Two Years after Its Launch Uber Nigeria Proves to Be a Success

Interview with Ebi Atawodi, General Manager of Uber Nigeria

Can you start with the story of Uber in Nigeria? How long have you been in the market and how would you characterise it?

My name is Ebi Atawodi and I am the General Manager of Uber in Nigeria. We launched Uber in Nigeria in 2014. We are just under two years old now which I think is quite a feat for a Nigerian business! In 2014 we basically brought the international concept of a technology platform into Nigeria and localised that concept. The spirit behind Uber is quite straight forward. It is “how can you push a button and get a ride?” That is very much founded behind a necessity and a need. Our two founders on a cold day in Paris in 2009 were looking for a taxi and while waiting in the cold, they basically said to each other “it has to be simpler than this; I should be able to push a button on my mobile phone and get a car”. Five years later and in four hundred plus cities, Abuja being the 400th city actually, we are moving people in 5 minutes or less at the push of a button.

You are a worldwide success story. How is it going in Nigeria so far? How have these two years been?

Nigeria has been very interesting. I think there are a couple of factors to consider when you think of Nigeria. Of course you have got a very young population, more than 50% of the population is under 18 and each year you get those people becoming young adults, going into their 20s and using this kind of technology. Lagos as an example is actually the smallest state in Nigeria and that means the rapid growth that you see in Lagos compared to the transport infrastructure that needs to be put in place, requires great efficiency. Naturally there has been organic growth. There has been a lot of word of mouth growth. Our business is very much founded on the idea that “if I can get a ride to someone in ten minutes how likely are they to use it and not need to use a car? What if I can get a car to them in five minutes or three minutes?” The probability starts to increase. We focus very much on creating the experience and keeping that high quality of service and taking the concept that is quite global and packing it in Nigeria and making it work in this country. It is done very well. It has been very powerful seeing the number of people that we are moving from the informal sector into the formal sector and the number of people who are entrepreneurs and who now have a way to earn a living. That has been very powerful.

In Nigeria Uber is in Lagos where we launched first of all. Then we launched in Abuja on March 23rd. That was Uber’s 400th city around the world so it was quite a milestone for us.

Which cities are you in at the moment?

In Nigeria Uber is in Lagos where we launched first of all. Then we launched in Abuja on March 23rd. That was Uber’s 400th city around the world so it was quite a milestone for us. So we have two cities at the moment and they are two very big cities, in some cases bigger than countries by population! We are looking forward to growing even more into the West African region.

Whereabouts would you like to expand?

In West Africa we are looking at Ghana so obviously the capital which is very close and round the corner so to speak. We will be looking to grow the West African business out of the Lagos hub.

Let’s speak a little bit about the challenges, perhaps security and human resources? When it comes to the drivers how do you keep up to the Uber established trust?

Safety and trust are very key tenets that are at the core of Uber’s business. When you go to all of these 400 cities, you know that when you open up the app, a car is going to turn up and that driver has gone through a screening process. In Lagos we actually run drivers through a psychometric evaluation so instead of just looking at the history of the person we look at the person’s mental state and their capability of being trustworthy. That is a much more intrinsic approach. You talk to a lot of drivers and sometimes a driver comes in who has been driving for years but they have never actually held a smartphone and the words “in 200 yards turn right” mean nothing to them. We have to take two steps back and almost on board that driver into the smartphone technology world. You also often have somebody who hitherto had not been using a mobile phone in the same way and certainly not for their livelihood and they are now brought into this smartphone, internet enabled world. There is also a lot of power there because you are putting smartphones in people’s hands. They are now getting reports and statements via email. They are interactive with technology now so you really are bringing people into the tech ecosystem. That is quite powerful. In 2015 we created over 1,000 job opportunities and the goal is for that number to be over 3,000 by the end of this year. These are very big bets but also very powerful in terms of what we are trying to do in this market all founded on technology.

You stated that you want to expand more in West Africa. What is your general strategy for the company when it comes to the Nigerian market?

When you think about the strategy for Uber it is pretty much the same all over the world. It is about how we can get transportation at the push of a button. The underlying things that you have to look at are the nuances of every city. Every city has its own peculiarities and its own traffic patterns, behaviours and characteristics. That is why we look to hire a local team that understands the organism that is the city because it very much is a living being, breathing and growing. That is really the focus, how we can move from where we are today which is a 6 minute eta in Lagos, while a year and eight months ago it was something around 9 minutes and before that it was around 18 minutes, so now we want to work on how we can get that to 3 minutes. Then you start to unpack the problem from there. The goal and the strategy is the same: how can we get people a car at the push of a button. When you look at that 3 minute eta of course you are looking at cars that need to be put on the road so working with OEMs and manufacturers on discounts and partnerships, working with banks, insurance companies, and easing the friction to join the platform to get to that consistent eta across the city. That is really the imperative in every city that we go into but as we go forward it is “do people need to be stuck in traffic? Do people need to spend time in traffic and spend money on cars? How can we get the cost of getting around the city cheaper than owning a vehicle?” At the moment our UberX product is quite competitive. There are people that come in and move to Lagos and there is no need to buy a car because you can actually get around at the push of a button in a couple of minutes. The next frontier will be pooling, so how we can get multiple people in one car. If we are both going to the same place from relatively the same starting location, do we need to be in two separate cars on the same road, congesting twice as much? Could we halve that and use technology to marry those two trips and make them one? That means more money for the partner, more efficiency for the system and of course less congestion. That is really the next strategic frontier.

There is a lot to be done! Personally where would you like to see the company in one year? What are your personal priorities as General Manager?

I am very much passionate about the market that I am in and I think that our market is very unique in the challenges that we have in this continent such as unemployment, and infrastructure gaps etc. The work that we do and the incremental difference is so much more; it feels like it permeates so many more people’s lives. It is not a supplement, it is not a complement; sometimes it is the only option. So my personal priority is very much about getting to that target we talked about of the 3,000 job opportunities by the end of this year. Also launching more markets in the sub-Saharan region is a priority, we are very bullish on that goal, and we are looking at Uganda, Ghana and also Tanzania for example. Most importantly I think is getting to a point where when you think about moving around your city you don’t need to worry about the historical things like “will it be expensive?” or “do I need to go outside and look for a taxi?” When everybody is able to get an Uber in 3 minutes—that will be a major goal accomplished. We may not get to 3 minutes by the end of the year but we probably will be around the 5 or 4 minute mark. It is definitely a huge priority and with that, when you create these economic opportunities you create the enabling environment for that to happen, so the partnerships with the banks, the partnerships with the manufacturing companies etc. it is all a holistic approach, you need one to create the other, they feed into each other.

What is your personal story? How long have you been in the company?

I joined Uber in December 2014 so 6 months after the business launched. It has been a year and 5 months now. They have been very exciting times. I initially was the General Manager of Lagos and I became the General Manager of Nigeria. The future outlook is to be the General Manager taking care of the West Africa business. It is very much a merit based environment and company. The work that we are doing is what keeps all of us here sometimes until ten o’clock at night! You can just feel it and touch it, if you go out for coffee and your friend arrived in an Uber you know that you made that indirectly happen. If you go into our partner support centres and hear some of the stories, I remember that there was a driver that we met who had been displaced by Boko Haram in the north and had moved to Lagos to start a new life, he didn’t know anything about Lagos, he did not know where to begin but he came to Uber and he has been on the platform ever since, he even remembers the exact day that he joined. It is those stories that make it all worth it.

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