Full transcript: Gary Jackson on London Real
0:28 Behind the innovation, locally filmed, locally sourced. Silicon Real, it’s about the people. All right, here we go. This is Silicon Real, the video podcast dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I am Brian Rose.
0:48 I also host London Real, which is a similar type deal. We get three guys in the room, sometimes girls, and we try to figure some stuff out. We’ve had George Galloway in here, Howard Marx, Tim Ferriss. We had Bruce Parry from the BBC series Tribe on here the other day. But we’re here to talk about tech.
1:06 My co-host is Colin Pyle, who’s an entrepreneur who runs Lingos, which is the online language school. You got the Gourmet Co Coffee Company crew cafe, you’re doing Kickstarters, member’s over. I’m really happy about that. I know. Me too.
1:18 The mustache, was it, was it, was scaring me a little bit. I didn’t pull it off, didn’t pull it off. Oh, I don’t know about that. Maybe you pulled it off too well, which is maybe worse. Do you miss it?
1:28 I do, actually, a little bit. You know, you know, I I hang out in Shoreditch a lot, and I felt like I fit in a little bit more during Movember out here than I do now. Maybe if you added a hat to that, then it might have. Yeah, it might have worked, worked next year. Okay, cool.
1:40 And Kickstarter, how’s that going? You’re about halfway through your goal, right? Yeah, I think we hit 55% funded today, so yeah, it’s going great. I, if you have an espresso machine at home, give us a go. I would just spent some time with our suppliers, and it looks like we’ll have a biopod ready for our Kickstarter rewards, so I’m going to update that soon, because fully biodegradable pod.
2:00 Fully biodegradable pod. Awesome. Didn’t know that a few weeks ago, but now it’s pretty much firmed up, so that’s exciting. Really exciting. Cool.
2:08 Very good man. I have supported your campaign. I expect some coffee next year. Thank you very much. And no, that’s really cool, so check that out.
2:14 We’ll put a link on the show to that. On with the show. Our guest today is Mr Gary Jackson, who is one of the founders of Hailo, which, if you don’t know, it’s a smartphone app which puts people two taps away from a licensed taxi. More specifically, in London, it puts you in touch with a black cab, which is an institution of the UK. You know, I’ve got my own stories about black cabs.
2:34 I’ll go into that later, but a bit about Hailo. You guys launched in November 201. You guys are all over the world now. You’re in Chicago, Toronto, Ireland, Osaka, Japan, Barcelona, yeah, Madrid, Madrid. You guys, I think, have carried 8 and half million passengers.
2:51 Your annualized sales are over $100 million. You were founded by three taxi drivers, one of which is you and three entrepreneurs. You’ve raised over $50 million from VCs like Union Square Ventures, Accel Partners, and Sir Richard Branson. Gary, welcome to Silicon Real. Yeah, thank you.
3:09 It’s amazing. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s really big to have you here because we have a lot of people on the show, and we’re always talking about these Series A and Series B rounds that people say is lacking in the UK, and you guys are already there. And so it’s just big to see you guys like leading the way, and then you’re taking it to the Yanks, which we usually see businesses coming the other way across the ocean, and it’s like, you guys, and why plan, that are kind of going the other way.
3:32 So I was just wondering how’s the last couple years been for you? To be honest, it’s just been getting time to to get your thoughts, really, because it’s been so busy. So, and one of the things we do love is like you said, is that go with startups, we love it. We’re from Stepney originally, so we’re, we’re East London boy, so to see something so close to us being built up in Tech City and stuff like that, and actually being one of the companies to come from London, and as you say, go to New York, is has been great.
4:06 Yeah. It’s such a great story, because it’s just nice to see that you know you have three guys that were driving you know, black cabs for a large part of their life, and then three internet guys, and it wasn’t like the tech guys trying to take over your industry, but you guys were doing it together, and that’s kind of a rare story, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. So what happened was originally there was a three cab drivers: me, Terry, and Russell, and we started another company, and we was doing really well, but we knew about the taxi business, but we didn’t know about the business business, if you know what I mean.
4:34 So we was really fortunate, and between the three of us met Terry and Russell were very much like a perfect marriage, and then all of a sudden we met Ron and Casper, and it was like the second perfect marriage, built together. So yeah, we’ve been really fortunate. How did you meet them at a curiosity. Yeah, so what happened was, Terry got an email, which is really fortunate, because at our last company our emails RAR work probably anyway, so yeah, we got an email to go meet him at a cafe.
5:04 So, as taxi drivers, it sounds really weird that you’d think that we would be the ones turning up in jeans and T-shirts, but we went in suits, because when you do the knowledge, it’s just respectful to always wear a suit, so you always look smart. So we turned up in suits, and we turned up at this place called the squat on gobble, which was in, was it R topical road? So we up at this place, and he shut down, so there we are thinking, ah, this is a mess.
5:34 All right, and then all of a sudden one of them come running along, and we went into, from a really posh cafe, which we was meant to be going to, to a proper old dingy sedan China cup, all cracked, having cup of tea for a few hours and just discussing the taxi business. So we told them how we thought things should be run, and they said, well, we want to get into that business, cuz we know it’s big, and we join together sort is really good. You know, you mentioned the knowledge, and if you don’t live in London, the black cab experience is really hard to describe to someone.
6:06 I first moved here in 1997, and then again in 2002, and like it was such a big part of my experience of London, and like, a black, getting into a black cab, even on like a busy shopping day on Oxford Street, and you get into this space, and it’s this huge space, and you’re above everyone else. You’ve got a cabby who knows what the f*** he’s doing, where he’s going. You can even have a probably a crazy conversation if you want, and I used to call it, like, my personalized limousine tax.
6:31 All over the, been in Tokyo, got the white gloves. I’ve been in New York, where you got, you know, speeding down the street, and it’s a unique experience. So, like, to see you guys marry that with tech, it really, I don’t know, it’s something kind of special. You know, no, it’s good. I think it keeps it going, too.
6:45 It is such a unique experience. I think coming from Toronto, it’s just kind of typical, and been in cabs in China, it’s just insane So what is the knowledge for people that don’t know? And what’s the history of the black cabs? I mean, you look at the latest Sherlock Holmes movies, and they’re flagging black cabs. I mean, this is, like, been around for a long time yeah.
7:01 So the knowledge is something that, remember, anyone could become a taxi driver. All you have to do is go out and learn something like 375 routes around London, and if you do all them, them routes together, it actually crisscrosses across, and you should know the best way from point A to B, but that’s not all you have to do. So what then you have to do is, you have to go up on appearances. So you have to put a suit on and go up to someone who’s like an examiner, and you do that on a different basis.
