Founders of BlaBlaCar and Plantains - about working in Russia, about the future of ridesharing and unmanned aircraft

BlaBlaCar is Europe's largest search service for travel companions and drivers for intercity road trips. Last year, BlaBlaCar acquired the company "Plantain", which provided similar services in Russia and Ukraine. In Russia, the service was launched in February 2014. It was the first country outside of Europe where the company went.

Megamind wrote that in September BlaBlaCar raised $ 200 million from the funds of Insight Venture Partners , Lead Edge Capital and Vostok New Ventures . Service valuation exceeded $ 1.5 billion. BlaBlaCar has become one of the most expensive startups in Europe.

The founder of BlaBlaCar, Frederick Mazella, first came to Moscow. Mazella, together with Alexey Lazorenko, the founder of the company “Plantains”, shared their thoughts about the future of ridesharing, the realities of the shared economy and development strategy in Russia with Kommersant correspondent Maria Cher.
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"Megamind" leads the most interesting statements from the interview .

On the specifics and strategy of the service in Russia

Federic Mazella: We didn’t notice any special differences, except the distances are greater.

Alexey Lazarenko: At the same time, the audience is distributed almost as compactly as in Europe, most of them are focused in the triangle St. Petersburg - Sochi - Yekaterinburg, where most of the population of Russia is concentrated. If in Russia the population was evenly distributed throughout the territory, it would be more difficult for us to work. The Russian audience is 80 million Internet users, the largest in Europe. Russia has a pretty good internet, you won’t believe it, but it’s better than in many European countries

FM: In Russia, we have the same strategy as everywhere else: first, we accumulate an audience, increase brand awareness, then we introduce a booking system, when in order to arrange a trip, you first book a driver for a specific date and get a kind ticket confirming the trip. After that, we introduce a small commission - about 10% of the cost of the trip.

A.L .: The booking system will appear on the Ekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk route in November, by early spring, gradually, all regions will be covered by it, and after that it will be possible to think about introducing a commission. So far, we are still at the stage of creating a stable audience, so in the next six months we are not going to introduce a commission.

About BlaBlaCar brand promotion in Russia

A. L .: In Russia, we are moving forward thanks to a strong team consisting of a PR man, marketers, primarily online, in social networks. Brand awareness is high: we have been working here for a year and nine months, and in the first ten months more than a million people have registered on the site. But if you look at other countries where we work, for example, France, it becomes clear that there is something to strive for: there 12-15% of the population of the country already use the service, and this number is growing. Based on these figures, the ceiling in Russia is 15-20 million users, the potential is large. Another direction of our promotion is the right partnership. For example, our cooperation with Yandex: BlaBlaCar drivers' offers are already integrated into the Yandex.Data service, where people are looking for trains, buses and airplanes, and there they can see how many offers we have on the route they are interested in. Thus, the user immediately sees the benefit that he will save if he takes advantage of BlaBlaCar. We have dozens of such partnerships, and this is one of the most powerful promotion drivers.

About shared economy in Russia and in the world

. .: Joint consumption covers the whole world like a tsunami. This primarily concerns the USA and Western Europe, but Russia is no exception. This and transport, and housing - like Airbnb. This model has a natural justification: after all, we all lend to each other in debt, team up to book a hotel, throw off to buy some goods. And today, its promotion is promoted by new technologies, which expand the usual framework of joint consumption - friends and family. Today I can book a flat in San Francisco from Moscow or book a trip from a complete stranger in Spain. Territorial restrictions are lifted due to the penetration of the Internet, computers, mobile devices. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the revenues of services serving joint consumption will reach $ 335 billion by 2025. The economy of joint consumption as a whole grows by 20% per year. Therefore, the company "Plantains" and reacted with such enthusiasm to the merger with BlaBlaCar, although at first it was a bit uncomfortable, because we realized how much they have invested sweat and blood in our offspring. But still, we developed this product in order to launch a model of joint travel in Russia and Ukraine. We had a dream - that transport began to be used more rationally. Therefore, the merits of the merger eventually outweighed the cons, and now we do not regret anything.

About the future of ridesharing

F. M.: If you are talking about an independent search for a driver, then he has been around for a long time: you can place an ad on Avito or on the social network. But so you will travel at your own peril and risk, not knowing what kind of person you have chosen. Or you will have to get to the meeting place yourself. And with our service, the driver and fellow travelers are always in the neighborhood. As for ridesharing as such, we don’t see a threat, even if ordinary cars start being crowded out by drones: we’ll work with drones - we’re better off, too much space in the car.