Fabrice Ruscoe — Entrepreneur, Visionary, App Creator

It is mix 93.8. I'm laughing because I'm busy talking and then suddenly you realize, hang on, this song is probably going to be ending fairly shortly and I was right, it did. Hello, how are you? Darren and the gang are off for another rollickingly good Monday afternoon. How was yours? Mine was, I gotta say mine was, my day was, I think interesting is probably the most polite way to describe my day. Interesting. Yeah, what with load shitting and torrential rain and all sorts of things like that. But we managed it, we survived it. Took me almost two hours to get into the station today. And I thought, you know, this is, this is, it might not have saved me time, but it would have saved me stress. What am I talking about? Well, I am talking about my first guest who I've got in studio tonight. And by the way, there's only going to be one guest tonight. I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Should I tell you why? Yeah, I'll tell you why. I was, I was going to, I was asked to do an interview for a bank. And once we'd set everything up, they came back and they, the PR company confirmed that we're going to do the interview at 8am this morning. So that was last week. And then I sent them a very polite email and I underlined and put in bold that it was twenty hundred hours or 8pm.

And they then confirmed that that was in fact the case and the person would be here this evening at 8 o'clock. And then during the course of today, well, first things first, early this morning, just after 8 o'clock, I got a call from Tony Blewett saying your, your 8 o'clock interview is here. So yeah, I don't know who's to blame. They were blaming the PA, but doesn't the poor PA always get blamed? I'm not sure. I think maybe she does. Anyway, so I do have one guest though and I knew he'd be here one way or another. Fabrice Resco, he is a co-founder and CEO of something called Ride. R-Y-D-D. We'll find out what that is all about. Hello, Fabrice. Hello, Dave. Thanks for having me on the show. It's wonderful. I was actually, this is the first time, no, we had you on the show before. No, you have had me before, couple of years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Geez, we weren't even in this, at this location. We were still at the other location. No, it's the old location. Yeah. Yeah. And we'd interviewed you then, but first time certainly in a couple of years, we want to catch up with you and find out what you're doing because Ride, I had to ask what it means. It means request your designated driver. So tell me a little bit about, before we get into this though and requesting designated drivers, tell me a little bit about Fabrice. I mean, you're based where you're now in KZN?

Based in KZN, yeah. Just a fair amount of traveling, but based in KZN, yeah, just served my time in the corporate world and left there sort of about seven or eight years ago and I've just got into, yeah, starting and getting different businesses off the ground. No, you say corporate world. What were you? What did you do in the corporate world? Good question. That's probably why I left. I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't in banking for my sins for a number of years in the sort of leverage finance game for a while and then sort of moved into a financial services industry where I would sort of set up. Yeah, I just sort of found a niche sort of setting up distribution channels or setting up different businesses either in South Africa or abroad. And then, yeah, I just sort of looked at the opportunities and thought it would be nice to be doing this for myself rather than for somebody else. You know, we always do that as entrepreneurs. We look at it and go, "I'd much rather do this myself." My excuse is I'm unemployable, but parenting because I've got an attitude or I don't take direction well. And then you wake up one day as a business owner or a startup owner and you suddenly think, "What have I done? Has that happened to you?" Maybe I was too naive for that to happen to me. I probably should have. I don't know. I always knew in the back of my mind that that's the route that I was going to go.

I think I took some good learnings out of my exposure in the corporate world, paid my school fees, but I knew it was always a short-term plan. I'd always wanted to get into an entrepreneurial mindset and get going with my own stuff. Even while I was in that space, I was always looking at opportunities and looking at industries and different markets and just seeing where there may be opportunities. Would you say you've been an entrepreneur all your life? I mean, is that something you've always... Because it always fascinates me is that I think entrepreneurs are a very unique brand of people. I don't know whether I've always... I think I've always sort of had that mindset, but when I started my working career, I knew it wasn't something I was going to do for at least, say, 10 years. I just felt I was too green. I thought there was just so much that I had to learn. I kind of picked my industry specifically. One of the reasons why banking appealed to me, funny enough, was because I was going to be in a position... Particularly, I started off, I got into business and corporate banking. I wanted the exposure to a whole lot of different businesses and the financial exposure. You're looking at different businesses. Most of them in that space are reasonably successful. I just love trying to dissect what made them successful with distribution channels or sales or whatever it was.