7:27 So you go from two months to one month, down to two weeks, and it can take, the quickest, about 3 years and they ask you questions. Take me from this building here to Old Street, and you’d have to find the best way out and stuff like that, and visualize it, and tell them, visualize it. Yeah, I was one of these people that people do it in different ways. Some people visualize it from actually going out on a motorbike and seeing the streets and seeing the shops.
7:49 Yeah, you can see those guys in, I was probably one of the first people who started using tech to do the knowledge. So when I done the knowledge, mine was more map focused, so I would visualize the map in my head, and that’s how would remember everywhere. And then you started using computers, then, which would pinpoint certain places, so it would tell you where places was on one side of the road or another. So I suppose I was using tech even then to do the knowledge.
8:12 Nowadays, they all use, I imagine, Google Earth, just zoom in and see what a building looks like and go from there. So it’s probably a little bit easier to do, because you don’t have to go out as much, but you probably ain’t got that knowledge of the streets as much. So and you’ve been studied by brain scientists, and they said that your brain actually changes once you’ve learned the knowledge, right? As in, like, the left and the right hemispheres, like, did something really strange by all that memorization.
8:36 Yeah, so what I always say is, we take all them. It took me nearly 5 years to do the knowledge. I was doing it with, um, part-time, so I had family and stuff like that. It’s hard to get out on a bike and work and learn all these runs and just to make that clear, that’s 5 years of studying before you get your license to become a cab. Exactly.
8:53 So it was four and a half years from the day that I said, I’m going to do the knowledge and become a cab driver. Like, all my brother was a cab driver, my uncle’s a cab driver. Everyone, I would say, out of all my friends, I can’t think there’s probably one who’s not a cab driver. So it’s something, if you’re from East London, is something you just, it’s something you can do. So you can either do that or you can go in a stock exchange and if you get lucky.
9:14 I think we’re really good in the stock exchange. East London boys, as well. Yeah, we had a bunch in the city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah.
9:21 So that’s how the knowledge works. Are people still doing the knowledge, or with the tech coming in these days, do you think that it will be phased out at some point? No, I believe you can ever phase it out, because I know you got satnavs, but there’s certain things in your brain that you’re collecting all the time. Let’s face it, we all get into a set n and it doesn’t always take you the quickest way, and it doesn’t know the back roads and stuff like that.
9:43 So I think our brains would always be better. But going on to the big brain scenario, I believe that we spent four and a half years remembering it all and packing your brain, and then you spend the next six months just trying to get it out. If you know what I mean, because to be honest, you, until Hailo come along, you only ever work the city, the West End, or maybe Kensington. But now Hailo’s here, then what happens is you start working in the outer bars a lot more, so now your knowledge of the outer bars is getting better.
10:11 But when Hailo first came along, he was getting streets that you’ve never heard of. So drivers was like, oh, what’s this street? I’ve never heard of it, but, uh, but now they’re getting used to it. So their knowledge is actually, when you become a cab drivers, is a lot better now with Hailo, because they have to think where they’re going and picking people up from after you do the knowledge, how does the, how business working? Do you actually buy a license, or do you do, you work and then have to pay?
10:35 Yeah, so it, it stands to the driver. It’s not like in other cities like New York, where it’s a medallion, or anything like that. You are the medallion, so then you’ve got that badge that says I can drive a taxi. So what you do is, then I think it’s about £350. I think it’s gone up.
10:49 Now I think it’s £400, but that’s for three years, so it’s not like you do all that work and then you’re, you’ve got to pay a lot. It’s quite reasonable, for 100 Japan, for three years’ worth of, uh, going out in a taxi. So the studying is really what, how you pay for the license. Of course it is. Yeah, it’s like doing a degree.
11:04 So who owns the cars, then? So the cars, you can either go out and buy yourself one. Okay, very expensive. Yeah, so people don’t take that into account. Everyone thinks that every cab driver out there is earning loads of money.
11:14 There’s a lot of expense. Diesel was expensive, cabs are expensive. I used to rent my taxi, so I didn’t have the worry of things breaking down and stuff like that. So, uh, it’s not as easy as everyone thinks. Driving a taxi, you probably do, in like, everywhere, three, four days, and it’s probably the same in every country before you actually start earning money.
11:32 Right, so with Hailo now it’s a lot better. So where we used to come out at 5:00 in the morning, you could work till 6, 7:00 without even getting a job. You can’t do that now, so we’re feeling that that dead mileage is sort of gone away. So you’re increasing efficiency. Huge for the cab.
11:49 Yeah, exactly. So, so, uh, some of the things that we have in the app, because we have a driver app. Everyone sees the customer app. What they don’t see is the driver app. The app, cuz the driver app gives drivers all these benefits.
12:00 It lets you see your stats. So if you want to, type in every job, you can see how much percentage you are Po, and stuff like that. And sometimes when we first started doing it, drivers was 50%. What’s Po? Sorry, P is a passenger on board.
12:14 Okay, so you have a passenger on board, so much percentage. Obviously, the more percentage you have passenger on board, the more your meter is running, you’re earning more money. With the Hailo app, they can monitor their own business, you can monitor your own business and see how you’re doing. And we’re going to, we’re working on that at the moment, to make it because it’s two years old, the driver app. We’re going to make the new app really good, so it’s going to be a bit more interesting.
12:34 Okay, you have like driver stats, so you can download your stats and compare the, the average pound per minute, I guess, and all that stuff. Exactly. So, one, one of the things you’d be driving around is you’re always thinking to yourself, I’ve got a target to hit, right? But I want to know what my a rate is, because if your a rate’s below, then you know there’s not much you can really do about it. You can only carry so many people.
12:54 But no, so we had drivers who was Po 50% of the time, and they were 75% at the time. Now they get 25, which was actually 25% times whatever increase in their earnings. Yeah, just by using the app, just by, you know, it’s something we ask everyone that’s sitting here. I was just wondering if you could tell people that don’t know about Hailo, like, what have you guys done, and what are you planning to do, and why do you think Hailo can win in this market? Why do you think you guys are going to be successful here in London and then globally?
13:22 Yeah, so, um, I would, one, one say that it’s got taxi, taxi drivers’ influence, because we can all go out there and build stuff that we don’t know nothing about, but we know the industry. So we can do that, and, and to be honest, the industry is probably the same in every country, is that if you’re empty, you’re not earning money, and if you’re full, you’re earning money. So, uh, on that way I think we can succeed, because the other way we do it is we go out and get wherever city we’ve ever been to.
13:50 We go out and get the drivers first, so when we launch, we never launch with more customers than we have drivers, because it’s all about service. So if we can give people a great service from the beginning, then they’re going to use us forever more. Something like New York, it seems like that would be a nightmare to try to go in there and understand the yellow cabs and try to get your app going. I mean, did you send people there to work with the people on the ground?
