'Tada Next' Reaches 200,000 Subscribers in 6 Months
CTO Kim: "A Development Team That Identifies Problems Independently"
[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] ‘Tada,’ the epitome of mobility innovation, secured 200,000 new subscribers within six months of relaunching its large taxi call service ‘Tada Next.’ The reason behind Tada’s rapid passenger acquisition lies in its differentiated technological capabilities. We met Kim Namhyun, Chief Technology Officer (CTO, pictured) of Tada, who is adeptly solving various issues arising during service operation.
On the 25th, at VCNC headquarters in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, CTO Kim said, “The difference from competitors is that we view the market through ICT,” adding, “We place equal value on drivers and passengers and utilize ICT to realize this, which is the background of our rapid growth.” CTO Kim oversees the overall development and maintenance of Tada’s services and has been involved with VCNC, Tada’s operating company, since its founding, being part of Tada’s early days.
CTO Kim cited the ‘Pre-Dispatch’ service, which connects the next passenger timed to when the current passenger is about to get off, explaining, “Using Pre-Dispatch can save service time for both drivers and passengers,” and added, “If 500 drivers each reduce the time spent picking up the next passenger by just one minute, that totals 500 minutes, maximizing efficiency within limited supply.”
One of the services with high driver satisfaction is dispatching passengers whose routes align with the driver’s commute home after finishing work. CTO Kim said, “For drivers, having no ‘calls’ during working hours is the most painful, and the commute home is also part of working hours,” adding, “We started developing this service to meet such demand, and both passengers and drivers are highly satisfied.”
Tada has been rapidly growing since its beta launch last November by introducing various services. The DAU (Daily Active Users), a metric indicating the number of unique users utilizing the service in a day, increased by nearly 40% on average from March to April. There is also a tendency for re-ride rates to increase with repeated rides. Customers who have ridden five times have an over 85% chance of riding again next time. From the sixth ride onward, 9 out of 10 customers re-ride.
Recently, CTO Kim has been dedicating most of his time to establishing a proactive organizational culture within the development team.
He is focusing on motivating developers to solve problems independently. Establishing such an organizational culture is also a way to prevent developer turnover amid the widespread developer shortage across the IT industry.
CTO Kim said, “Innovative services come from renewing organizational culture,” and added, “Reflecting internal self-reflection that we should not restart Tada services in the same state as before, we are striving to increase developer job satisfaction.”
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