How a global rideshare app is bringing low-cost transportation to Miami
By Yousra Benkirane
When faced with tough situations, people tend to get creative. Like 11 years ago, when a ride-share program was started in one of the coldest and most isolated cities in the world – Yakutsk, Russia. In the rare occurrence of even finding taxi service in Yakutsk, prices were painfully steep. Then they jumped higher, with all the taxi services in the city increasing their fares one icy day in January of 2012.
That’s when a group of local students took to social media to create an online community connecting people who needed a ride to drivers looking for extra income. It sounds like Uber or Lyft, except for one huge difference. The app launched by student (and now CEO) Arsen Tomsky allowed would-be passengers to contact drivers and negotiate prices. The online community was an overnight hit, connecting 60,000 rides in just a few months. Realizing the high demand, Tomsky created The Different Company in 2013. Today, the app and the company are simply known as inDrive. With more than 175 million downloads and operations in 48 countries, inDrive has become a global low-cost ride-share platform. Passengers offer what they want to pay – a fair fare, so to speak – and then select drivers willing to transport them at that price.
The plan was to initially offer services in developing countries, with the idea of giving more of the fee to the driver while giving the rider a better bargain. Whereas drivers who work with Uber or Lyft typically keep less than half the fees paid, inDrive gives their drivers around 80 percent. “inDrive really started to stop injustice,” says Eddy Velázquez, a former manager at Lyft and currently the operations manager for inDrive in Miami. “We come into a city and provide not only fair wages for drivers but a value proposition on travel, something that you could utilize every day, not just a kind of luxury.”
After launching in Russia, inDrive expanded internationally in Kazakhstan. Next came countries in Africa, followed in 2018 by Latin America. Service there was first provided in Mexico and then in Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia. “We just have such a strong foundation in South America and Central America,” says Velázquez. “When you think of Panama, Colombia, and Nicaragua, we’re a top player in each one of those countries.” Also in 2018, inDrive started its operations in Pakistan and became the most downloaded ride-hailing app in the country within a year. Today, the firm has some 3,000 employees worldwide.
In 2020, inDrive relocated its headquarters from Siberia to Silicon Valley in a move to increase the company’s momentum for global expansion. Three years later, inDrive launched its first U.S. market, Miami, where it now employs 50 people. “Coming to South Florida was an easy decision,” says Velázquez, thanks to the large population of Latin Americans living and visiting the area. “Knowing the demographic in Miami, we knew that there was going to be recognition of our brand,” says Velázquez. “We’d already been in LatAm for years, establishing and growing there.” Indeed, when asked how they heard about the platform, many Latin American customers already had the app installed from using it in their home countries.
While the decision to expand into the U.S. was always part of the plan, the company took its time to make sure it could follow the stricter protocols found in developed economies like the U.S. “Something that was different coming into the U.S. was that there are certain regulations that are extremely important – things like background checks, insurance policies, and how we cover for them,” says Velázquez. When the company began serving the Miami area in July, Velázquez himself acted as a driver to work out any bugs in the system. To attract more drivers in South Florida, inDrive is giving 100 percent of the fee to every driver for the first six months after they have been vetted and approved by the company. For their next move, inDrive is working on an agreement with Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to allow them to do pickups and drop-offs at a designated airport location.
As the company navigates new U.S. markets, it intends to slowly roll out new features like a cargo service they have available in Egypt, where drivers can be connected to freight forwarders or shippers to deliver products. “We don’t grow as quickly because we’re growing with purpose. And that just allows us to provide the product the way it’s intended – by bringing it to the communities that really need it,” says Velázquez.
