Chief Executive Officer, SAGE Hub, Tobore Onowode, speaks to BIODUN BUSARI about his idea of developing a ride-hailing app to solve transportation problems and his belief in bettering society with tech solutions
How does TripLI solve transportation challenges?
The first thing about TripLI is that it is a ride-hailing company that helps to bridge the transportation gap in Nigeria, particularly in South-South Nigeria, and Bayelsa in particular, at this very moment. TripLi is an original solution developed in Bayelsa to solve this problem.
The reason we have to come up with TripLI is that I discovered that most of these other brands that we have in Nigeria are not flexible. They tend to be very rigid in their way of operations. The major reason is that they are far from the solution they are providing. They tend not to be adaptive to what is happening in the country.
Many things are happening in the country with the economic reality, the fluctuation of oil prices, and all that, and they are not adaptive to the realities of fare negotiation, regional service gaps, and demand for flexible mobility options. These are what TripLi came to the market to solve. This app was designed to meet the daily mobility needs of Nigerians.
How have you been able to sensitise the people to the existence of this app?
There was a meeting by the Amalgamation of Union of App-Based Transporters of Nigeria. They were aware of the existing apps, but there was a complaint of a serious disconnect between the users and developers of the products. This is not just in Bayelsa. It is across Nigeria. Before we came to the market, we went for market surveys across Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, Lagos states, and Abuja. We spoke with drivers.
Later, they wanted somebody who would listen to their problems. They needed an office they could walk to and get their issues solved. They needed a proactive solution. These are the things we brought to the market. Our customer support system has been top-notch.
We have made TripLI a coherent solution that people want. As simple as it is, it gives you the choice to do anything you want to do. That is one of the selling points that we bring into the market. We understand what the driver and the customer want. We give the customers the choice of how to drive and how to go to their destination at any given point in time.
How long has it been in the market?
TripLI was brought forth last year. It was launched on May 12, 2024, in Bayelsa State.
Do you have any specific challenges from competitors?
Before we launched it, we had a series of meetings with app-based drivers. They told us many things that should be fixed before they could embrace our app. We’ve fixed some of the issues they raised. With this, we’ve been able to disrupt the norms in the market.
Having said this about some of our achievements so far, we discovered that our competitors have crashed the price of rides. They have the financial backing to do that. We are just entering the market. They thought we would not be able to do something like that, but we took it further.
That was the first challenge we got. We started to run our app from the launch at a 50% discount from our original price. That was not a way of bridging the price gap that they created. It was not like we were able to match their strides for strides. That was one of the first things we encountered from them.
We discovered that they started implementing some of the ideas we had planned to implement as our solutions. But in all, they saw that we didn’t back down, and they started returning to their normal way of doing things. Those are some of the shades we got from the competitions. I tried my best to watch a lot of series and documentaries about startups and founders to know how it’s supposed to be. There are always challenges. We’ve had technical issues that we’ve had to navigate. We’ve had the biggest problem related to finance. I can tell you that the financial problem is the one that we still need time to overcome.
No matter the amount of funds we can gather, we are spending and putting it back into the business. I feel every other problem that we have boils down to financial issues. Every other challenge we have boils down to financial issues. Our solution to technical issues has been effective.
What about financial challenges?
For financial challenges, I don’t think we’ve solved them. Right about now, we’ve not been able to solve our financial issues. I believe that before we can solve our financial issues, we’ve got to a particular point where the revenue we get starts to cover our costs.
I can only say we’ve solved our financial challenges when we get an investor who invests in our solution, or some venture capitalist, or any investor who comes to invest in us, then we can take it. This can help us scale better.
I have been funding these products; I’ve been funding them with loans. I’ve taken a lot of loans.
I’ve been able to pay a lot of them over time. A few of them are left to be paid. I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices and cut a lot of my cost of living to afford the best products in the market. At times, I felt it was too much for me to do. The good thing is I’ve had a team behind me that has always been supporting me in terms of keeping me going.
Have you reached out to the government or agencies for financial help?
I’ve been able to reach out to the Bank of Industry. But we’re still in the process of doing our final documentation and all that. So, those funds will be available to us. For state governments and all that, let’s say we are not dependent on the government to do something for us. So, we don’t want to use the government to help us.
We are trying our best to see how we can reach funding from independent social venture capitalists and others. I think getting funds from venture capitalists and other investors will help us. It’s going to help us learn to work more. This is because these people are in business. So, if they’re giving money, they want to see results.