14:15 Yeah, so, so every city we go to, we, we actually used the same concept as we did in London at the beginning, which is get a few driver partners who know about the business, who know people, who know different minorities, so, so if you go to, uh, uh, I don’t know, so Toronto, we might have an Asian, uh, driver who can help that, that race, and, uh, we have a, uh, different segments, if you know what I mean. So we get drivers involved from the beginning. Yeah, that’s a big deal.
14:43 You said like in London, was it first in, you getting your friends involved and then get the next black cabbie to tell, cuz, cuz I think one of your interviews you said black tech cabbies and tech don’t always go together. Yes. So we had, we had this from the beginning, and, and to be honest, instead of, uh, being defeat and saying to ourselves, okay, a driver says I don’t do tech, instead of saying that we’d help him do tech, so we’d set him up an email, cuz they’d come in and they’d go, uh, you go, what’s the your email?
15:08 And they, they’re going to be like, it’s Shirley family at this Gmail, and you’re like, we’ll liberate you, we’ll give you your own email, and they’re like, oh my goodness, you’ll do that. And we made them, actually, Apple owe us a lot of money anyway, because we, we sold a lot of phones for them, because drivers used to come in with a box and just go, here you go, can you set it up for me? And, and the whole point is, is we was, um, it was finding what taxi drivers needed.
15:32 So what we done was, we obviously knew that taxi drivers want to earn more money, but we also, we was fortunate, we had an enemy at the time who we could, uh, relay to drivers and say, we want to win back our work, and that was one of our big slogans, is that during that time, a certain company was coming in and taking all the black taxi work from us. Okay, so so we used that, and that’s why the drivers jumped on board. Okay, like a mini cab company, that’s your main competition?
15:59 Is the hired smaller private cars? Exactly. Yeah, because every work that they take, there’s another person who could have been getting into a black cab. So it’s all about getting people back into black taxis. And did you ever think about not expanding so fast?
16:12 I mean, Jesus, you guys raised a ton of money. You went super global. Did you ever think, let’s let’s own the London market first, or was that always part of the plan? I would say that we were, we was probably at a stage where we feel like we own the London market anyway. Okay.
16:27 So, uh, can we do more? Yes, can we dispatch better? Yes, that’s all coming. Uh, can we do more for our drivers? Yes, that’s coming.
16:34 So uh, so we’ve not won it completely yet, but, uh, we’ve launching into other countries. It was a case of that, um, I suppose it was more of a time thing, that if you sit around waiting and just win in London, it’s a big hot market. So if you let other companies go out to other places and start winning them first, then obviously it’s a bit harder for us to go in afterwards and, uh, and mop up. But the thing is, when we started London, we was actually the eighth app on, in the city, right?
17:02 And, um, so we sat there, and we was building this, uh, this app, which we knew we was the best, because we had all, we had all these, uh, young guys from, uh, from Google and places like that, and they’re all building this, this app for taxis, and, uh, everyone else just had two people in a bedroom, you know, uh, building it. So we’re sitting there, and we’re watching all these people come out, and we’re thinking, ah, is one of them going to be successful? But we’re so confident in what we done, and what we done was we got the supply in, the drivers, before we went out there, where the other ones just went out there with two, three cabs.
17:34 Lost a lot of customers. Yeah, all right. I did a little market test on this the other day, and I was, I was late for a meeting with you, and I was at Euston Station, and I needed a taxi, so I hit the Hailo, and, uh, you know, I was checking it out, and it’s a fantastic app, by the way, really great, easy to sign up. Uh, it just makes it super easy. Um, gives you the cab’s picture of the T cabby, his phone number, he knows who you are.
17:54 You can change the location and have him pick up on a different part of the street, and I got mine really quick, and then I quizzed the cabby, and he didn’t know who I was, obviously, he didn’t know Gary was coming on in two weeks, and I was like, okay, why do you use it? What happens? And he was like, yeah, I can be there with a cabby friend of mine. We both get the alert, whoever hits it first will get the business. And he’s like, you know, and he was just talking about how he uses it, the, the fees, and I think, yeah, I think he didn’t want to lose business to to other companies more than anything.
18:20 Exactly. And we’re going to have some new features coming out soon, which is going to be like a, a directional button, because this goes back to what we done in the beginning, which was a company called Taxi Light, which was getting people journeys in and out of London. And then on the concept, if a driver’s finished for the day or he’s coming in, he’ll do a job a little bit cheaper, because he’s going that way anyway. So it’s like a fill your empty seat, so we’re going to be introducing that soon, which will hopefully help you.
18:46 So if you put in your direction where you’re going to, you’ll get another chance of getting a taxi, because if a driver says I’m finished for the day, I’m out of here, at least if he’s going your way, you end up going your way, uh, not for cheaper, short, but for a longer journey, or you can, you’ll get a happy driver, cuz there’s nothing more happier than, uh, getting a job going in your direction when you want to go out. Right? And a cabby going home is good.
19:08 You know, I love black cabs, like I said earlier, but I’ve had nights out where you’re trying to flag one, you can’t find them. Uh, other people are jumping ahead, and like some nights I’ve been like, oh, jeez, I wish there were more of them, walked blocks and blocks and blocks, and sometimes, like, the cab will stop, and he’s like, no, I’m going home. I can’t take you that way. And I know in New York they’re required, if they pick you up, to take you wherever they’re going to go.
19:28 These concerns, that, that, that made your app a reason that more people want it, or is that something, you know, as a black cab, that people can get frustrated with? That, so, so one thing I think we have to train everyone is, is drivers and customers, because customers still come out on the street and use the Hailo app. It’s not meant to be like that. You’re meant to be in the restaurant, press the button, see that the cab’s coming towards you, and then when he presses his arrived, then you come out and get into the, into the taxi.
19:52 So, so I think it’s going to be a time thing. It’s like, I was think, a telephone box, people used to outside telephone boxes to use it. I think it’s the same as hail in the cab. I think in the future it would just be alien to a hail a cab on the street. You, you let him come to you, because then you stay in the warm.
20:09 He knows that you’re going to come out as soon as he presses the arrive button, and everyone’s happy. Then AR they, so C, can you explain the fees a little bit for, for, uh, for the cab driver? Just explain. So, so, so all we take is, uh, uh, a 10% cut of from the driver, so the customer doesn’t pay anything more than, uh, than what’s on the meter. But, um, so we take 10% in London, but we do it different, so in, in Toronto it’s 15%, because it’s all about the market, and it’s all about, uh, you know, New York drivers don’t earn as much money as London cab drivers, so we charge the customer there, because it’s more of a convenience thing.
