Co-founder of BlaBlaCar: about the impossibility of launching in the USA and China, about Russia's special role in the global expansion of service

Once, Federic Mazella (now the BlaBlaCar CEO) tried to leave Paris for his relatives in Vendée. Unable to find options at a reasonable price and at a convenient time, he was forced to buy a train ticket for 115 euros. In 2006, together with partners, Mazella launched BlaBlaCar.

In Russia, the service was launched in February 2014. It was the first country outside of Europe where the company went. Today, BlaBlaCar has about 20 million users all over the world, who monthly make about 4 million trips through it.

Operations Director and Co-founder of BlaBlaCar Nicholas Brussson told RBC about the reasons for launching in Russia and meeting with Alexei Lazorenko and the team for the service in search of fellow travelers “Plantain”, why the company will not work in the USA and China, about the fundamental difference between Uber and BlaBalaCar.
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"Megamind" leads the most interesting quotes from the interview .

About the reasons for launching in Russia

We developed in France, Germany, Italy and other European countries. At the same time, they thought that Russia was in many ways similar to Europe in terms of income distribution among the population and the organization of the transport system. This turned out to be true. For example, after Russia we left for India, and this country turned out to be completely different: the transport communication inside the country is very poor, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor and a very small stratum of the middle class.

The second reason, of course, was the size of the market: Russia is one of the largest Internet markets with more than 80 million users over 16 years old.

And finally, the main reason is our meeting with Alexey and his team. We were impressed by their work. In fact, they did the same thing as BlaBlaCar.

On the results of the launch in Russia

Since its launch, the BlaBlaCar user base has grown in Russia much faster than in other countries. I can’t give exact figures, but I can say that we gained 1 million users in the first ten months of work. Usually in other countries we reach such an indicator in a year or two. Since entering the market in terms of the number of registered users, our each month is more successful than the previous.

About new market entry strategies

We look at various factors: the number of residents and car owners, the degree of development of road infrastructure, the distance between major cities, the cost of fuel, how many people travel ... But, of course, it is important to look at local teams. I will give an example of Mexico, the last country where we started. There was no particular logic in our launch in Mexico - one could start from Brazil or any major country in Asia. But we found a cool team of three people - startup Rides and decided that there is no reason to put off the partnership indefinitely. Ideally, two main factors should converge: a promising market and an interesting startup that can be purchased.

We combine two strategies. In about 50% of cases, we started entering foreign markets with the purchase of companies. We bought startups in Italy, Poland, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine and some other countries. And in the UK, Spain, India, Turkey, we hired regional managers and started from scratch.

In fact, we rarely find the right level of startups. We look first at the team and try to understand whether we think the same way. We never buy a company just to get access to the user base or technical platform. We do not allow a situation when in Russia we work under one brand, in India - under another. We focus on a single brand and a quality of service common to all markets.

About further global expansion

Now our main focus is Latin America. We want to go to most of the countries in this region - Brazil, Colombia, Argentina ... Then we will look at Asia - maybe we will start with Japan and Korea, maybe with Indonesia, one of the largest markets in Asia. There are only two major markets in the world that we are not going to enter: the USA and China.

China is like a different world, in many ways incomprehensible. I do not consider China to be a single country: it is a huge region, to which we can gradually get out, but we can never get out.

As for the USA, there are two reasons. For most Europeans, a long drive by car is too burdensome. In the USA, the picture is the opposite: it is a country where it is very cheap to drive a car and almost every adult has his own car.

Another reason is infrastructural. BlaBlaCar users need to contact the driver and negotiate where he will pick them up and drop them off. This means that two or three passengers who have booked a place must find a way to get to a certain collection point. To get from point A to point B in Los Angeles, you usually need to get behind the wheel of a car. This complicates our model: to the place of departure you need to go by car or from a point of arrival to take a taxi.
Insufficient mass transit in the USA is a big challenge.

About the problems with the law and the differences BlaBlaCar from Uber

We have no such problems. We constantly emphasize that BlaBlaCar is about car sharing. The driver does not make a profit, but only compensates for fuel costs. We do not have commercial drivers who need to get a license, do insurance and so on. The driver simply shares the cost of the trip, as he would do with friends or family. Uber POP banned in Italy and France. We also work in these countries, but we have no difficulties. All our users are not drivers, but community members. Moreover, according to statistics, about 60% of drivers from time to time become passengers. Uber doesn't do that.

BlaBlaCar is so cheap because it is based on equal cost sharing between the driver and the passengers, and the BlaBlaCar driver, unlike Uber, does not receive any revenue. I often give this example: when I order Uber to the airport, I'm going to fly, but the driver is not. When I sit down at the BlaBlaCar driver to the airport, it means that he, like me, is going to fly, or he meets someone from his family. At BlaBlaCar, no one does the work - the drivers would go where they need to, in any case, but the extra passengers allow them to spend less. In other words, the motivation for using Uber and BlaBlaCar is completely different among people.

About plans for the near future

In several countries, we introduced the Rides Map - a function that allows you to see on the map where each of the passengers is located. Often, the BlaBlaCar driver needs to pick up three or four people, and we noticed that this is a problem: people make several calls, write to WhatsApp - and still cannot find each other, for example, in a large parking lot. And with the help of a map you can see conditionally that John is at a distance of five minutes, Bob has just arrived, and the driver is already here.

Later, we will most likely introduce a collective chat. Now the drivers have to call each of the three passengers and warn that, for example, he is a little late.

For the time being we are focused on scaling up the business and improving the main service - ridesharing.

In April, Megamind wrote that BlaBlaCar acquired two competing companies ( Carpooling from Germany and AutoHop from Hungary) and became the largest ridesharing service in Europe.