Simple businesses that maybe... We manufacture and sell nails, but we've built a multi-million round business out of manufacturing and distributing nails. What is it about that business that makes them so much better than anybody else who does it? That was my sort of mindset when I got into it. Then I always thought, "Look, I want to get out there and try this on my own." I don't know why. As I say, maybe I was not even. When I took the leap, I felt comfortable. I felt like it was the right thing to do. Okay. I've had some times when I think back and I go, "You know that cushy corporate job? You don't have to exert yourself too much, get a salary guaranteed at the end of every month." Sometimes that has an appeal, certainly for me I think it does, but only briefly, fleetingly. Then I think about all the politics and stuff that comes with it. I'm like, "No." How does one go from banking into ringing your designated driver? This is essentially... What do we call them? What's the polite word to call it? E-hailing services. We've got a couple of services in the country where you would go onto an app and you go, "Hello, I'm sitting here at so-and-so. Could you please take me home?" The next couple of minutes or whatever, the driver arrives, they pick you up, they take you home, you pay money, and that's that.

How did you transition from banking? Where did this idea come from? I just did a lot of research into the market. Absolutely. It's very similar in the way that the e-hailing services have really revolutionized the way that the metered taxi industry... What I looked at then was, "That's great." Often, a taxi is the right solution, but it's not always the right solution. Often, a designated driving option is a better solution. You don't have to either go home and drop your car off and then get a taxi or a cab or some sort of solution to get you to the venue and back again. I really like the concept of having an option at your fingertips where you could literally request a designated driver, you could love-track that driver, and that would really be the right solution for a lot of people out there. Drinking and driving obviously is becoming certainly in the headlines and we're talking more about it. I think as South Africans, we haven't had the greatest legacy in terms of drinking and driving, but the mindset is changing and people are starting to do the right things. I think what's important to go along with that is that, particularly in the technology space, that there's some solutions that make it easy to do that.

If you do go out and suddenly you've had one beer and you think that was really great, and suddenly two becomes three and three becomes four and four becomes five, and now you realize, "Well, hold on. I actually don't want to drink and drive, but what sort of options have I got?" Obviously, there are some designated driving providers out there, but the industry has typically been characterized by sort of memberships and long turnaround times. That's what we wanted to try and get away from, is to say you don't have to be a member of any subscription, you don't have to subscribe to any service. You simply download the app and to shorten those turnaround times by saying the app will automatically pair you with the closest designated drivers to you. Often, when you're out and about, let's say a lead time of booking is an hour. Now is a long time when you're out. It's hard to sort of plan these things. You suddenly, one minute you're dancing on the tables and five minutes later, you really want to be in your bed. We wanted to try and say, "Well, how can technology help us to really make that quicker, to shorten that turnaround time?" You see, I often use, and let's just be clear about what a designated driver is. Basically, what happens is the driver will come and pick you and your car up, so you and your car get home.

I like that idea, and I think this is a problem a lot of people have. It's all good and well getting hold of one of these e-hailing companies and going, "Okay, would you be so kind as to sort of take me home?" Yes, certainly they take you home and you're quite happy state at that time. Then the next morning you wake up, you're hanging like a stick of dried biltong and you've now got to go and find your car. So you've got to somehow get, I don't know if you're lucky enough to have another car, whatever the case may be, but you've got to now get back to get your car, then get to your car, pick up your car, come back home. If you're not feeling like a ... As you get older, I've discovered that I can still party like a rockstar, I just can't recover like one. So it's horrible. It's a horrible, horrible. This way, you there, when you wake up in the morning, you can kind of lie back and go, "Yeah, okay, car's here, and it's safe, and I'm safe." So I think that's brilliant. So you've basically combined these two options that we have in this country, either just a straight designated driver or an e-hailing service. When we come back, though, I want to find out because you're making it sound very easy, and you're making it sound like, "Ah, you know, we just got up this morning, it was a quick thing, you know, we just slapped a little app together." And I don't believe it's like that. I think it must have been way more complicated. When we get back, we'll talk about that.