20:46 So drivers do take 10%, but out of that we have to pay the credit card cost, VAT, and stuff like that. So, uh, so it, it’s quite a good deal. And there’s some minimum fees. Recently, I know you changed a few of them. They’re somewhat controversial.
20:57 One of the cabbies said that he was glad you went to the daytime charge, was a minimum1, which you jumped from five, and then the night time is a minimum 15. You’ve had some press about that. What do you say about those fees? Why are those necessary? Okay, so, um, so if you imagine, uh, at the moment we’re over supplied.
21:14 I mean, people just love the app, they just want to use it to get taxis, so it come to a stage where, uh, we was getting not so much feedback from drivers, but we’re very data orientated now, so we can tell when people use it, how many people use it, uh, how much they pay, uh, at certain times, and stuff like that. So it got to a stage where, for the sake of losing probably the five or 10% at the bottom, which was doing jobs less than 1010, now the people at the top, who, who not, saying at the top, spending more money, but the people who couldn’t get a cab, who was willing to spend more than 10, couldn’t get a cab. Now, if I use an app and I say it’s going to cost me 10, I decide not to use it.
21:54 That’s my choice. But if I press the button and I can’t get a taxi, then I’m just going to go use Addison Lee, or I’m going to go use another taxi firm, or use other companies that are going to come in and supply you with that service. So it was a decision to not, for the good of, uh, just the company, but the good of the drivers and the good of the customers, because if you press a button and you don’t get a taxi, then there’s nothing worse. I don’t have a problem with that minimum price.
22:19 If you really need a taxi, you’re just like, I need it now. Exactly. But have you, have you had some problems with that? I know, have people complained? Have you lost any business, or, uh, to be honest, we, we done the data, so we knew we’d lose a, a tiny minority of business, but we gained it from the, from the, uh, the top.
22:37 So completed jobs is actually more than it used to be, because now more people are getting in black taxis and not trying to use other services. So, as it worked, yeah, if, if we find out it’s not, and the data says differently, then we’re big and brave enough to, to go back. I don’t think we will. But have you done that in other countries as well, with a minimum fare? Um, we don’t have such.
22:57 I think in other countries we have a tipping problem, okay, because, uh, in the, in North America everyone tips, where maybe they don’t tip as much in app, because it’s, it’s easier to just walk away with a tip. But, uh, so if we need to, then we will, but we’ll do the data and we’ll make it the best for customers, drivers, and ourself. So that you, we talked about the data a few times. You guys must be collecting some fascinating data, you talk about data mining.
23:24 We had Ivan on, who does sort of e-commerce data, but the data mining of your stuff must be really, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have a data department now who deal with all this sort of stuff anyway. I’m looking forward more to, uh, what we don’t use. I’d love to use the, the, the traffic side of it, so at the moment, if you’re a driver, you can actually put in when there’s traffic. No, like Google does it, but this is by cab drivers for cab drivers, so you can put in there, traffic here, so it’s trustworthy and it’s updated all the time, because new drivers come along, get asked questions like, is there traffic?
23:55 But what I would like to go on to eventually is sort of sat-nav, as in, let’s face it, TomTom can tell you which way to go, but he can’t tell you a cab’s way to go. So it’d be lovely to use that data for that. But, uh, we use data for everything. So we’re doing a lot of A/B testing at the moment, so we can put a sign on the screen for the driver, and then we can say, well, 50% said accept more, or 50% don’t accept more, and we can use that sort of data to go forward and see what’s the best way.
24:25 You know, we always have a part of the podcast. We have, ask a couple Devil’s Advocate questions, and I’m sure you’ve got one on your mind, but I want to ask you about a company that hit you up at chew the fat the other night. It was our good friends at Uber, which asked you a few questions about your pricing model. And what do you think about the American companies, or other companies that are trying to come in and try to own this space, or Addison Lee upping their game?
24:46 Or how do you think you guys can compete with those people in the long run? Um, I would always like to think that we’re going to just focus forward. I hate you when you’re looking side to side and behind, looking at, at competition, if you know what I mean, because I like to think that we probably do everything right, and I always think to myself that, if, if we feel that we’re having a hard time, imagine how they’re feeling. They’re probably looking at us going, how can we be like Hailo?
25:10 So we shouldn’t be looking behind and saying, uh, oh, let’s do it their way, or let’s see, let’s see how they’re doing it. So how do, do we worry about it? I think there’s enough work for everyone, if they want it, because, uh, to be honest, we’ve probably only, uh, taken 5% of the taxi market, so there’s a big market out there still to go. So, um, I think with black cabs, because we’re black-cab only, uh, with black cabs, uh, picking people up, I think that’s an advantage straight away.
25:38 Now, the, the competition like Addison Lee and Uber. Uber can try and get black cabs, but black cabs won’t work with, uh, mini cabs. Are black cabs exclusive to you when they sign up with you? No, no, no, they’re not exclusive. So in theory, one black cab could have two apps.
25:53 One black cab could have two apps, a radio circuit, the street. So we’re competing a lot more with the street than we are of a competition, but you won’t sign mini cabs up. You’re strictly a black cab service for Hailo. Okay, and that’s the decision you made early on. That’s the decision.
26:07 It’s in your blood, right? It’s in our blood, most definitely. It’s hard to emphasize what an institution the black cab is like in London. I mean, like, it’s the fact that you guys have that market, it’s just, it’s a big, uh, sign for your credibility, and it’s hard to break into that market. You know, yeah.
26:22 So, so other people will, will find it, OD. I mean, there is other, PE, uh, competition, but no one gets as many drivers as we do, because they believe in what we’re doing, and they, they, they like the minimum fare. A lot of drivers were saying, oh, but people are going to stop using, and stuff like, and we said, look, trust us, we know what we’re doing. We’re not, we don’t do anything to hurt anyone. That’s the thing with Hailo.
26:43 We’re not out there to hurt anyone, so everything we do is for the good of our customers and our drivers. So that’s the way we feel. Yeah, kill the dead time for the drivers and get more capacity for the people on the streets. Exactly. And you know what, there’s people out there who probably would never dream of using a black cab who now use a black cab, and and that’s something that we need to do, because it ain’t just the mini cabs that are competition.
27:04 You’ve got trains, you’ve got buses. The 24-hour trains is coming soon, you know. I mean, uh, to be honest, that’s going to take a bit of money. There’s Crossrail that’s going to take people out to the airport. People don’t use black taxis as much to go out to the airport.
27:17 We want to bring that back, so that’s why we’re going to do the fixed price screen coming into the new year, so that we can get you out a little bit cheaper, and you know the price when you’re going. So, uh, so there’s lots, there’s lots more to come. Colin, what do you see when you look at them as, like, a business model, like from a, like a bird’s eye perspective? Well, it’s interesting, because you talked about sort of competition not in cars, so Crossrail and, and stuff like this.
