Global transportation industry revenues exceed $4.8 trillion. At the same time, the industry is broken and lags behind the accelerating pace of mobile technology. There’s no surprise that the fastest growing transportation startups apps are Uber, Lyft or Postmates.
But that represents only a tiny fraction of the opportunity in the transport and logistics market. With 2.2 billion smartphone users, big changes are going to happen. Take advantage of the opportunity and build the next gen of mobile technology that will fix the market forever.
Transportation industry is traditionally a highly regulated market. There are two choices: either grow fast like Uber and let regulators adjust or design your product accordingly. Either way, it’s something that should form an important part of your product strategy.
Given the time and scale it takes to grow a transportation startup, you’ll need to give yourself enough time to build your business. This means building an efficient business model on top of your technology so you can increase your runaway and grow faster.
For an app that connects mobile and offline markets, risk management is absolutely critical. In the early days, you need to build a reputation, customers trust by delivering a secure and flawless user experience ultimately leading to network effects, and word of mouth that fuels the user growth.
In trying to disrupt an existing industry, it has to grow
at a breakneck pace. With a little margin for error,
it will require scalable technology and flawless user experience. You’ll need to identify the right users segment to launch in and define a minimum viable product so you can test your assumptions early
and rapidly.
The rest comes down to seamless execution, superior product with viable sales and distribution model.