The X93.8 legendary radio, it is what's involved. My special guest in studio, Fabrice Roscoe, who is the co-founder and CEO of Ride, request your designated driver. I like the idea. And I must say, although just going back to that, I use the designated driving service very often as an excuse because you do have to give an X amount of notice for some of these guys. And I'll use it as an excuse to say, "I've already booked my driver, can't stay any longer," which is an excuse for me to get out and go home and go to bed with me. But there are times, there are times when suddenly you're having a really good time and you think, "Oh, maybe I should have," you know. So with something like Ride, you can decide within 10 or 15 minutes of you wanting to go home. But you must have spent, I mean, development of this because when I think of what you need to do, yes, there is technology out there. We've got GPS and all those sort of things. But to put all of this together, because what Ride offers you is you download an app. So first of all, there was app development. Then when you are on the app, you are then able to, do I understand correctly? I can then, once I've placed my call for my designated driver, I'm then able to track his progress.

That's correct, yeah. So you can track them coming towards you. Yeah, don't want to be sexist. And then obviously, you know, how do I know that it's that person when they arrive there? Does the app tell me this is it, this is your man? Yes, so the app will track your driver coming. So you can literally see them, you know, if you're standing outside, you'll be able to see that person making their way towards you when they arrive. So obviously, we send you the details of who your driver is when you've paired up with a designated driver. When he arrives, the app gives you a huge photograph of the guy to make sure that you can obviously then, because you're handing the keys to your car over to somebody, you want to make sure that it's exactly who you've been paired up with in terms of the app. So, yes, obviously, you have the details there and you can confirm with good old facial recognition. And it gets you home safely. A couple of these things, I mean, and it has it has concerned me in the past, you know, if you're doing a designated driving service and you don't know who the guy is, you just hand your keys over. I mean, you might be wasted and no idea. Do they identify themselves as well? Are they going to have sort of some form of branding on them?

So the drivers are branded right. And absolutely, it's a very valid concern. When you're handing the keys to your car over to somebody that you don't know, our guys go through a very rigorous recruitment and selection process. They go through extensive training from outside. We do full background checks, which are sort of criminal background checks, driver license verifications. We do driving assessments. So that jumps through a whole lot of hoops to be, you know, before they're allowed to be on the platform. Let's talk about that. Well, I want to talk about that more because it's something that a lot of people are concerned about. But let's talk more about this app development. So you had this idea. I happen to know it's taken you a while to get it off the ground to a level where you're very happy. I mean, it can't have been easy. No, it's been a long road. You know, we've probably been pretty close to about two years in the development of this app. As I've come to realize, there are mobile apps and there are mobile apps. And these are, you know, when you're looking at sort of live GPS tracking with lots of moving parts, you're having to track drivers across the entire city. You need very, very high level GPS tracking because obviously we build clients based on their not necessarily where they booked the trip to, but the actual trip.

So it's, you know, and obviously that needs to be very, very accurate. So, you know, to make sure all those parts are moving together and working correctly. Yeah, it's been a it's been a long process, which we've actually, you know, we've got some some really clever guys together far clearer than I am who are technically, you know, very incredibly strong. And we've we've literally been sitting across the table with these team for, you know, it's been great. We've literally been thrashing it out for the better part of two years to get it to the point where it is. So, yeah, it's no small undertaking, but I'm pleased to say it's finally here. So there's there is a fairly large back end to this. I mean, we just see this this really cool little app, the driver in the cars got his and so it all operates off smartphones, but there must be a massive back end to this. Yeah, absolutely. As you say, it's actually such a simple concept. And it's, you know, it's really simple. All you do is you request it as an added driver. It pairs you with the closest car, you know, in theory, it sounds really simple. We know it's, you know, you've got, you know, drivers across lots and lots of drivers across the entire city.

You've got users, you know, all those type of things that, you know, have to have to work work together. So, you know, we've got, you know, serious back ends that run it. We also obviously you need a there's an Android version and an iOS version for for users. So you've got to cater for both platforms as well. And the driver obviously have a completely separate platform that they operate off, which is Android based. Sheesh. Now, what happens, I mean, in terms of redundancies and stuff like that, have you thought about all of those things? So, I mean, it can't fall over, surely, because I mean, if if something like that fall over, fall over. Hello. I've used up all my English words for today. If something like that fell over, you know, you've got to have a sort of a fail safe or something because you can't be in the middle of a month end weekend. People requesting drivers left, right and center. And suddenly the system goes, no, I'm not going to play along with you. Now, absolutely. We've got lots of failovers. Exactly what they are. I'll have to I'll ring the techy guys and ask them. But they're sort of, you know, there's backup servers all over the scattered all over the world. There's you know, we absolutely have to have the redundancies of people, you know, once they start getting comfortable with the service and that's your solution to get home.

