The sharing economy is one of the fastest-growing business trends in history, and venture capital has been investing billions of dollars in the past decade. The sharing economy is an economic principle that is constantly evolving. In the very simplest terms, it’s the use of technology to facilitate the exchanged access of goods or services between two or more parties. It’s derived from the notion that mutual parties can share value from an under-utilized skill or asset. This value exchange occurs through a shared marketplace, collaborative platform, or peer-to-peer application.
In late 2019 Bransys approached Solveo to partner up for a strategic and successful product launch of Claxi. At the time Claxi initially was a ride-hailing platform connecting passengers that need a ride with drivers that are available to drive the passenger from point A to point B. After the unsuccessful launch in 2018, Claxi had gone through multiple technological advancements, as well as redefining its entire business strategy. Just after the second round of funding, we partnered together to launch the product successfully.
In march 2020 suddenly overnight all of the preparation, all the strategies and all the ideas were canceled and stopped. The COVID-19 pandemic had just struck, and the entire world had closed. Restaurants and malls shot down, people were forced to work from their homes and with a blink of an eye the world changed. Nobody needed a ride anymore as they would have nowhere to go to. And it was here to stay.
We urgently needed a new approach.
As we started living at home, the online sales on e-commerce platforms grew fiercely. Suddenly, offering a fast and reliable delivery service was a commodity for every business in every industry. Identifying this opportunity, our agile team proposed a strategic pivot towards a crowdsourced delivery platform where the drivers will deliver goods instead of passengers, as we will be able to offer to almost every shop the possibility to deliver any time of the day using our delivery network. The pivot required a lot of technical changes, however, their team managed to come to a first functioning version in just a few months. We launched the app in September 2020 in Skopje with a soft launch, focusing on building a strong relationship with our earliest adopters.
The very first step for us was really understanding which industries would have the greatest need and would be most likely to use the product. Conducting tons of interviews and identifying core needs and pitfalls lead us towards our very first users: restaurants and small shops. Upon closure in lockdown, restaurants were only allowed to deliver, and at the time rarely which restaurant offered their own delivery. Providing the Claxi network to them was a step towards surviving the crisis.
On the other hand, managing a marketplace requires maintaining a 24/7 balance for all parties. In order to have a reliable network in the early launch, we were focusing on building a network of ‘drivers ambassadors’ and nurturing a relationship with our earliest drivers.
With initial traction and market validation, we are now working with the team to build a strong strategic approach for entering new markets and rapid scaling of the product.