Disrupting Cab Services In India, Gaurav Rai Shares His Journey & Explains India’s Most Customer Centric Company Coop Cab
Inventiva proudly presents an enlightening conversation with Mr. Gaurav Rai the founder and director of Coop Cab Service. It’s a 24-hour cab service accessible through an app on your phone or tablet and has customer care and driver helpline no. functioning 24*7 too. It is proving to be a fast-growing and efficient cab service in Delhi and Surat.
What we have seen till date in the cab industry are rental cabs and a few app-based cabs but the missing link in all these is the safety assurance. This is what Coop is bringing to the market. Coop assures best cab availability, clean cars, humble and trained drivers along with stringent safety measures, making it a deadly combination.
Mr. Gaurav Rai is a vivacious and vibrant person blessed with a brilliant intellect. He combined his skills and resources along with his other co-founders Mr. Brijesh khimani, Mr. Smit, and Mr. Hiren Thakkar and came up with the idea of an extremely secure, convenient, approachable and economical app-based cab service.
He follows the “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work” and see where it has got him.
Illuminate yourself with this wonderful interview:
1. What is the Name of Your Venture? Any specific reason for this name?
The name of our venture is Coop Cab Service. It is an app-based cab service currently operating in Delhi and Surat.
2. Who is your target Audience/clients?
Coop Cab service runs through a well-designed app and caters the cab needs of all age groups and classes of people in every niche and corner in its city of operation. It is safe and secure and is available 24*7 right at your doorstep. Just open the app on your phone or tab and book a cab from wherever you want. It is currently operating in Delhi and Surat and aims at expanding all over the country.
3. Where is your venture based (city, state, country) & What are your geographical target areas?
We are based in Surat, Gujarat and Delhi currently and we aim at expanding to all the cities in India as we think that such convenient app-based cab services are need of the hour and no city should stay deprived of it.
4. What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
Coop Cab is an app-based cab service which is vastly approachable and convenient. We provide cabs which anybody can book from anywhere and anytime. It is very easy to book as the interface is customer-friendly.
It solves the problem of safe and secure cab service in cities like Delhi which are highly unsafe. We ensure safety by checking closely the coordinates of each ride after every 10 seconds and in case we are unable to receive them we immediately contact the customer and the driver. So we aim at being the “safest cab service” in India.
5. Share the idea or story behind the venture. How did it came to an existence? What motivated you to start your own venture?
I was travelling to Dubai a few years back where the immigration officers were really happy to someone from the Land of Bollywood – India but when they came to know that I am from Delhi they were very astounded as everyone in the world now knows that Delhi is the rape capital of India. It has become so unsafe that even grown men do not want to leave homes alone in late night.
From there is where the India of Coop Cabs came into existence because it stroke me that Delhi does need a cab service which is not just convenient but is also very safe and guarantees you a great service.
6. Who are your biggest competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Yes, I agree there are other services too but keeping an optimistic and harmonious outlook we do not consider anybody as our competition as we have a very different approach. We focus on customer security, safety and satisfaction. We aim at providing eminent services instead of focusing on earning big revenues and commissions for the company.
7. How did you identify your co-founder? Tell us something about your co-founder/s
We are 4 co-founders, I am Gaurav Rai founder and director of Coop Cabs and then we are blessed to have:
• Mr Brijesh Khimani, he is an experienced businessman with a restaurant chain and jewellery stores in Surat and Mumbai. He is also successfully running a stock broking company too. This all makes him an asset to Coop Cabs.
• Mr. Smit Somani is a young entrepreneur bringing freshness to Coop Cabs. He has a Degree in Finance from New Zealand and has the experience in diamond and real estate business too.
• Mr. Hiren Thakkar is an energetic marketing and research analysis expert. He is the power booster of Coop. His efforts are helping us grow fast and smooth in other cities.
8. How did you hire your first team members? What skills Do you want in your employees/team?
You see when good idea buds then things start working out automatically. This is exactly what happened in our case too. Gradually we found our team who are working really hard to make this venture successful. All I have wished in a team is the attitude that the company is their own and they are not working for anybody else. I just want everybody to feel that they are working for themselves only.
9. What expansion plans are you looking for the next 2 years, next 5 years?
We aim at upgrading until we achieve our ultimate goals. In February we are introducing transportation service in more divisions:
• Outstation Cabs – They can be booked from the app and you can take the car to outstation destinations and leave it at your destination and book another one at the time you want to come back to the city.
• Rental Cabs – They are like traditional rental cabs which are for the ease of taking the car and driver with you for as many days as you want or hiring it full-time for occasions like marriages, vocational plans and business trips.
. Coop Bikes taxi : – Coop bikes taxi for those who want to beat the traffic and reach their destination in on time and at low fare.
• Coop Boats – In 2 years we are planning to launch Coop Boats at Sea Port all over India and Lakes for joy rides and boating rides and it can be booked conveniently from the app too.
