First define what your offering is it
(a) A taxi application to dispatch work to drivers .
(b) A taxiapp that dispatches workto its owners
If the answer is (a) Compare and contrast with existing apps and tell partisipants what differentiates you from all the other applications in the field and why they shold choose you .Give indept annalyses to support your assertions that your offering differs enough to encourage partisipation .
If the answer is (b) then incorporate your findings in support of proposition (a) and give a synopsis of why it would be benificial to be an owner of this application .Give a stage one annalyses of costs associated with the setting up and development of the Application including hosting and servicing . When you have assertained your infrastructure costs and basic operating costs .Then you can research the average Ehail fare for Dublin .I can help you with that as I partook in an exploritory Application Development with some Technitians from Amazon three years ago as posted on Roys .The average E hail fare for the Dublin region is 14 euro and the average city fare ie pick up and drop off between the Canals is 11.20 excluding PUC .Now using theose figures you can develope a matrix for the average amount of fares you will need to cover your running costs remember to include any Credit Card service charges to be extracted from any commissions and any Public Liability or Product insurance that may be necessary also include the cost of data storage to comply with existing of future legislation .Now from the simple Business Structural Cost Anallysis you will of carried out ,you should be able to develope a simple prospectus which may state that .Your proposal is to develope an application to compete with existing Taxi dispatch applications that is driver owned on a Co Op basis .Our research has pointed to a basic of (x) amount of jobs per week based on an average fare of 12.60 .Now you have a tangable costed Initial offering you put that costed proposition to perspective Co Op members and see if they think it is viable .Then you sign up possible members ,based on the number of members you set a share price and explain how the share capital is to be used in the development of the project After you have your members then you offer one man one vote you develope a constitution vote on it and then take your chances .
I need a few people @100 yoyo a head is not a business plan .I wish you the best of luck but like many others who have and will try your chance of success is very slight .Hailo were given over 50 million euro in good will through drivers not charging PUC and Free waiting time ,They reinvested most of their profits back into the business and still had to be rescued by Daimlers Billions .As an academic exercise follow my simple business plan as it will show your College that you understand the actual business you are studying but as a Real for Profit business idea I cannot see any merit in it .
N.B.The figures I gave for average fares are averaged over a 24 hour cycle and were gained by using analytical tools based on data collected from their own research .So I would use a lower figure when calculating how many jobs per day/week/or month your Co Op would need to break even as there may be a distortion in the figures based on rate 1 or Rate 2 fare compleations.It might be better to deduct the % difference between Rate 1 and Rate "2 from each fare that way any miscalculation of the break even point will appear on the credit side of the equation .Also those figures were calculated before the 3% fare increase which must be included in calculations .
John the above suggestions are a good idea and that is exactly why I think someone like yourself should be involved in the co-op, with your knowledge and obvious passion for our profession the co-op would be better for it.
however, If you are suggesting that I do the above as the first individual promoter of the proposal, I don't think so.
If I tried to give prospective members that much information as a pitch, their eyes would glaze over in most cases. A brief synopsis that outlines the proposal, having the necessary research to back it up, which would allow questions to be answered accurately. The key is driver support and spreading the word.
The most fundamental part of the proposal, is a taxi driver co-op that is open, transparent and owned equally by all drivers. The co-op will design and own a taxi app that suits the members needs.
How that works and how it is financed is open for debate, discussion and agreement by the members. It is not up to me,
I have strong ideas on how I think a co-op should work and the suggestions you made are valid too, but only with the agreement of the members.
No point in me or anyone else chasing tails, coming up with ideas that the majority of members don't like or disagree with, as that would be a recipe for disaster.
As eluded to by silverbullet about his brief experience of a badly run co-op, I was involved in that. Mistakes were made by me and others.
I tried to implement my ideas and that proved to be a disaster as other members had different ideas which created friction, division and disagreement.
I gained invaluable experience which cannot be bought. The in's, out's and pitfalls of starting a co-op, dealing with committees and members.
Hopefully I have learnt and maybe the timing in 2010 was premature, in the middle of a recession, the app technology that is in use today today was in its infancy and the co-op tried to operate like a traditional dispatcher with associated high costs.
One lesson that I learnt is, not to come up with a complete package to promote as it may not be ideal. Ideally what should be done is to promote a concept.
"A market leading taxi app owned by a drivers co-op that delivers a superior service creating value for drivers and passengers."New members would join the co-op and receive there membership share certificate. The €100 admin fee held in escrow by a reputable solicitor or accountancy firm until a viable number of members have joined less a suggested 20% non refundable portion to cover the membership promotion campaign costs. Exactly how and what for to be determined by the founding members and Board. On reaching the minimum viable number of members required. The board would commence negotiations to design a customized taxi app were the proprietary rights belong to the co-op and engage with a PR firm on how best to promote the new app. When that is achieved the board will recruit the necessary non driver/member staff to run the operation on a day to day basis.
How we do that is up to members, once members agree, I happy to do whatever I can to make that happen for the first year as part of my college course.
I have tried to shake the idea off, I have tried to take on board comments and suggestions that it couldn't work, but there is something that draws me back, something inside me believes that this can work.