You know, once you've had a couple of drinks, you know, I mean, you don't want to be let down by that by that service. So you want to make sure that if I have a couple of drinks and this is my plan to get me in my car home safely tonight, that I need to be able to rely on that. So absolutely, it's a big part of our thinking and part of our planning. Nothing's, you know, 100 percent, but we've got all the contingencies that we can in place to make sure that that, you know, it's always there and it's reliable. What was it like testing the system out? Now, let's say the guys have said, OK, this is it. This is the beta version or whatever off you go. Did you literally have people sort of riding around the city and calling for drivers and drive? I mean, is that literally what you get? Yeah, absolutely. There's only so much sort of testing that you can do sitting behind the desk. You know, it's literally we have done, you know, literally thousands of infield tests where we have clients and drivers and just multiple drivers. You know, you also have to we also have to stress volume as well. So you know, we need to be having those sort of things having happening concurrently. It's been a lot of fun. The last couple of last couple of months have been interesting.

But because I mean, you and I spoke quite a while ago and this was this was in process. And we we'd already agreed then that we were going to chat to you about this. And when I thought it was going to happen and you said, hang on, you are not totally happy with it. And I do take my hat off to you because, you know, I mean, we've got some operating systems that the guys release and then sort of fix the bugs, you know, as as things happen. This is something you refuse to do. You wanted to get as much on that as possible. Yeah, absolutely. As I said to you before, when we chatted before, we were really, you know, we were really, really close. You know, we were probably 95 percent of the way there. But for me, the couple of little bugs that we had in it really impacted the value proposition for the client, which for me is a big deal. You know, I mean, the reason why you're going to have, you know, sort of an e-hailing app is, you know, your your your driver tracking, for example, has to be rock solid, you know, a thousand out of a thousand times. You know, and we just couldn't get to a point where, you know, I just wasn't comfortable with the tolerances to say, well, hold on, five percent of the time we may, you know, it may not track.

We may miss you. You know, you'd look like your designated driver is not moving, in which case you think, well, hold on, is the guy coming to me or isn't he coming to me? His ETA is not updating. You know, there's all type of things. You know, I put myself in the customer's shoes. Those are going to frustrate me. I'm not quite sure what to do now. You know, do I make another plan? Is the guy coming? So there were just a couple of things that, you know, I, you know, I wasn't comfortable with and thought, no, no, these are some critical things that we needed to get right before we before we took it to market. OK, well, when we come back, we're turning to Fabrice Roscoe, co-founder, CEO of RIND. I'm fascinated about the kind of training that drivers have to go through, because I think, you know, you can have the best software in the world, but your driver can make or break your experience. When we come back, we'll be chatting about that. What's involved? How's that for a cheesy song? Tying it into the theme of tonight. It's the cars and drive. Who's going to drive you home tonight? Well, hopefully it's going to be ride. So just before we went to the break here, Fabrice, I said, I want to know and I want to find out more about your driver selection process, because this is twofold.

I mean, maybe if somebody is listening and they'd like to become a driver, are you open to that? Yes, absolutely. And then, you know, for us, we're going to make use of the service because Fabrice has been very brave and he said that we must download the app here at the radio station and give it a bash. So I'm going to probably do that just live on air because I haven't done that. So I want to do that. But talk to me about the drivers. I mean, it's got to be a strict process, I'm assuming. Absolutely. So we don't employ anybody under the age of 23. We just look for people who've got more driving experience. Yeah. And yeah, typically, you know, our driver partners have a lot of them have day jobs or but it's generally people looking to supplement their income and look to an extra income after hours and work, pick up a couple of shifts a week. The last thing about the app is they can literally log on when and when they're ready to work and then they log off when when they want to call it a day. But obviously, there are a lot of, you know, we want to make sure that only the best drivers join our join our team. So we go through quite a rigorous recruitment process. There's got to go through a couple of interviews to make sure that sort of you're fit with the brand.

