Vis a Vish- Deciphering the Battle of the Giants

I am fortunate to live in an age where the confluence of capital and entrepreneurial drive is making the world a better place to live everyday. I also get to hypothesize on the hidden strategies of  disruptive companies by observing their on the ground tactics and execution.

This post is going to focus on my recent experience with the two on-demand cab companies we all love and use, and what I think it reveals about their true strategies and ambitions.

I am an ordinary Mumbai office goer who takes an Ola or Uber most evenings back home from my office in Andheri.  Of late, I am finding a new set of experiences with my cab rides, which I daresay is converting me to a reluctantly intrepid urban commuter.  On many of my rides I find myself sitting in a brand new car (cheers!!) and a relatively new driver.  I find that many a times the driver does not know the way from a prominent arterial road where I hail the ride (Andheri Kurla Road) to the W.E. Highway and have had many instances of circumnavigation around Andheri.  Of course I realize it a bit late in the ride, and am learning slowly to be 100% attentive and not answer calls or the like- concentration is important. I have also had one instance where I had to abandon the ride after realizing that the driver went into the wrong lane while accessing the highway (despite my instructions) and hence I could not take the turn I needed to, which would have meant another 30 mins of delay, so I abandoned the ride and hailed an autorikshaw going the right way (I still owe Vish 176 rupees for this ride). Not to mention another instance where the driver confidently drove up the wrong way in a prominent one way road near my home with the least trepidation.

This post is not a complaint. In fact, I am gradually being converted from a mundane 9 to 5er to an excited commuter, who craves for the adventure, and I continue to use these cabs. In fact the variability of the experience and the adventure is almost addictive. It does mean you spend 2x than the normal fare on the ride (when you combine part surge price with part wrong route) but in a way I feel its worth it.

On probing the drivers further and thinking about whats going on, here is what I am concluding: Vis and Vish are not just going after world domination in transport and adjacent sectors. They have far larger plans: they are chasing multi-trillion opportunities. One such is the entire home services market- they are on-boarding electricians, plumbers, and the like at the rate of knots (each has a few hundred thousand drivers). The grand plan is two-phased: bring on domain skilled workers (electricians, painters) and get them on in phase 1 as drivers (and make sure they make good money through incentives). In phase 2, as autonomous driving takes hold, the same electricians can now do fixes at your home- and so on. Imagine the opportunity-its way beyond transportation. I would imagine that trained chefs and masseurs are queuing up.

I think the business model works really well: the cab companies make more money at customers expense, customers don't mind the extra cost for the thrills, electricians get trained to drive and then go back to their original profession as technology moves forward (autonomous bikes...). 

The great entrepreneurs always think ahead as they say.

Too bad Urban Clap, House Joy and the like...