Startup in a million. As the tracking service was able to transport spin without money on advertising

The founder of the EasyWay Ivan Sherstyuk told Focus about how the Lviv reform of the public transport system has attracted attention to the service, the confrontation with officials and about a thousand hryvnia, wasted on promotion

Zalina Kryukova – 22.03.18 413000

EasyWay service recently celebrated a kind of jubilee — 1 million downloads of mobile applications, and this is only for Android. Since the beginning of the service in its promotion (website, mobile apps, widgets) has spent a total of 1 thousand UAH.

Focus talked with the founder of the EasyWay Ivan Sherstiuk about what challenges he faced in building your business, and how the application affected the system of municipal transport in Ukrainian cities.

The battle with officials

Established by Ukrainians in 2011, the service EasyWay works in Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, but the most extensive coverage of the cities, of course, in Ukraine. “My partner and I decided to create this service for Euro 2012. Partly it was aimed at tourists, we were doing it for their comfort,” says Ivan Sherstyuk.

To engage the municipal transport enterprises of Ukrainian cities was not easy. “In 2013, we wrote 50 official letters to every major city. Received 15 responses, although the law was supposed to get all 50. Of the 15 there was only one positive from Kyivpastrans — says Sherstyuk.

With the capital’s municipal enterprise partnerships have been documented: the contract is signed, moreover, Sherstyuk was the Advisor to the head of the company’s IT questions. It is recommended to install GPS equipment on the ring train, and to the idea listened. However, the relationship with the owners of private minibuses has not yet formed, to negotiate with them can not for about three years.

Other cities had to conduct lengthy negotiations to agree to provide data on the movement of transport. What is the reason Ivan doesn’t know whether bureaucracy prevents, or affects the fear of innovation. Often the officials devised excuses. In Lviv, for example, worried that private carriers will establish a program that will track buses and specially to outrun them, to take away passengers. But then gps devices equipped with both municipal and private transport and the problem was solved.

My partner and I decided to create this service for Euro 2012. Partly it was aimed at tourists, we were doing it for their comfort

 

Ivan Sherstuk

the founder of the EasyWay

Sometimes the offer of cooperation simply ignored. “In Kharkov is not open data on the movements of transport Ivano-Frankivsk-even pleaded — where all the data was out of the city, and some of the monopolist, who said: “I Want to pay,” — says Sherstyuk. With his supporters he had to initiate in 2017, changes to the resolution of Cabinet of Ministers №835, which establishes the list of data subject to mandatory disclosure. Now information about the movements of public transport must be public.

Confusion in the help

Become popular the service has helped the reform of public transport in Lviv, more accurately, the chaos that she has caused. January 1, 2012, in preparation for the football championship, the city government changed the scheme of movement, abolished some routes. Many citizens were lost — didn’t know how to get from point A to point B. “we had adequate information, many people came to us to learn how to drive. Here then was a burst of activity”, — says Ivan Sherstyuk.

The founders of the service launched it without external investment. To start in 2011 invested around us $30 thousand, and in 2013 they were able to “go to zero”, earning on advertising and corporate clients.

To promote the service in the Network were spent 1 thousand UAH, and, according to Ivan, tangible effect to no avail. “We spent money on AdWords, I got 200 people on the site. Understand that it is unprofitable, and more on promotion is not spent,” says Sherstyuk, explaining the growing popularity of its service quality.

Now EasyWay has partnered with Google, providing transport information for maps. And care of “Yandex” at the time, was the cause of the development of the service. For example, users didn’t like that EasyWay is not possible to see the movement of the entire transport at once, the developers had to quickly complete functionality.

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Today the map service 56 cities in 16 working of GPS system which gives the ability to track traffic in real time.