Once we're comfortable that we're you know, both both parties are comfortable. Then there's a quite an extensive training program they go through. And it's a lot of it is is processes, but a lot of it is also a customer care stuff. We've got a couple of basic things that, you know, are important to us things like, you know, opening the car door for clients, city little things, but they, you know, it's part of our brand and what we represent things like, you know, if you if you do need to adjust the driver's seat to ask permission to do so. Things like, you know, just little basics like that, you know, there's nothing simple things like that. That is a big thing for me. Do you know what that is? One of the and I cannot tell you and it's silly because I mean, somebody else is driving your car. So they need to. But if you adjust my seat and you don't tell me absolutely lose the plot because I'm relatively tall and then I get into the seat and then, you know, you get smacked knees on steering wheels and everything. But then if somebody said to you, listen, I need to adjust the seat. Is that OK? Makes the end. Then I'm happy. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Why don't you do the rear view mirror and the side mirrors while you're about it so I can get home safely?

But if they just do it. So it said, yeah, that's that's important. Yeah, little things, you know, and I'm not fiddling with air cons, all those type of little basic things that don't touch little frustrations that you'd have if somebody else was driving your car. Just to make sure that we cover those. Don't touch me on my radio. And then obviously we extend it. Then there's the driving side of it as well. So they have driving assessments, et cetera, to make sure that everybody has a license. But there's a certain way that when you're handing your keys over to somebody, you know, you want them to be as cautious and conservative as possible and to make sure that they drive in certain ways. It's a new car. They may not be 100 percent familiar with it, all those type of things. So we assess that as well. And then once, you know, once they've gone through all those, then we we get them in the field. We do a couple of dummy live trips with them to make sure that everything's hunky dory. And then then they're up and running. And then and then obviously through the app, we have a rating system that after one on completion of your trip, we ask for the client for some feedback. If there's any issue, you know, if there's anything that has sort of a strategy or something that you didn't enjoy about your trip, you ask for that feedback and we'll make sure we address it with our driver partner.

Somebody just messaged in Ben in Linden. And I like this. You see, this is Ben. This guarantees you an answer from you guys. Hi, David. Love and listen to you every Monday. So that's really me. It's stroking my ego big time. Please help me here. I use Uber and buddies. What is the difference? Can I can I say this is kind of like a combination because it's kind of like one of those those e-hailing things. So it's like an e-hailing service, Ben, but you get your car as well. So it's kind of like instead of using two different services, you can use the one service, I'm assuming. And yes, yeah, I think that makes sense. Is there anything you'd like to add to that? No, absolutely. That's it. It's really just bringing the sort of e-hailing convenience to the designated driving space. Yeah. So we want to try and do is cut down the turnaround times, the lead times and just literally just touch of a button, you're able to request your designated driver. And then you've got information that you can work with. Okay, great. My guy is 15 minutes away and I can track him and know exactly where he is. So do I order another drink or do I? It depends how quickly you drink them, I guess. I was just laughing because I'm thinking of the radio presenters. Drivers 15 minutes away. How many tequila's can I slam in that time?

Another question that somebody's asked as well is obviously there are certain legalities that you as right have to take care of and your drivers. Do they have to have public driving permits? Well, it's a bit of a gray area. We err on the side of caution. Our guys do here, we ask them, we make sure they have PDPs, so professional driving permits. Professional driving permits, that's right. Okay. And then a third party kind of insurance, you guys have to take care of all of that? Yeah. What we do in terms of the insurance is we do rely on the vehicle owner to have the vehicle adequately insured. So for us, it's impossible to insure an unspecified number of vehicles, unspecified value. We have absolutely no idea as to what our – so we do – it's part of our terms and conditions. We do say that just double check that your insurance – you have adequate insurances to cover third party drivers. In the old days, sort of 20 years ago, it used to be on a sort of a name driver basis. That's – I say most insurance policy these days cover third party. I think it would be a very brave insurance company that would want to repudiate a claim when you use a designated driver service. Obviously, they want to encourage you to do the right thing. Well, the alternative is I could have driven home myself with five tequilas in me, or would you prefer me to get a designated driving service?

