The key thing is to pick up lessons along the way and apply them as you continue with your project. That’s greatly helped me.

Some lessons are that innovation can be simple, it does not have to be an idea or something nobody has ever thought of before.

And it’s not always about you and your product or idea – at the heart of entrepreneurship lies humanity – you have to help, to take time to serve and help others.

What is your perspective on mobility and everyday convenience platforms and what local and regional growth opportunities do you foresee as part of your roadmap in the near future?

With the increasing rollout of smartphones and high-speed internet in Africa’s urban cities, the demand for digital on-demand services from mobility to other everyday convenience platforms will only continue to rise.

As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of urban cities yet to be captured and urban populations that are unserved by ride-hailing companies in Nigeria. I believe this is the same for other African countries. So I expect significant geographical expansion involving Pickmeup happening. Seeing the potential in those areas, I expect investors to readily back startups ready to seize these opportunities.