Why I love this Indian ride-hailing app: decoding the product

Hailing a ride just seems easier and more reliable on this app today, especially when contrasted with the experiences offered by competing players. It turns out I'm not the only one feeling this way. Namma Yatri has succeeded in securing itself a small albeit loyal user base, particularly in Bengaluru, its city of origin. And so I got thinking—what’s working for it? This article is my take, backed by some research, on what makes this mobility app a promising product. But NY is far from a panacea—there have been several gripes expressed by users too. While this article touches upon the things it must learn to do better, and the (cough) bumpy ride it may face ahead, I conclude by explaining why I think this product packs a punch nonetheless.

P.S. I realize I should clarify—this isn’t a sponsored article (Oh, I wish).

The MVP

In a world obsessed with integrating fashionable buzzwords into products, getting your minimum viable product right is a basic that's often forgotten.

The way I see it, Namma Yatri's MVP is this: a simple ride-hailing app that users will actively adopt for their everyday mobility needs, but also one with a few key differentiators:

1. It's built on ONDC. This is an interesting initiative by the Government of India, a set of protocols that will ideally create an open and collaborative digital marketplace for players across the spectrum. In fact, Namma Yatri received a shoutout in the recent Economic Survey 2023-24 report.

2. It's zero-commission and ensures full payment to the driver, for each ride. (But then, hey, how do they make money? More on that in a bit.)

3. It's rooted in local mobility; centred primarily on autorickshaws, rather than cabs. (Though it has now expanded to offer cab rides too).

This is a good time to confess that I’ve meant to publish this article for over ten months. I’ve been sitting on this one far too long, even by my standards. However, the silver lining is that I got to observe, study, and research NY’s trajectory closely over a longer period. (NY is used in place of Namma Yatri through the remainder of this article. Sorry, Big Apple, you’ll have to share the spotlight for a while.)

For over 18 months since NY was launched, it was still a single-feature MVP in most ways. It has only recently expanded to support rentals, for example. It's interesting to note that Uber started this way too.

What's good to see though, is that certain features like those relating to safety—yet to be fine-tuned, however—seem to have been prioritized. However, pre-booking a ride, for instance, still isn’t supported at the time of writing this article.

Less is more

It's important to acknowledge at this juncture, that a feature-light product simply isn't going to cut it in all cases. In a seemingly saturated market, it can feel like offering a crude blade whereas others offer a swiss-knife.

Why it works for Namma Yatri is simple: ride-booking calls for utility first, and engagement next. Users generally expect a highly utilitarian product; and thus, if you're able to get them from point A to point B in a consistent, reliable manner, with the least amount of user effort, they'll be willing to give it a go.

This makes all the more sense today, at least in India, because giants like Uber and Ola are grappling with satisfying precisely this core requirement: reliability. It's a swirl of cancelled rides, complexity in payments and underpaid—consequently, angry—drivers who express this frustration by way of hooliganism towards riders at worst. Addressing this pain point can be of great value. It can even reframe feature-lightness as a positive aspect: that of effectively curtailing feature creep. Better the humble blade in a moment of urgency, rather than a swiss-knife that may be blunt.

In fact, here's an interesting article published recently by a start-up coach, which relates very nicely to this concept.

Simply put, there are plenty of problems plaguing mobility in urban India and hence, plenty of opportunity. Which is probably why there's space enough for Rapido, Namma Yatri, and many more to thrive.

Easter eggs and sub-features

Minimalism doesn't mean you can't add some special touches. In this regard, NY has got some of its own little easter eggs, which is nice to see. For example, the app lets you know if it happens to be your driver's birthday; nothing huge, just another aspect that potentially redefines rider-driver interaction, adding a human touch to it. Easter eggs are great because they don't hinder core functionality, but offer something special to the users who engage with the product regularly and thoroughly enough to find them—something that's reminiscent of OG tech.

Some other features are more utilitarian. “Saving“ your drivers is one such: on completing a ride, you’re given the option to bookmark a driver as “preferred“ for future rides. While I wasn’t able to find much info on the success of this feature nor explore it thoroughly myself, I do think it’s an interesting offering.

