mobile marketing/payment app developer looking for Marketing help

[alvigil]

Ours is a start-up that has been working for a couple of years on a location-based business opportunity: a flag-a-taxi mobile app. This space is relatively new, with a few scattered businesses having entered, one having a commanding share and none having a national presence.

The system is made up of 3 software programs: a user app that runs on iPhone and Android phones that allows a user to flag a taxi in the vicinity, a taxi app, that accepts a passenger and uses the app routing program to get to passenger and the destination, a payment module that allows the taxi driver to take payment (optional) and a gateway server that is the traffic cop between the user, the taxi, and the credit card processor. Additionally we supply cradles for the Smartphone and a small thermal printer, as well as the card reader, which plugs into the Smartphone. We do not supply the Smartphone.

We are planning a beta test here in Dallas, Texas, towards the end of the first quarter, beginning of second in 2013 and we are looking for a marketing guru/partner to sign up taxi fleets before we launch the user app and to take over expansion strategy to pursue.

Our tentative plans are to beta-test the system here for a few months, then expand to other US cities by recruiting local entrepreneurs to run the operation. We make our money on the sale of the program, (5K for small markets, up to 25K for larger ones), maintenance fees, and sale of hardware (primarily cradles to support the Smartphone and thermal printer that make up the taxi POS; the taxi driver puts up his own Smartphone). We have working a deal with a Chinese supplier for all of these peripherals.

Taxi owners pay $1 to $2 a passenger referred by our app, which is retained by the owner of the operation.

The reason to look for entrepreneurs to launch the service in other cities is that it seems at first blush to be the fastest way to establish a national footprint. However we are not married to this approach and would welcome any suggestions or ideas from the community.

The parent company (us), in addition to the sources of income listed above would also receive 50 basis
points on all credit card sales.

The basic components (mobile POS, payment software, gateway) can be adapted to other industries having mobile sales forces. Since little capital investment is required to expand into these other markets, growth can be very quick, with the right management team.

Any help or insight you can give us would be welcome,

Albert Vigil
President
pchomes, inc.

214 680 1886

[Future of Edu]

I really like this concept. I am glad you are not married to the idea of franchising as I think that is a horrible way to go.

I have to ask though, did you bring on someone with knowledge of the industry when you were designing this? I just feel like you are missing some crucial steps unless you just didnt mention them. This would include a way to notify dispatch that a taxi has been "flagged" and where they are headed. You also need a way to send other taxis to an area if there is an up beat in traffic as a dispatcher would. I'm just wondering if you have someone on board to cover all of those little details that mean a lot in this industry.

I think your mobile POS system would be too big of an overhaul for systems that have already been adapted by most taxi companies. It's good to have as an "oh btw, we can do this too", but I don't think it should be a large part of your pitch.

You've found a way to hopefully take the human error out of some dispatching. That should help you out quite a bit.

-Nick

[Charlie2030]

I attended recently a conference where the creator of GoCatch (Australian app similar to yours) talked, charlie.allombert AT gmail.com if you want to hear about it.