Yeah, okay. But it is something we just draw attention – draw our client's attention to, say, you know, touch wood, you know. If something were to happen, then you would need to claim through your own insurance. Obviously, we'd provide all the details in terms of the drivers and any information that you'd need to facilitate that claim. Yeah. But it would be something that you'd claim through your own insurance. I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I'm sort of the old-fashioned one. I'm going to try and download this app. So, I'm on an iPhone, he says, getting all party about it. So, I look – I just type in the iStore. I just type in R-Y-D-D. R-Y-D-D. That's it. Okay. Oh, there we go. R-Y-D-D. Night out, ride home. Okay. So, now I'll type in get. Okay. It's thinking about it. It's thinking about it. My phone's got clever. It says I just have to double-click to install, and then it faces IDs automatically. Wow. It's an update I didn't know about. Right. So, it's busy downloading it. And is it literally as easy as that? Darn, it opened quickly. Wow. We'd like to send you – okay. So, when it says it, we'd like to send you notifications. Do I allow it? You do allow it, just so that we can – when the driver's arriving or when he's on his way, when he's close to you, it'll send you notifications to say your driver will be through shortly. Your driver's arrived.

All right. So, now I said allow. Now, do I sign in or register? You'd need to register. I would need to – oh. Okay. This is getting complicated here. But it asks for your email address, cell phone number, password, first name, surname, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Good. I'll do that in the next break, and then we'll see if I've got any ride drivers in the area. Did you come here using Ride Tonight? I didn't, actually. I came here using a car train and a taxi service. How was the car train? Was it good, running on time? Yeah, it was very good. Yeah, it was fine. Obviously, with Ride, you need your own car. Yeah. My car's sitting in Durban at the moment, so – So, how do the drivers – if they drive themselves, then they would have to leave their car where they collect you. And how do they go – oh, no. No, no. Liz, I know the answer to this one. So, basically, Liz is going, how do the drivers pick you in the car up and then drop you off? How do they – they have got another car that rides with them. Am I correct? Yeah. So, all our drivers operate in a team of two. So, they have – we have our driver, and then what we call a sweeper driver. So, they would – they would arrive and drop the driver off at the venue.

He would then drive you home in your car while the sweeper driver would then go to the drop off and collect the driver when he's finished with you, and then they'd move on to their next collection. There we go. Makes sense. I just – I'm very, very, very glad that I can get my car home at night. That's the big thing for me. As I said, I do like the traditional designated driving services that are available, purely because I can use it as an excuse to get home, but there are times, you know, 15 – what is the sort of – what hours does Ride operate from? Ride operates from Monday to Thursday. It's 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays 4 p.m. until 3 a.m. and then Sundays are 4 until midnight. Wow. Even on Sundays – I suppose people do go out on Sundays these days. Absolutely. We don't know about weekends and stuff like that. Oh, somebody's just – I love it when people give us feedback. You see, this is what I love about our listeners. In the U.K., one has to nominate everyone that'll be driving one's car in order to be covered by insurance. But he's just said they take bedding and go to sleep in the car. Hey, listen, I have heard people going to sleep in the cars. I've heard people not even remembering where they live, and then the poor driver's having to sort of, you know, go, okay, well, what is their address on record?

And let's just hope we can – I've actually heard of somebody that's driver was kind enough to actually drop them right into their complex, right to their unit, okay? Couldn't wake them up because they'd had a lot to drink, okay? Let the security guard in the complex know, locked the car, okay, with the keys there and left a note saying, "I'm terribly sorry I couldn't wake you up." And I mean, you know, sure, wow. So somebody else – oh, so Ben said, "So in order to make use of this service, you must have your own vehicle." Yeah, I think you do need to have your own – I mean, yeah. You drive yourself to the venue. Also, a lot of the time you might go out and think, "Well, our plan isn't going to have one beer," for example, you know, so then I come home. Suddenly, you know, it turns into – the best part is always the spontaneous ones. And then suddenly you're thinking, "Oh, now how do I get my car home safely?" But you would, yeah. So it is a designated driving service as opposed to, say, a metered taxi service. We would only transport clients home in their own cars. Yeah, and I think that makes sense. I mean, if you don't have a car, then use one of these metered driving services to take you somewhere and collect – yeah, that makes sense to me.