27:40 You know, you say I sort of peripherally without looking at any data, saw the black cab market almost as a declining market. Right? Most definitely. So you jumped into a declining market, and you’re really turning it around with technology, which is, which is impressive. I guess, do you see, do you see the ability to turn it around a little bit, but is technology at some point going to sort of take over, and whether that’s five years or 10 years from now?
28:05 Um, do, do you think that you’re not going, you exited by then. Google self-drive, for example. I, one of these people that it’s never going to happen. Never going to happen. No, it’s never going to.
28:17 I mean, what they’d have to do is shut down every road in London for it to happen. Simon Devenshire was loving that. He was talking about, yeah, he wanted to kill all the parking spaces in London and move Mo that open to, you know, walking spaces. So it’s funny. You talk to some people and they say, you know, that’s 15 years down the road, and other people are like, oh, it’s not as far as you think.
28:36 So I don’t know the answer to that. And I, you’ll probably be a super angel by then, helping the ecosystem, like the PayPal effect by that time. But, but so, so think of it this way. I think, I think it must have been about 20 years ago, I think the Docklands Light Railway, yeah, which is, which is an automated, self, self-drive light railway. Have you ever seen one empty with no conductor or anything?
28:57 No. So I don’t see any point in it. I mean, I agree with electric cars and electric taxis. I think that would be great. That’d be amazing.
29:05 He still needs someone. You need someone to talk to anyway, don’t you? Talk to a robot. Has Boris Bikes impacted black cab business? I don’t know.
29:16 I should imagine it would, on short journeys, because if you’re going to go from Liverpool Street, and you can jump on a bike to go to London Bridge or something like that, then, then, then good luck to you. Yeah, but when it’s raining and it’s cold, I mean, uh, then it’s stand to you, but, but even cycling, I mean, a lot of people probably used to get taxis, now cycle to work, right? people drive for miles, don’t they? 10, 15 miles on a cycle just to get in, and so, uh, so that definitely hits us a little bit.
29:44 Yeah, you know, car, you have a unique corporate structure, because you have three, you know, black cabbies and three, like, internet entrepreneurs. Like, you’ve got, you know, the guys in, well, the guys in suits are actually you guys, and the guys, and it’s, it’s, it’s honestly, it’s a great story, and it’s an awesome, you know, article, but how does it actually work? I mean, when it gets down to expanding to these cities, and these guys have the vision, and you guys have the knowledge of the base?
30:06 I mean, do you all sit around the boardroom and make these decisions? Do you all travel around the world, or do you have, like, certain responsibilities that you do in the, the guys do? Um, so, so, like, all startups, we was involved in everything at the beginning. It’s getting to a stage now where we, we can’t be. I mean, if you go back six months ago, we was traveling everywhere, but since then we’re, we’re now starting to hire people in the big positions, if you know what I mean.
30:30 So, um, one of our joint CEOs is, uh, is Tom B, who’s the head of, who was the head of Starbucks. So, and then we’ve got John Mo from Skype, who, who’s the head of, uh, our product. So all these people, uh, are now coming involved, and there’re becoming, because you can’t do everything. That’s the thing with a startup. You’re involved in everything, and you always want to know what’s going on, but in the end it just makes you a bit crazy.
30:52 So, so what we’re doing as drivers, we’re, we’re taking our roles a bit separate, as in what we’re good at, and, uh, Russell, uh, you met earlier, is the more PR and marketing. Um, I love the product side of it. So like I said, we’re working on Driver 2, which is going to be the new app for drivers, uh, so I’ll be working more on that, and Terry does a lot of operations. Uh, Ron, who’s one of the co-founders, does the funding, uh, and stuff like that, and Casper was head of operations as well, so we all do our little roles, and Jay is, uh, the CEO.
31:26 So we also still got our roles in the company, but we need to, you need to take your foot off the gas, because overload. You guys were driving black cabs three years ago, and now you’re running a billion dollar plus company. Exactly, that’s pretty crazy. Yeah, to be honest, phenomenal story. Even when people talk about it, it’s really weird, even when talk about the funding.
31:46 I, I, it’s 50 million this and 50. I don’t take much notice. As far as I’m concerned, everyone’s getting that sort of money. So when people say, uh, I’ve just got some funding of a couple of hundred grand and stuff, it’s like, don’t take much notice of it, to be honest. I just think that everyone earns.
32:01 I mean, a couple hundred grand is loads of money. If it would have been us in the beginning, we’ve been going mental for it, but so we don’t take much. I don’t get time, me personally, to take much notice of the, uh, sit back the money. But one day you will. Uh, one day I might.
32:14 Yeah, I think I’ve always, always been a bit of a, a dreamer anyway. It’s like anything can happen. I probably dreamt that when I was, uh, younger anyway, so it’s been done. I mean, you guys are a huge success story for a lot. I think you were meeting with David Cameron earlier today and Russell, and you, and I mean, you guys are kind of like what London can become in the tech sector.
32:32 It’s what we’re always talking about on this show, like to have someone like you getting the big chunky financing, kind of going global. Are you guys role models to a certain extent to the startup community? Yeah, I would say we are. It’s a bit annoying on my part, cuz I’d always like to say that I would love to help people. It’s just getting time to help people.
32:51 It’s like, we was at TR, the fact, which was, uh, which was great the other day. We done, uh, like a question and answer thing, and, and then people come up to you and they ask you your opinion, and sometimes you think, yourself, I’m just, why you asking me my opinion? I don’t know nothing, but then you come back and you tell them all this stuff, and you come back with answers, uh, and, and we meet up with them, we have a cup of coffee, and, uh, we can’t invest in them or anything like that, but we can give our experience of what we’ve been through, and everything.
33:16 I think sometimes you think to yourself, although you had it you had it too easy, if you know what I mean, but you deserve it because you work so hard. So that’s what it’d be nice to do, to help anyone, especially in London. It’s like a pride thing, isn’t it, being born in London and seeing London do well. It’s the best thing. It’s like your football club doing well, let’s face it.
33:35 It was, if you should have a tech football club, shouldn’t we? London would be the best in the world. Yeah, I mean, we’re not from London, but the one thing we want to see is London just kick off when it comes to the tech, and see those big, uh, those big, you know, Hailo financings, and those big, you know, billion-pound companies, and those big IPOs, and but you live in London. Yeah, so you are, once you’ve joined the team, then you’re part of it, and actually black cabbies always ask me where I’m from, and I, I say I’m a Londoner.
34:01 Yeah, and then they ask me a few more times, and they always assume I’m American. Really? Yeah. We sure compliment, what, what do you think of the London tech scene? I mean, you know, globally, what’s going on with all your different cab companies?
