By Lirone Glikman Startup Grind TLV Ambassador
We love hosting game changers at Startup Grind Tel Aviv, and hey, we had one at our January event!
Shahar Waiser, founder and CEO of Get Taxi (gett), the app that simplifies taxi services!
Get Taxi is operating in many leading cities in the world, such as New York, London, Moscow, Tel Aviv and more. The app makes taxi ordering as easy as a few clicks!
Besides being an entrepreneur, Waiser seemed to be a great people person.
Waiser came accompanied by an entourage of Gett’s management team, who were mingling and eager to get to know Startup Grind’s quality audience… The rumour says they also met some very interesting people that might fit the company DNA
The first thing he did when coming on stage was to ask the audience what they would like him to talk about, and took “mental notes” of the topics and challenges the audience raised and found interest in.
What was it that our audience wanted to know, you ask? Read and learn all about it!
Suddenly...he surprised us all!
Waiser found a lot of interest in the audience and at some point he asked: “Who has the highest Get Taxi Points?”
Each user gains points based on his or her usage. “1,500,” one guy said. “3,100,” another women said, and so on.
At some point he goes, “I would like to give the top three users a gift.”
Each winner got a nice amount of money to cover Gett’s usage – the first place winner earned around $150 worth of travels!
A big surprise indeed… the audience “fell in love.”
This surprise set the scene for a fascinating interview….
* Gaining confidence through experience
Waiser was born in Moscow, Russia and moved to Israel alone at the age of 16.
His drive to starting his career in business was about making a difference, and not only money.
Waiser started his first company in 1997. He had a lot of fears at the beginning, but after his first experience he gained confidence in the process of building a business.
When he sees opportunity now, he has more courage to take action. He knows he might not succeed, but he has business skills and prior experience to back him up.
He quoted a wise man that said he had a fear of the unknown until he got there, and then he wasn't afraid anymore.
Actions for success
Shahar Waiser puts great attention on starting his day focused and energized. He wakes up at 5 a.m. and starts his day with yoga and meditation sessions. By 6 a.m. he gets updated about his global companies’ news. He says that meditation is proven to supercharge people mentally and prepare them for the challenging day ahead. This is his daily routine for daily success!
* Get Taxi has the worst business model you can think of- so what’s the secret?
Despite his skyrocketing growth, Waiser says that his company has one of the worst businesses models you can think of with many chances to fail: they have an online app arena, operational arena, monetization and data control arena... Many arenas to work at all at once.
It’s a high-volume, low-margin business, which doesn't make it any easier.
His agenda is that for a company to succeed, it has to have two things:
1) Talented team members
2) Outstanding product
Good management is also a must, because there are many companies working so hard and still don't make it.
* Nowadays Marketing formula
Today's successful marketing methods put a great emphasis on people.
In order to talk about a product, you should talk about the people, the users. Know who they are and make them understand what they gain by using your product. You should also consider how the product makes them feel, or what it says socially about them. Gett's users feel smarter and cooler. They are outsmarting the common taxi world when they use Gett. That realization makes them talk about Gett and spread the word. If you managed to make users feel cool or any other positive feeling by using your products, they will most likely talk about it and you'll have great chances to succeed.
Talents
One time, Gett had a presentation for a big company, and the CEO asked them to make some adjustments to their product. Waiser asked his programmer to apply the given changes in a limited time frame of just a couple days.
Presenting the outcome, this CEO was amazed! He said that he has many
programmers that might finish this type of task in three months and not in a few days!
Waiser believes in surrounding himself with exceptional talent. This way, every employee raises his own standards constantly by working with top people. Aim for the best human standards to bring great people to work for you.
How can you recognize these people? Look for super smart, passionate, hungry people, driven by accomplishments and task completion. They’d see a great advantage in working with similar exceptional people. These types of people see everything as possible and will do the impossible for you!
Here is an example: Waiser told us a story about one of his extraordinary employees that sees everything as being possible! Gett had to establish a call center. Due to some constraints, they had to get the call center up and running within one month.
Now, every experienced company who specialises in call center operations and every person who understands a little about call centers knows that one month isn’t a reasonable time frame to start one. It takes a few months at least. It consists of infrastructure, recruitment, training, and so much more.
Waiser’s employee had no experience whatsoever in establishing call centers, but he had something else…passion! He did the ‘impossible’, and within one month Gett had a call center!!!
Waiser said: “When your employees don’t see something as impossible, they can create miracles in your company!”
Outsmart the competition
Focus on where you want to go!
Waiser said that when you think about your competitors, you waste time and energy.
On the contrary, think about what makes you special. It will help you succeed over your competition and spend your time on what matters most - your company.
Next trends in startups
There are many current existing consumer worlds, and then there is the new that is about optimizing existing markets – just like Gett taking the taxi market and innovating within it. This trend is called IOT – “internet of things”. There are so many available opportunities like that today, in which optimizing existing markets to an internet-based new use can profit both startups and existing users in those markers.
The mobile world is the only democratic place, and you can be as creative as it gets in it! Your users will vote in their usage...
Data
Get Taxi is not a taxi company, it's a data company! Big data helps create more efficiency within the taxi world- less dead time for drivers, more work for drivers, and top service for end users. That is what enables the price to be reasonable. He recommend to use data in the best way to benefit every link in your business' system.
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Before he left, Shahar Waiser shared his current challenge and left us a request for advice.
He asked the audience, “How would you present Gett to your company as part of their expansion to service organisations”
I'm sure every startup would like to ask this question when they are worth millions of dollars and have a global reach like Gett.