Somebody goes, "Why don't you send two drivers in one car?" That's essentially what we do. We do send two drivers in one car. So what happens is your team will arrive to pick you up. One of them is – both of them are drivers, but one of them will drive your car home. Correct. We are busy chatting to Fabrice from Ride. And during the break now, I'm going to see if I can finish downloading it. It is what's involved this Monday night, if you missed out earlier. And we're going to be finishing a bit earlier tonight. For the simple reason, there was a misunderstanding between either the PR company or the PA. We're not sure. So the guys I was supposed to be interviewing from a financial institution this evening. Turns out they weren't coming. Couldn't find anybody at the last moment. And the last thing I think you want is for me to natter amongst myself and my many personalities for an hour. So we're going to turn you over to our music mix on Mix. So there we go. There we go. Somebody's just gone, "Hey, what a great service. My husband and I have needed to leave our car behind and fetch it the next morning a few times." Now, that's after 40th parties ended being too good. Due to not having pre-booked or registered on other services.

I'll definitely get the app. Well done. Yes, get the app. Get the app. Brilliant idea for a Take Me Home service. Downloading the app now. Hashtag be responsible. Hashtag don't drink and drive. I've just downloaded it. I mean, for something that does what it does, it's very quick. I mean, just boom. And there it was on my phone. Filled in a couple of details. Stuffed up my password. I had to do that again. But now I'm in the app. And if I have a look, it says it comes up and it's got to figure out where I am. And there's all sorts of things. There's my rides, payments, favorites, wallets, invite and earn issues. Settings about us gives you all of the bits and pieces. If I go ride now, okay, then what will it do? It'll look who is around me. Because I see, I think I've messed up where I am right now. So it's going to have to remember where I am. But if I go ride, can we do this live? Yep, absolutely. So if you hit the ride now button, it's going to ask you. I'm going to do it live on air. Yep, absolutely. It's going to say from your current location and where do you want to go to. So if you put your home address in. Here we go. Current location. Where to? This is not going to know where I live though.

No, but you can add it as a favorite. So then it will automatically pop up on your home screen. So that if you really have had too many tequilas, you can literally just press home, press that button and it will pre-populate everything for you. And then you just click confirm ride. Hang on, hang on. This actually knows where I live. This is very scary. I told you it was a smart app. Goodness me. Goodness me. It does know. Okay, so now it tells me where I am. And it tells me how long it's going to take to get me back home. It's got the kilos right. This is very scary. It says information, tells me the cost, tells me how long it's going to get home. And then it goes. So now you would add your card if you were doing this or you could do it before that. Correct. So if you download the app before the 30th of March, then your first ride is on us. So you have a 200 rand free ride to the value of 200 rand. After that, if your ride is going to cost more than that, then it will ask you to add a credit card. Our ride is going to cost a lot because I'll stay far away. Yeah, then it's saying to me, listen dude, if you want us to drive that far. Okay, I'm not going to complete this because, you know.

If you booked it for a shorter space, then it would be less than 200 and it would let you ride. Should I? Should I try to book, get it dizzy and drive you home? Okay. Just a mess. So if I go, okay. Let me go. Let me go. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Let's see. This one, this one might know. Okay. There we go. I'm putting it in. I'm putting in an address that I know here. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Here we go. Halfway. You see it's the halfway gardens. Okay, good. So I've done that. It doesn't know where that is. Come on. Why doesn't it know where that is? Aha. Got it. Okay. So now it says ETA zero minutes because it's around the corner. It's 2.8 kilometers that it's going to take me. It says 60. It does ask me to still add a card. But there's a driver. Yeah, there's drivers all the way. Yeah. The reason why you'll have an ETA of nought minutes there is because I've just put a driver on duty here. Oh, oh. So that's why it says the nought minutes isn't the duration of your trip. Oh, there we go. So I'll take that guy off duty here now. Okay. And then if you just refresh that page, you'll see your ETA will change because the guy who was here. Oh, yes. Okay. Has now just decided to go off duty.

Fantastic. And then I can see exactly who's here, who's not here. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. And you reckon the first one is you get to get, hang on, somebody's asking me questions here. Oh, okay, somebody's just sent us an alert, but that's fantastic. So now, okay, the big question, because we're running out of time, we always do this. You are only operating in Joburg at the moment. Yeah, that's right. So we've launched it in Johannesburg. We have plans to take it to sort of Durban and Cape Town and extend to Pretoria as well. But for now, we've launched in Johannesburg. And yeah, when you say, when you say Joburg, for example, now, so I often have to do functions or whatever here in Johannesburg. Would Ride still be able to take me home to Pretoria? Absolutely. So when we say we've launched it, we basically have a, we've geofence to coverage area. So as long as you within that area, you can request a ride. There's no issues with taking you outside of that. So you could request a ride from here, for example, and take you back to Pretoria. That wouldn't be an issue. You wouldn't be able to request a ride from Pretoria, it will say that you outside of our coverage area. Okay. Hopefully that's, you know, that's certainly on the radar and we'll get there sooner rather than later.

