‘Improving the way people travel and commute has always been our goal. We believe that through carpooling people can get transportation in a cheaper, greener, friendlier and more efficient way. And for two years, we endeavored to make this a reality by building a vibrant community that actively used Tripda, not to mention the carpooling communities we helped foster in universities across Pakistan!’
So begins Tripda’s last email to the users of its carpooling service. The Rocket Internet-funded startup announced its plans to shut down its services globally 3 weeks back. Today it sent out a goodbye email, thanking its fans and supporters globally.
‘Did you know Tripda helped over 1 million travelers, in 13 different countries, to find a match and have a genuinely great trip! Meeting through our platform, drivers and passengers had an unparalleled collaborative experience, rating each other with 5 stars in 95% of the rides. And this is exactly what we aimed for.’
For a carpooling service, the above statistics spoke about the impressive run it enjoyed in many of the territories it operated in. However, it appears that by stretching itself too far and wide, its coverage also proved to be its Achilles heel.
‘And yet, despite the success of our community, our operating costs became too high, and we had to reassess our prospects. Given the inherent challenge of funding our operation as it continues to grow, we realized it was time to bring our ride to an end, discontinuing the Tripda platform as it is today.’
In the email, Tripda stated that any bookings and rides that have been made till March 4th can be checked by its users. Rides made for a future date will sadly not be entertained since by then, Tripda will have shut down. In parting remarks, Tripda thanks its fans in Pakistan.
Once again, thank you for the strong support and for helping us to build our awesome community in Pakistan. We loved this ride and we believe that life will always be about the journey. So keep pushing, keep sharing!
Oh my God..that’s so disappointing :(
Who is responsible for this??
People responsible for this are the founders of the startup!
What they actually do is just see whats trending in the market, copy cat idea with just minor changes, seek for funding, and go live madly…
The end result is that they aren’t any match to their competitors and suddenly realize “Oh! We are running out of money” and than go down permanently.
Aim should be to make something different not copy cat.
And finally, all startups should think twice that people don’t want thousand of different apps each with a different purpose. If this startup trend continues than hardly the computer/software industry may survive…
Don’t take my comments harsh. Its all truth!
And burning money in the name of incubators collected from mobile scratch cards recharge.
Yes! Totally agree with you on this point. I have seen am I’m seeing incubators being born every day. I think the incubators should think twice on the problem I have stated as the incubatees hardly know the real life truth. They launch the idea, very few customers based acquired, running out of funds, facing unusual circumstances, and finally “BOOM”!!!
a typical example of planning failure!