34:14 I mean, is there anything you see that that we need to do here in London? I mean, obviously you’re getting more recognition from Cameron and the government. Do you see a missing piece in this community? One thing I think the government definitely should do, and, and uh, I’m not that wise to it, I should get a bit wiser, is that if you start up, that it’s like 0% tax and stuff like that, because you bring so many employees into, into this industry, uh, and, uh, anything you take out of it should, I’d say, tax freak.
34:43 I don’t, I would say that would. I, yeah, tax R sounds good. Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, just an incentive, because, uh, people are probably sitting there thinking, is it worth all the hard work? But sometimes even just starting up a company, so you know, I just don’t have time to, my books aren’t organized enough, and I’m just not focused on revenue, and organizing my tax or my VAT returns.
35:04 It’s just kind of a headache that that I wish could be eased. Yeah, I think maybe it be eased. You, that, that would be nice, or even like, I’ll pay it at some point, do you know what I mean? Let me get to a point, you know, where you guys are now, and it’s like, okay, here’s some money to an accounting firm, figure that out, and then I’ll cut it. I’ll cut a bill, but the first few years, it’s like, just leave me alone.
35:25 Yeah, that’s right. As a startup businessman, just like paying employees and getting and doing your taxes with no, with no profit, is almost an amazing accomplishment in the beginning. True. Like, I got a letter in the mail the other day, and it’s just like, I owe 81 pounds for VAT thing, because I didn’t, I didn’t file it on time or something like that. I’m just like, so I didn’t challenge it, because I just paid the 81 pounds, cuz I don’t have time right now to challenge it, and so now I just paid someone, and now they’re sorting it out.
35:51 It’s just kind of like, leave me alone for a year. Yeah, see, if you’re a taxi driver, you normally have an, uh, and they’re all for you. Yeah, so, or you have a wife, right? Where do you guys want to be in 5 years? I mean, do you want to be in a 100 different cities in the world?
36:07 Is it all about getting in those key places? Is, and is getting there first? Is that important? Um, I think getting somewhere first, here, right? So, in two ways, if you get there first, then you have to do all the hard work.
36:20 If you do get there second, and then you realize that, oh, actually, we’ve now got drivers who actually trained on a phone, who actually got a phone, then you can get, actually, go in second, and be the winner. I think it all comes down to who’s going to get the most. Let’s face it, drivers want to earn money, so whoever gets the most customers for a driver will eventually be the winner. But then we’ve got other stuff that helps the driver, so if, when we start off with the driver app, we have so much more in it.
36:46 It’s like a taxi tool to help them throughout their day. Anyway, so hopefully, a bit of that, and a bit of customers, will always be the winner. That’s almost a, you know, a great business model in its own. A taxi app that’s just a tool for them, you know what I mean? And then you add what you guys do.
37:02 Exactly. I think we’re going to have to do that to launch quicker everywhere else, like easy sign-up. So you sign up, and then we get you verified and authorized, and find out where interest is. If you can download it in San Diego, and we get hundreds of drivers all downloading it, then we know where to go next. If you know what I mean, right?
37:20 What’s your corporate headquarters like? I know you guys are at Somerset House. Why Somerset? By the way, I mean, geez, it’s quite, it’s quite an address. That used to be where the Royals would kind of summer or something.
37:31 Actually, the apartment we’re in is actually the old tax, the Inland Revenue. Yeah, so it’s a bit ironic, being a, a taxi company. But no, first of all, we started off uh, we’ve, it’s been a bit of a story, really. We started off with, we needed a place where you could park a taxi, cuz we was taxi drivers, so we ended up getting offices on the HMS President, which is a boat just on the embankment. Okay.
37:55 So we started off there, being under, underground, and walking down the old silver steps, to an underground. It’s like being in the submarine, sort of thing. So we started off there. Yeah, and then, fortunately, Somerset House was looking for startups, and they actually come looking for us and said, look, we got this amazing building, uh, where, which I know that, uh, Old Street and Silicon Roundabout is great, but Somerset House is really good for young tech startups and stuff like that as well.
38:23 And what’s your office like? Is it, is it mostly developers working on these new apps? Is it sales people, business people? What’s the vibe like there? Uh, the vibe is most people are head down in a computer, which is really weird, weird, because if you go into our office, it’s loud and noisy.
38:38 So we’re in the part of the marketing, we’ve, we’ve moved now to product side, but they’re more coding, headphones on, typing away, and building the app, because everyone thinks that to build a taxi app you just need a couple of people. We have, like, probably about 70 developers. 70, yeah, so it might even be more than that, to be honest, and it’s because it’s such a simple app. I guess that’s why it’s so simple and easy this is the thing, is that everyone thinks it’s a simple app, and you’re right, because you don’t see the people in the background typing away, coding.
39:11 And the nontechnical answer, right? It’s a simple app. It’s to, two, two PR. And this is the problem we probably will have when we go to other countries, is that there will be the old radio circuits on new people building these, these apps, which they think can handle t the thousands of the drivers, and they can’t. So they will have that problem, and it will break down.
39:32 I mean, uh, God knows how many servers we got, but we’ve just changed platform, which hopefully should bring that server load down a bit, but, um, yeah, it cost a fortune to keep something like this running. Yeah. Do you think you’re going to need to keep improving that app as you go forward? Uh, do you think you’ll, you’ll ever adjust the prices of your taxis based on demand? You know, which is something that’s tough to do, because you know black cabs have a standard fee, you know, if you flag them down.
39:55 So you mean similar to the minimum fare to do it, or to, you know, I think Uber says that they have something where if there’s a big supply, then the prices go up, and that kind of thing. Do you think you’ll develop an app that gets really complicated and market-based, and that kind of, so, so one, you’ve got to whether to trust it or not. I mean, it’s okay, say it’s okay, saying, putting a sign up saying, yeah, the taxis are really busy, we can’t get you one, pay 40 quid.
40:18 You get what I mean? But who knows if they’re busy or not? They can soon get you one. So surely if, uh, if it’s that high demand, they won’t be able to get you one. So, um, but you know, it’s an idea from like 6:00 or 7 in the morning, for example.
40:30 C, you know, might typically that percentage might be 20, and how to get it to 75, maybe if you drop your price significantly. You know what I mean? Work so, so, so you mean like surge pricing, which we could use towards the date? It would be very confusing for the customer, because every time you open the app it’s a different price, if you know what I mean. I always feel to myself that there’s, there’s free ends of the market.
