Convinced about the potential for car and bike pooling in India, Togopool was incepted in 2021. The company had to wait until the end of 2023 before it could commence operations, thanks to a back and forth with external developers assigned to make the product. In September 2023, product development moved in-house.
For Founder Saurabh C and Co-founder Migi (Chiung-Ni) Chuang, the wait seems to have been worth it. Between its launch on 20th December and 19th February 2024, the app from NCR saw 28,000 downloads and 13,000 to 14,000 active users.
Says Saurabh, “We are focused on the North covering Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and adjoining areas. We have launched digital marketing campaigns targeted at these locations. With the learnings and bigger numbers, we will expand.to nearby regions like Greater Noida, Faridabad.”
The app was inspired by Saurabh’s experience while traveling from Finland to Germany in 2007, where a car pooling option saved him and his friends a lot of money. Later he would meet Migi while presenting at a business forum in Taiwan and Togopool was born.
“Right now we are targeting the North of India. From NCR we will extend to Chandigarh, Mohali, Patiala, Ambala and so on, before spreading East towards places like Lucknow and Varanasi,” he adds
Focus will also be on the South but given entrenched competition there, Togopool will look to enter those markets in the next seven months or so.
The Next Ride
All users on the app are verified using technology. The brand is progressing steadily, iterating on the product basis user feedback.
“February has been the month of major fixes and from March, we will look to double our monthly numbers. From March, in addition to digital we will launch radio campaigns and engage in more offline events,” says Saurabh.
Togopool is looking to tie up with marketing companies for the same. Events and promotions in corporates that are currently on at a small scale will be ramped up.
“We knew the roadmaps for some of the features but in some others there are pain points that customers have reported. Take for instance a change of profile picture. Every time a customer wants to change the picture, it needs to be verified – so they have to raise a ticket. People said too many steps were involved. That’s one of the things we are changing. There are other things like the ability to zoom in on the place of pick up and drop,” says Saurabh.
The route match percentage is also something that users are trying to fully comprehend. Togopool is taking steps to simplify that too.
With Togopool, users can pick from 14 preferences ranging from boot space to child seat to talking preferences to pets.
While the brand is promoting itself online, it has a higher share of bike pool users at present, thanks to better rankings for its bike pooling given established car pooling players. Sixty percent traffic is now on bike pooling with Togopool ranking eighth or ninth online for car pooling. But this is improving, says Saurabh.
“With campaigns, we are seeing a 2 to 3 pc improvement. With time, it will be the opposite – car pooling will go up to 60 pc in six months,” he underlines.
Customer Profile
Around 30 pc of users of the app are verified corporate users. But the actual number of people from the corporate workforce may be more, since corporate verification is optional. It is however encouraged that people verify themselves as verified corporate users to build trust among other users.
Togopool has a stated target of 5 mn users by 2025. By the end of 2024, the target is to have 2.5 to 3 lakh registered users and 1 lakh active users a month.
Seventy percent of the costs are towards the tech team currently but marketing will soon be amped up. Marketing efforts are led by performance marketing on search and app stores. YouTube ads are running to give the brand visibility.
The initial cost of acquisition was around Rs.130 per user and it has come down now to between Rs.50 and 60, thanks to referrals and word-of-mouth. While the company does not charge users anything currently, it will eventually charge a monthly subscription fee in the region of Rs.50 (estd.) – but not a per ride fee.
“Eighty percent of the users would have come through digital campaigns and the rest from offline campaigns like free dental check ups and eye check ups in corporates,” says Saurabh.
Togopool hopes to break even in nine to 12 months. This is possible even with 1 lakh active users paying Rs.50 a month, computes the Founder. The incremental technology costs are not proportionate to the user numbers, he explains.
For the end-user, the fee for car pooling can range from Rs.1 to Rs.8 per km and that for bike pooling between Rs.1 and Rs.5 per km. This being a government guideline, the rider is protected from surge pricing as it is considered a non-commercial activity. While there is a huge cost advantage over the app taxis, people don’t opt for car pooling because of perceived security issues.
“We are trying to bridge that gap,” adds the Founder. One way of doing that is by getting more women onto the app. The upcoming radio campaigns will adopt that tone and speak to women drivers and riders. The brand will also host events at women’s institutes.
With more women on the app, trust will automatically go up, reasons Saurabh.
