Elevator Pitch: Jayride

Elevator Pitch is a regular feature on Lifehacker where we profile startups and new companies and pick their brains for entrepreneurial advice. This week, we’re talking with founder Rod Bishop from Jayride.

In 128 words or less, explain your business idea.

With Jayride.com you can book airport shuttle buses, private transfers and more, online at fixed prices. You get an instant quote, an instant confirmation and a 100% refund guarantee.

No more waiting in taxi lines, no more to pay if traffic is slow, dead simple reliable ways to travel, all available to book online. For you that means on one website you can easily compare transport and book directly with hundreds of services around the world.

You can choose a luxury ride in a black car, or a bargain shuttle bus or coach. For the thrifty (and adventurous) we have rideshares and other options too. Jayride suppliers will drive you door-to-door between every airport and 50,000+ local destinations around Australia, NZ and the UK.

What strategies are you using to grow and finance your idea?

The strategy for Jayride is that every day we reach out to great new transport suppliers, in country after country. That’s how we grow around the world. It’s great, and we’re proud to say you can now book airport transfers and other great trips on Jayride in six countries – Australia, New Zealand and all of the UK.

We hunt for those suppliers who have the best prices, and those who have the widest coverage, so that we always have you covered no matter where you want to travel. We take a small commission from each supplier for each booking we send them, which helps us finance our growth.

What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?

The biggest challenge for Jayride is to keep growing faster to reach more passengers and more suppliers every month. We think it would be great if you could find and book all kinds of transport — airport shuttles, private transfers, coaches, rideshares — the lot, in every country around the world.

All of our time is spent on this challenge: Working out how to offer more options, to more people, in more places, and manage more and more bookings, every day.

How do your differentiate your business from your competitors?

Believe it or not, Jayride has very few direct competitors. Jayride is the only major ecommerce shopping site for passenger trips that we know of. There are some big names in transport (such as Uber), but with these services there are limitations for both the drivers and passengers.

For the passenger, Jayride is your true ecommerce option. You can select from many different suppliers and types of transport based on your preference. And for the supplier, Jayride is different too because we allow them to highlight what makes them unique, to grow their own business and brand.

What one phone, tablet or PC application could you not live without?

The one app I can’t live without is TripView App. It’s a dead-simple public transport timetable app for Sydney with a user interface that is so bare you can tell they made a real effort to keep it simple. I use it every day (even though it doesn’t let me book transfers or airport shuttles!)

What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?

“We succeed, because when we fail we don’t quit.” It’s great advice for every online business. It’s also great to follow on a daily basis.

If we have something that fails, for example a new feature on the website, we learn from that failure and improve Jayride for the future. Constantly making small failures so that you can learn from your mistakes lets you learn faster, and move faster than everyone else.

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