Four friends funded an e-hailing app with proceeds from their property-maintenance business—and now they want South African drivers to keep 100% of their fares. With 30,000+ registered drivers, Bro Cabs is betting subscriptions can beat Uber and Bolt’s commission model. In this week’s Coffee With…, PHATHISANI MOYO speaks to the founders.
The first version of Bro Cabs, a commission-free e-hailing platform for drivers, was not financed by a venture capital firm or a large technology investor. It was paid for by a property-maintenance business run by four friends who decided that if they wanted to build something of their own, they would have to find a way to fund it themselves.
They put some of the business’s proceeds towards developers, equipment and the work needed to turn an idea into a functioning e-hailing application. They could not afford every service upfront, but built relationships with people willing to help them get the product off the ground.
“We didn’t want to do things the conventional way,” Persy Qamata, Bro Cabs’ chief executive officer (CEO), told TechCabal in an interview on Monday. “We weren’t going to allow a lack of financing to prevent us from getting a minimum viable product (MVP) off the ground.”
The four founders, chief operating officer Msizi Mtolo, Qamata, chief marketing officer Cebile Magudulela and chief strategy officer…