Beyond easter eggs, NY has got some pretty cool live dashboards for the stat geeks. This is a direct byproduct of its adopting ONDC, one of whose core tenets is transparency. You must’ve encountered several posts on LinkedIn with folks raving about NY’s dashboards and ONDC. You can check out the dashboard here.

Beyond the UX and tech: the business of ride-hailing

What's most impressive to me, like I said, is the reliability of the rides. Though sometimes on a slightly pricier side, a driver cancelling the ride is altogether less likely—a stark contrast to Uber, Ola and others. The reason for this, though, has less to do with UX or tech and more to do with the investment that Namma Yatri seems to have made in understanding the typical challenges in a marketplace model like ride-hailing: forging good relationships with a key stakeholder, the driver.

Instead of charging a commission on each ride, NY offers drivers a subscription-based model. This is meant to work out better for the drivers' pockets in the long run. But it isn't just the monetization model; NY's outreach to auto-driver unions (and, more recently, even cab-driver unions) seems to be on point, too.

In fact, this has made quite a splash that Ola and Uber have rolled out a subscription-based, (mostly) commission-less model for the drivers more recently too.

This monetization model, alongside other features and easter-eggs spoken of earlier, may help drivers feel they’re—metaphorically, in addition to literally—being put in the driver’s seat, unlike with other aggregator apps.

Localization

It's not that Uber failed in its product adaptation; it's just that Namma Yatri seems to have an added, interesting opportunity thanks to its local roots.

From the vector graphics to the yellow-green accents in the colour scheme, the app's UI appears to draw inspiration from the physical world it reflects. Even the name "Namma Yatri", reinforces its local connection to the city the product hails from, Bengaluru. And then, there are some pretty nice UI sounds and audio feedback: an auto-wala-meter’s ka-ching when you’ve found a ride and a honk when it arrives at your location.

Beyond the visual design and packaging, there seems to be a certain desi touch to the pricing too. You're shown an estimated fare, to begin with, and it starts looking for rides nearby. Once the first few minutes elapse, and if you still haven't been allotted a ride, it offers you the chance to add a tip. A parallel to the haggling we'd do with the auto-walas? Maybe.

The ride ahead

One of Namma Yatri's challenges might be with scaling. While it's growing, it hasn't quite had the reception it expected in some cities; far more drivers need to sign up for it to take off. Even within Bengaluru, apparently, finding rides is difficult in a few localities.

Partnering closely with drivers' unions might be a positive approach to ensure the viability of the business, but it comes with practical challenges. Uber and Ola do still reign supreme, and it would be no easy task to truly take them on at scale. However, it may also be a good thing that NY aims to grow slowly but steadily unlike some other promising startups that have blown up like a bubble, only to burst. The only catch here is that this would require a considerable run-way; for now, however, they seem to be set on this front. For instance, Namma Yatri recently raised roughly 93 crore INR in a pre series-A funding round.

Safety features pose another gap that needs to be addressed. Many users have complained about the app's barebones approach to rider safety. It also doesn't have a customer care division, unlike the bigger, well-established players. Sure enough, Namma Yatri might have some catching up to do in this regard. In fact, I'd say there's scope for some innovation on the safety front. It would be a great space to see some new features.

A return of the ride-hailing monster? Perhaps, but all may not be lost

There have been recent complaints of Namma Yatri being no different from other ride-hailing apps, with cancelled rides, for example. A few others have pointed out that it may be prioritizing drivers, but at the cost of the rider. As a user myself, I definitely echo these concerns and think NY should actively address them. But what’s heartening is they seem to be approaching this right: there was a recent survey rolled out by NY which sought to understand riders’ pain points, particularly around cancellations and asking them about what they think would be fair policies for both rider and driver.

However, here’s the biggest argument I’d like to make at this juncture: Namma Yatri is far from perfect—but it doesn’t need to be. In the chaos (wonderful and frustrating in equal measure) that is urban India, we can’t—and shouldn’t—expect one app to fill all the gaps. Rather, what’s needed is a thriving marketplace with multiple viable solutions.