10. Where do you want to see yourself in next 10 years?
• We are planning to introduce self-driven cars where the clients will be able to hire a car and drive it to their own leisure and comfort from wide range in Hatchbacks sedan and luxury segments cars.
• We want to keep growing and progressing to reach all the cities in India and want to become a pioneer of cab services in India.
• We aim to be the “safest app-based cab service” in India.
11. What are your goals over the next 1, 3, 6 and 12 months?
As mentioned earlier, We are starting with Outstation cabs and Rental cabs in a month’s time. We want people to be well aware of our brand and the quality of our services in 3 months. We want to become pioneers in cab services in India but before that, we want to become a pioneer cab service in Delhi and Surat, Gujarat in another 6 months. We want to start our services in at least one more city by the end of the year.
12. Have you raised any funding? Or have any plans for the funding?
No Coop Cabs have not raised any funding as of now. It is completely funded by its founders. But of course, the way we are planning to expand we might have to raise some funds from the market.
13. What were the problems you faced during the starting days and how did you resolve them?
I think Coop itself has been a big challenge as we faced hurdles at every step.
We had issues with the accuracy of locations in India, the sudden price hike of Google Maps and other issues like how to raise funds, the amount of funds required to start this, whether this venture has potential etc. All these problems are a part and parcel of entrepreneurship; we solved these problems by close introspection, team-work, research and positive thinking. I believe that if you think positive then automatically things start happening for you.
14. What was the most challenging part of your journey till now? How did you overcome those challenges?
The biggest hurdle was when suddenly Google Maps which is an essential part hiked its prices by 200% but we didn’t want to increase our prices so our finance team figured out plans to deal with this. Then we were facing issues with the accuracy of locations in the map so Coop collected coordinates and data of major cities in India on their own.
I think challenges are there in every situation so if you want to win then face them straight and don’t give up.
15. What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
People think that once you are an entrepreneur you don’t get time to pursue your hobbies. But I make sure that after the hard work, I make time for the other things I love. My hobbies are:-
• Travelling;
• Playing the Guitar and some other musical instruments; and
• Coding & research
All these hobbies give me peace of mind.
16. Whom do you consider your idol or biggest motivator?
My biggest motivators and supporters have been my late grandfather and My mother. When no one believed in me, they did. I wish that everybody gets such a supportive family.
17. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
I think entrepreneurs are leaders and employees are facilitators. Both the roles have equal importance because no leader can lead without facilitators and no facilitators can establish without a leader. Both are dreamers and if they are delighted in what they do they both can go places.
18. If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I am at a place where I have always wanted to be. I would not prefer to do anything else even if I would get a chance to start my career again.
But of course, I would prefer to start early in life as an entrepreneur because I feel this is what I am meant for.
19. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
Yes, of course, there is so much work pressure that it has affected my family and social life. I usually do not find time for socialising but definitely, I make time so that I can spend some quality moments with them because I feel maintaining work-life balance is important.
20. Anything, you would like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
I would tell your readers that ‘Always follow your dreams, life is short, listen to your heart, think out of the box and take the leap of faith’. I would like to encourage them for self- employment and generate a living for yourself and give others a hand to achieve their dreams too.
21. Tell us something about your education & family background.
I am an IT degree holder and Master’s in information technology from the University of London It has opened up my vision and way of thinking in many ways. It gave me an exposure which constantly pushed me towards entrepreneurship.
22. What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other startups in similar domains?
Our team monitor ride in every minutes. We have a live monitoring services where we track location of all our cabs every second so that at the time of emergency, we are able to handle and manage the situation.
Driver’s picture shows on phone screen and when customer satisfied with identification ,he summit OTP..then ride will start.
We do not have any surge pricing during peak hours like other cab service providers, we map the driver as well as the customer location during entire journey and a little mismatch of the location triggers our emergency response team and our customer care center executives immediately calls the client to understand the situation.
23. What do you think is the biggest threat to the success of small businesses & Start-ups today?
I think biased funding is the biggest threat to small businesses and start-ups. Moreover, the policies should be more lenient for start-ups otherwise all they are trapped is in litigations and compliances.
24. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
No, I don’t think I am successful as of now. I do have accomplished a few goals by now but there is a long road ahead. So I have my hopes high and mindset positive to make Coop Cabs the safest cab service in India.
25. Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
Registered Office
Wheels and Wings Global Service Pvt.Ltd.
Address: – 803, Pearl Best Heights 1,
Netaji Subash Place,
Pitampura, New Delhi- 110034
Branch office
815, 8th floor Royal Trade
Center, 36, Hazira- adajan
Rd Maher nager, Jalaram
Society, Adjan Gam,
Adjan, Surat,Gujarat 395009
Landline No: – 011-42540100
Email id – [email protected]
Website:- www.coopcab.com
