Dear London Taxi Drivers,
At last, we are getting ready to launch Maaxi next week, to enable passengers to book an exclusive or shared taxi in one tap.
I would like to thank you all for your continued patience and support, which gave the entire team developing Maaxi a reason to continue working towards this launch. We all wanted to reach this point sooner, but I’m sure you would agree that launching prematurely would not have been in anyone’s best interest. After extensive testing we’re finally ready to go, and this update is to let you know what you can expect from us in the next few weeks and months. We are fully committed to the black cab trade, and look forward to a long and successful partnership. The shared taxi market is very lucrative since taxi drivers can charge up to twice the meter reading on each ride and have access to a significantly larger customer base.
When we started working on Maaxi, we knew that to operate shared taxi rides effectively we needed skilled drivers, roomy vehicles with two large doors, and great mapping technology. We now have all of this in place following the registration of thousands of black cab drivers and the completion of our product development. What we need to do now is ensure we have drivers in the areas of demand and to spread the word to our passengers.
We have set ourselves the goal of shifting 1% of London’s daily 15 million public transport and minicab rides to shared taxi rides in black cabs within the next 12 months. To make the system work we have decided that every few weeks we will announce a new set of ‘Maaxi Services’ in a particular area of London. Just as TfL periodically announce a new train or bus service, we will look to cover an identifiable public transport commute corridor in one area at a time, and will focus all of our marketing efforts on that area.
While our formal plan is to initially launch ‘Maaxi Services’ in certain commute corridors in South West London, we are able to adapt and focus on different areas if we see that the majority of drivers we have on the system are concentrated somewhere else during their workday.
We will be employing online marketing on Google, Facebook, and Twitter that is geo-targeted, as well as offline marketing in stations and bus stops. We’ll also be sending direct mail / flyers to houses in each relevant area. This does not mean that we won’t also be covering exclusive taxi rides and won’t be marketing them to people going out in central London at night, but the commuter corridors will be a big focus for us on an ongoing basis.
Here’s what we need from you during the course of next week:
- Download the latest version of the Maaxi Driver App from the links on our homepage www.maaxitaxi.com or from the SMS we’ll send over the weekend (after this SMS all updates will be sent via the app itself) and keep it open while you drive so we can see where you are working and can adapt our launch plans from South West London if needed
- Download the Maaxi Driver Training App from the links on www.maaxitaxi.com/training to refresh your memory of how it works
- Attend our training sessions if you would like to get back up-to-speed in person; we will advertise dates for these next week
- Encourage other drivers to sign up to Maaxi. As a reminder, we will be distributing a proportion of the shared taxi rides volume we have in driver bonuses, so the more drivers you invite via your the Invite option in your App, the more cash you will get. If we want to get 50,000 3-person rides with passengers from public transport and minicabs per day, we will need to have over 10,000 taxis on the system. The sooner we reach that number, the better
I am confident you will find using Maaxi a rewarding experience and passengers will enjoy using black cabs as frequently as they take the tube. We are positive that in working towards a common goal, our combined efforts will bear fruit.
Best of luck to all of us,
Gabi Campos, Founder of Maaxi