I hope. But I mean, you are going up against a lot of established competitors here. I like what you're doing, though, that it's that convenience of that e-hailing. I can do it 15, 20 minutes before I go. And I know me and my car getting home safe. You guys have put a lot, a lot of work in. So just to wrap up, if somebody wants to find out more, maybe somebody wants to, to do some driving for you, because I'm thinking maybe, you know, if you, if you've got some spare time, it's a great way to make some extra cash. You get to meet interesting people. Not all of them are drunk. I can guarantee if you pick me up, I'm not always drunk. In fact, I'm hardly ever drunk. But if they want to do that, where would they, where would they go, where would they go to, to find out more about this? You can get more information on the website, it's www.RideHome.com. Ride R-Y-D-D-Home. Ride Home dot com, R-Y-D-D-Home dot com. Okay. And yeah, obviously tells you about the product, but also if you're interested in driving, there's a, there's an option there saying drive for ride, and then you can, it gives you a bit more information, and then an option also to submit a form, and then we'll contact you if it is something that you're interested in doing.

The app is absolutely free to download, it's not going to cost you anything. Available on the app store and on, what's the other one? And the Google Play store. The Google Play, that Androidy thing that other people use that I don't understand. Fabrice, where do you from here though? I mean, we've got Jobig, you said you, but what's your next, have you got something bigger than Ride that you, that you've got in your mind? For now, I think we'll have our hands full with Ride. I think the opportunity we've got is to really grow geographically. So, you know, we've spoke awfully about international opportunities, I think there's plenty of, you know, opportunities internationally with, you know, certain types of cities that meet certain requirements. Absolutely, I think there's a need for this type of service. You know, there's this sort of e-hailing concepts all over the world, and luckily those sort of companies have blazed a bit of a trail for us that as soon as you download it, people are familiar with it, they know how it works, but we've really just expanded that to a different type of service. So, I think for now, obviously we'd like to expand geographically, internationally, potentially, and then potentially we could also look at adding other types of services onto this, so that you have sort of a one-stop shop app that whether I'm looking for a cab or a designated driver or whatever it may be, you might be able to sort of toggle among between the sort of product offerings and try and get everything sort of all encompassing within one app would be ideal.

That's fantastic. Chris Roscoe, thank you so much for coming in. I am very proud to say, and I hope I'm allowed to say this, but all of MIX FM are now going to be riding in the future, getting home safely, thanks to the guys from Ride. So, we do greatly, greatly appreciate that. I know there are some of the, shall we say, younger presenters who make use of the service, I think, quite a bit, so thank you for that. Thank you for getting us all home safely. Thank you for being part of the MIX family and allowing us to make use of your app. It's brilliant. We did it on air. I could see exactly where the driver was. It picked up. It still scares me that either my phone or your app knows where I live now. That bit is a bit distressing, but maybe it's something that's Google does. I don't know. I really fear that Facebook watches me, so, you know, what's Google watching me going to do? For best, thank you so much for coming in. We wish you all the best. I know this is going to be a great service, and to get home safely with you and your car and your loved ones. It's a no-brainer, really, so thank you. Great. Thanks, Dave. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It's been a blast. Thank you.

Absolute pleasure. All right. So, that's about it from us for tonight. We're going to leave you in the capable hands of Otto. That's Mr. Otto. Thank you so much for listening. For those of you who are interested, you can check out my website, What's Involved, which is W-A-T-T-S-I-N-V-O-L-V-E-D. I know What's Involved is a bit confusing, because people want to go W-H-A-T, but it's W-A-T-T-S. I'm actually busy with DavidWatts.co.za, excuse me, because I think that'll be easier for you to remember, but all the podcasts are there. We'll have a podcast on this show as well, up, hopefully, Wednesday, Thursday, if I have internet in my little bit of the backwater. Up until then, you guys go, well, thanks for listening. Kaz is going to be up between 9 and whenever tonight.