40:51 There’s, there’s the, the lower end, which is the, the mini cab jobs around corner stuff, like, and then you’ve got the medium price, which is, uh, ourselves, Addison Lee, and people like that, and then you’ve got the business. I don’t think you can do all three. Even if you add all 23,000, you can’t compete with all three of them, them grades. So, uh, I’d like to think that we would go for the mid, and, and the business, starting hopefully next year. Part of what gives you guys credibility is that you’re offering a rate that you can get on the, on the street, and you’re not, it’s no more expensive to book through you guys than to flly a tax.
41:22 Exactly. So, so when we done the data, 10% of our jobs was below the meter fares at that time. So as long as you’re not one of them, 10%, you get a free run, in uh, you get 5 minutes waiting time if you’re coming out of the office or you’re running a bit late. Uh, you don’t pay any credit card cost. The driver covers all this.
41:41 They’re worth that £10 minimum, if you know what I mean. So, so 90, probably 95% of the time, now it don’t affect anyone who, who, who books a taxi. So it was the fairest way. I mean, what we could have done was, we charge you a couple of pound, but then if you do a couple of pound on the 10 pound job, it’s now 12 pan. So then you’re charging them for every time.
42:00 So what we said was the fairest way was to do the minimum fare. Somebody asked me one time, when they were traveling here, they asked me if a cab driver would try to, uh, try to, uh, jip me on the price, or something like, we were going somewhere, and he’s like, he’s going to overcharge you. And I’m like, I’ve never been overcharged by a taxi driver. Often times, black cab drivers will drop the fare because it was too much traffic, and they shave pounds off the price.
42:21 Yeah, drivers get bit, getting bit embarrassed if they’re sitting in traffic, and there’s nothing they can do about it. If, if a driver takes you what you think is the long way, you’ll find you’ll get there quicker, and it would have cost you that amount of money plus more just sitting in traffic. So no, driver, a driver wants to keep someone in his taxi all the time, but actually not moving is like dead mileage. The, the, the rate of money he’s getting goes way down.
42:44 It might cost you more, but it’s costed him more, because he wants to get you out of taxi and get the next one in. We don’t. There’s no need ever to, uh, to go ahead. Where does that black cab ethos come from? Was it something you were taught?
42:55 I mean, like, by, by the, your friends and your, your family members that were cab drivers before you? I mean, did someone ever say, this is the way we do business? Cuz it seems like there’s unwritten code. It is like a religion almost. It’s very British, very British, and it’s, it’s big.
43:08 There is a, a secret eut that you learn as you’re going forward. Like, if you let, if someone lets you out, you always let them have the next job, and stuff like that. I don’t think that would work in any other country. I’ve seen in other countries, they just take your job. Where there’s an etiquette, in, sorry, what’s that?
43:24 Someone, so if you, so if you’re driving along, and someone lets you out, so you flash them to pull out, and they got their light on. Oh, I see. I see. I’m still the one who’s going to get that job that’s coming. Okay, so he’ll drive past that job that’s there.
43:36 So sometimes you might think to yourself, why is that person just drove past me? It’s not cuz they’re driving past. It’s cuz they’re the nice guys who just let the person at, and they’ve let them have that job. So, uh, that’s, so it’s, it’s just an etiquette between drivers. Anyway, I’d say it was a good one.
43:51 And are there more and more young people that get, get into the business, or that is the average age of the cab driver kind of getting older? Yeah, so, so there’s definitely young people getting in. I think that Hailo now will entice more people in because obviously, once they start hearing that you can earn more money and, and stuff like that, then, and I think you’re getting. When we grew up, it was mainly if you’re from East London, North London, the inner bars, you become a taxi driver.
44:14 That’s what you’ve done. I think eventually, it will be, uh, new people who are coming to live here. They, they’ll understand that, oh, if I become a taxi driver, it’s a decent living, but you have to really work hard to to earn a decent living, but you can, a living. The is the money, the increase in, in sort of efficiency for cab, is it, is it going in their pocket, or is it going into the car owner’s pocket? Because are they raising their rents because they’re like, well, hey, I know now that you can make more money on a day because of Hailo, so you pay this rent, and so the cab driver actually doesn’t make anymore.
44:45 I think that could happen in other countries. I don’t think the London cab drivers would, uh, would put up with it, to be honest. So, uh, but no, cab drivers earn whatever they earn. Is it their money, right? So it’s not like they have to give so much.
44:58 They, they rent a taxi, uh, for so much, and then they keep all the money. That maybe the rent. I understand. I always thought to myself, if you imagine New York, something like that, that really, truthfully, if we start being really successful, uh, then the medallion prices should go up, because the more they can earn in the shift, the more the medallion owners can uh, can charge. Yeah, yeah.
45:20 You know, G, we always ask everyone that sits there a few questions at the end, and uh, I’m going to hit you with them. If you can make a phone call to the 20-year-old Gary Jackson and give that young man a bit of advice. Was he driving cabs back then? No, he wasn’t, and that’s why I was, I did hear this question, by the way. I’ve watched the show before, you prepared for this, enjoy, but I did prepare for this question, but I never got an answer, and I think the answer would have been, so you better answer.
45:46 So so probably the answer would have been at 20. I probably would have said to myself, become a taxi driver then, because at that time it was a good living, and uh, at 20, if you could earn a taxi driver’s living and go out and work nights and stuff like that, it would be great. But, um, if I was a 20-year-old, what I say? I don’t know. I’d probably, I’d be silly and write a song that’s already been written, or something like that.
46:11 I wouldn’t invent the, uh, the iPhone, or something like that, cuz it’s a bit technical, but maybe I’ll nick someone’s song on that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever been given, either as a cab driver or as a, you know, a startup entrepreneur? Um, yeah, so you do get lots of advice being a cab driver. By the way, cab driving is a great network in place. I would like to say, if any cab drivers do watch this, network with your customers, because that’s how you start.
46:37 That’s how you get to know people. That’s how you come up with ideas, and I think seeing these, uh, these people who are wealthy and stuff like that, can give you that inspiration to maybe go on and do something else. Not saying that a cab driver is, uh, not a good job, but there’s always that chance of doing something else. Yeah. So best advice, uh, I tell you, I do best advice, and this comes from Russell.
47:01 Uh, when we first started, one of your co-founders, that was co-founders, he always comes up with story, and every time he says it, it don’t make me cringe. I’ve just heard it so many times, but he was in the back of a taxi, and with Peter Stringfellow, he went in the back of the taxi so he was driving the taxi. Now, people don’t know who Peter Stringfellow is, who aren’t from London. Could you give it as a description, what is he? You, youner of, of London.
47:26 He runs some, uh, some nightclubs and strip clubs and things like that. So Russell would come out with something like, uh, “I’d, PE dream fell in, in the back of me cab,” and I didn’t know whether it was his, uh, his mom’s daughter or his, uh, his girlfriend, something like that. Anyway, she was obviously a good-looking blonde. So anyway, so he was talking about what we was doing before, which was Taxi Light, and he was driving along, and he started chatting, and Peter Stringfellow said, look, stop, and Russell thought, oh, what’s going on here?
