Let’s Go, The Ride Sharing App That Lets You Hitchhike A Ride

One common thread at Techfest’s Innovation Boulevard, is the uncanny ability of the startups exhibiting to take life’s daily inconveniences that often float under the radar, and turn them into nifty little ideas that just might work.

Even in its infancy, Let’s Go, a rideshare startup founded by Larry Jawi, slides comfortably into this category.

The web-based platform enables would-be travellers signed up for service, looking to hitch a ride to a specified destination, to select a prospective driver from a catalogue of drivers registered with the service.

By Farai Aubrey Kwesha

“It works in two ways. A potential passenger looking to catch a ride, and a driver who wants to subsidise the cost of travel by offering to carry passengers at a fee, they’re both travellers,” said Jawi.

He added that the service works on a premise of trust and safety as Let’s Go mediates the driver passenger interaction.

“We have specific criteria that drivers have to meet before they can register such as their vehicle registration number, the make, model, and colour of their car, and their license registration number,” he added.

All these details are availed to potential passengers, who can then choose their preferred driver based on cost and general preference.

Jawi also highlighted how the start-up uses a rating system, where both parties can rate their experience on a weighted scale, resulting in some drivers can earning either a recommendation or being blacklisted on the service, with the same similarly applying to passengers as well.

Currently, the service is available on a variety of short and long distance routes within and beyond Bulawayo, with the ability to request specific routes that aren’t yet available.

Let’s Go also envisions potentially expanding into the courier service industry as a long term goal.

“This would still be integrated within the system and would work in very much the same way, but instead users could request driver to deliver a variety of goods. The decision to accept would also remain at the driver’s discretion. But that’s a long term goal,” Jawi concluded.