47:54 He’s thought he’s going to put me there. He said, what you doing? He said, uh, well, it’s a, it’s a taxi app. He went, stopped there. He said it will be a success, and he said, why is that?
48:05 He said, because you’re doing something you know. So I’ll say that, because Russell always used to say it, and that’s the 150th time I’ve heard it. It’s good advice. It’s good advice. Stick to something you know, something know, because it might look like a simple industry to people on the outside, maybe even people from Silicon Valley, but it actually, it’s a very complicated business.
48:22 Right? Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. Was on that final note, what’s the advice you give to those people listening that want to do a startup in London? You know, maybe they’re black cabbies, or maybe they’re in a completely different industry.
48:33 Maybe they’re old, maybe they’re young. I mean, you’ve been through it. Yeah. We’re meeting someone on Tuesday It was quite funny, that, uh, I think his name is Chris, and it was from, he’s doing, he’s doing an app called OnePulse. Anyway, he’s doing his app, and he come up and ask us for advice, and I always go, I haven’t got any business cards on me, and it’s not because I, I want to be rude.
48:55 It’s just that I’m really badly organized, so if someone emails me, they got no chance on Earth. I’ll go, oh yeah, I’ll get back to that and never get back to them. So I passed it over to Terry, one of, uh, the driver co-founders. Anyway, so he sent an email the other day about meeting up, and at the same time as writing the email, he sort of slagged me off, which was really funny, because I thought, this is great, these young guys have got so much nerve that they’ to come out, but he said something like, if Gary stopped passing all his emails over to you, would you like to meet up?
49:25 And I thought, instead of G, ah, what’s he doing, taking the mick? I thought, that’s the sort of person who, you know, is going to go somewhere fast, because these young kids have got a lot more than I had at 20. I mean, I had to wait till 35, 40, to do what I’m doing, but now these young kids, they’re bright, and the difference is that they can do the developing as well, where we couldn’t, if you know what I mean. So the advice is, I would always follow your dreams, and if you know what you’re doing is right, then just keep on going.
50:01 It’s like some people would say, start up, fail, that they fail. I don’t think they ever fail. You can stop doing them, but if you believe in startups, then just keep going, and keep going. Yeah, good advice. Good advice.
50:13 Did I, did I miss something? Colin, you going to jump in there? Yeah, maybe just one question. We talk about, you know, do what you know, and there’s so many great stories of people coming from, you know, industries, and they just do so amazingly well. Like, you got from a bird’s eye view, are there any other industries in London, just for simplicity, that that you know are ripe for disruption, and they just need someone from that industry to sort of spend, you know, a week with some tech guys and solve a problem?
50:42 I’m sure there’s many. The only thing I do worry at the moment. If we’d have gone back two years ago, I had so many ideas floating in your head, and, but I never got time to do them. I do worry that, I think, we’re coming to near the end of it. Always it’s all to do with the iPhone, and internet, mobile internet, and that all these ideas are virtually coming from.
51:01 I think we might be coming near the end of how many more ideas can we get out of that? So, so yeah, so I’m waiting for that next thing to come along, because the iPhone was, was amazing too. Yeah, huge for your business. Yeah. For our business, it was, it was the one thing that it made our business, cuz one day we looked at an iPhone and went, oh crap, you can actually book a taxi, and the driver can be mobile and do it, and that’s that’s, that’s, that’s why we started in the first place.
51:25 Yeah. I wonder if your business will be completely on a completely different device and platform in 5 years? It’ll have nothing to do with Google Glass. Yeah, could be something like that, if you tried Google Glass? Haven’t, haven’t played with it yet.
51:38 No, we, we don’t get to hobnob with all the people that you do. We’re just the low level. These guys are prime ministers. You probably met the founders of Google a few times? I think, he, he has to check.
51:48 Yeah, I have to check. I probably have. I’m really bad with, uh, do you go to Burning Man? If you don’t know, I’m terrified. Um, Gary, we wish tons of success.
51:56 You know, nothing would make me happier than seeing Hailo just kill it, you know, and be that flagship company that shows the world that, you know, Britain knows tech and knows it better than everyone else. So I hope you guys, I wish you guys all the best, you know, and I love your app. I download it. It’s, the website is is it, hailocab.com. It’s hailocab.com, but you better off just go type in Hailo on your iPhone or your Android.
52:20 It will come up. Download the app right on your phone straight away. Yeah, yeah, it’s great tech, and yeah, I want to keep using it, and yeah, it’s a fantastic thing to use. Are you guys on Twitter, or any other kind of communication, or is the best thing just to get that app? I’m not quite a Twitter.
52:35 I always feel we always see negative from Twitter anyway, but now we are on Twitter. Is Hailo London, or if you’re a driver, it’s Hailo drivers. And yeah, so you can get in touch by Twitter or Facebook, or to be honest, most of our drivers have got our phone numbers anyway, so they give us a ring. Fantastic, but we’re available for everyone. Any Silicon Real business, or is it the usual?
52:56 We got our new website up. New websites up. Looking great. Everyone loves it. Looks good.
53:01 Give us feedback, and we’re going to be looking for some guest bloggers coming up, so reach out to us again. We’re always looking for more help. If you’re looking to get into the tech scene in the new year and sort of want to make a bounce, give, give us a shout. We’re looking for some good people to help out. So, yeah, for bis, and if you have ideas about guests, just send them through.
53:20 This episode 24, our 6-month anniversary, it’s all good. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, you can see our faces in full color on YouTube, so come check us out on, I have to get a podcast into the cabie app for the cab driver. Yeah. So we was talking about, if Russ was here, we, you guys do a podcast too? Yeah, we do.
53:39 And we talking about Hailo radio as well, which would be great, but yeah, we do a football podcast. Yeah, cool. Fantastic. All right, very good. As we say, it’s about the people.
53:47 Thanks for being here, Gary. It’s an awesome story, and I’m wishing you all the best. Amazing, thank you very much. All right, guys, take care. Let’s talk about HSBC.
53:59 It’s an $8 billion money laundering operation for Mexican drug lords that they’ve been directly responsible for 60,000 decapitations in the last few years. So who’s a terrorist? Buddy, who’s a terrorist? Hey, I’m not on this gu. Who’s the terrorist?
54:11 Who’s the terrorist here? Be careful, jump all over, let me, let me, so, so 39 cents to send $150 million. Now, the cheapest any bank could offer that service, of all the money center banks is $200,000. So, I mean, how you going to compete with that? You can’t
