Recently, I found myself at General Assembly's graduation showcase.
It was a simple networking session, with the recent graduates showcasing the skills they have learnt, and the projects they have done while on the 13-week immersive course.
I was curious, what a 13 week education programme would cover, and what would the graduates possibly hope to achieve. I was skeptical. What hopes did these 13 week graduates have of landing a decent full-time job?
I was shockingly mistaken. The event, which i expected to only host a couple of community members was packed. Representatives from start-ups to large technological companies were all gathered that day.
I had the pleasure of speaking with a couple of Start-ups and coyly asked them the million dollar question. How much are you looking to hire these 13-week old Coders? Their response? $4,000 to $6,000. That to me was insane. These guys paid approx $11,000 - $13,000 in fees, left their previous careers, had no prior coding experience (most anyway), went for a short 13 week course, only learnt how to build a website. And yet they were receiving offers for $4,000 - $6,000. Talk about a phoenix analogy.
Most fresh graduates will kill themselves. Whats more those fresh graduates dropped between $15,000 to $100,000 on fees, depending on which institution and course they took, and at least 2.5 years to 4 years ( 7 years for doctors) to graduate! And they can only expect to be paid $2,7000 to $4,000 for their first rodeo.
This was testament of market forces at work if I've ever seen one. The invisible hand. The Supply of coders are limited, the Demand for them is ever increasing, Salaries and benefits will only rise, and programmers will jump between companies.
From General Assembly's point of view, this showcase was a success for sure. They are definitely going to post how successful their course graduates were/are and how much they are getting/ going to get paid. The eventual influx of students will help the startup community in Singapore, and the weaker coders will get culled from the pack.
But this is an over simplification of the impact of coding/technology/glamour of startups. The opportunity at hand is immense, and we should definitely milk every last drop of it. But at the same time we must know and identify which trends are sustainable and which will be the drug that will give us our highest high, and then leave. Giving us our lowest of lows.
Startups will see opportunities everywhere, and see big fast money to be made. But acknowledging that it will always be a passing fad and knowing when to pivot is key. As much as we need to stay to our true north, we will need to understand and acknowledge a pivot when its due.
Back to coding, it used to be a shitty farming job. Where you sit in your dark grubby corner and you just code. But with all these multi-million tech companies doing marketing tours about how working in the tech company as the coder is the best, and that you're a superstar techie. How many of the new generation will really see it for what it is, and how many will perpetuate the stereotype of millennials who give up at the slightest hint of difficulty.
Its really too hard to tell. but gonna learn how to code... It's way too lucrative.
Friday, 4 March 2016
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
GrabCar & Uber Driver Incentive Schemes
GrabCar & Uber are at the forefront of the sharing economy, and even here in Sunny Singapore, its no exception, making traveling easy and more efficient, a boon for Passengers!
However the same may not necessarily be the case for Drivers! Trip Incentives, Trips per hour, Peak Periods, Acceptance rates, etc. The list goes on, and for many Drivers, this represents a very steep learning curve.
As such I've recently signed up to both platforms as a driver to better understand this new frontier of better transportation, and have learnt and will attempt to share my knowledge with anybody who is interested in how this system works, and IF driving for GrabCar/Uber is for you!
Summary of GrabCar & Uber
To begin, lets have a quick dirty summary of GrabCar & Uber:
Uber is a USA company, that charges each trip via a Meter, much like your traditional Taxi models. However they do not have your peak/midnight Charges, but instead have a Surging feature, which adds a multiplying effect to your fares, potentially tripling your fares on a busy day.
GrabCar is a Singapore based company, that charges a flat fee for each trip, which does not include tolls. They have no peak/midnight charges, or Uber's Surging feature. Instead they have an algorithm in the back-end, that automatically calculates the number of Drivers on the road, and gauge the demand for a Ride, which subsequently calculates a flat fee for each destination (regardless of jams).The long and short of it is that you will know how much exactly you will earn per trip, even before you accept the ride.
Short version: Uber> Meter based, GrabCar> Flat Fare
Incentives
GrabCar & Uber have incentive schemes that are the same but different, and it is my intention to guide you through this process today.
For easy reference, GrabCar Incentives page: http://sg.grabcar.com/partners/category/blog/
Uber Incentives page: http://driveuber.sg/incentives/
For easy reference, GrabCar Incentives page: http://sg.grabcar.com/partners/category/blog/
Uber Incentives page: http://driveuber.sg/incentives/
Signing Up
Upon registering with Uber and GrabCar, they will generally have a Welcome training session, as well as a Sign Up Bonus. This often changes from week to week, but comes with certain qualifying conditions: clocking XX amount of trips in order to qualify for that incentive. Easy.
Peak Period Incentives
This is the main bulk of incentives that GrabCar & Uber will pay out to you, the Driver. That is, when a Driver picks up passengers during this period, they will be Guaranteed by the respective companies a certain level of earnings. However to qualify for the Incentives/Guaranteed payments, certain eligibility conditions must be met.
To begin with:
GrabCar pays its Guaranteed Incentives by a Fix Dollar Value Per TRIP. Essentially guaranteeing that the driver earns a minimum fare per trip completed during this Peak Period, as long as they meet the eligibility criteria. E.g. Monday 04 JAN 16, trips completed from 7am to 10am will be eligible for a Guaranteed sum of S$25/Trip, pending eligibility criteria.
Uber pays its Guaranteed Incentives by a Fix Dollar Value Per HOUR. Essentially guaranteeing that the driver makes a minimum hourly wage, as long as they meet the eligibility criteria for the incentives. E.g. Monday 04 JAN 16, Drivers working during the hours of 7am to 9am will earn a minimum of S$30/Hour, pending eligibility criteria.
Eligibility Criteria
I've been mentioning this term, and this is a very important clause that most Drivers miss. Without meeting this criteria, your Peak Period Incentives are Void! As such it is of the highest level of importance, that each week before Monday 4am, every Driver hits this criteria to ensure that his past week's effort does not go to waste!
GrabCar Eligibility Criteria:
1) Each Peak Period to Drive at least 2 Trips. Meaning for each Peak Period that you are driving, in order to qualify, you have to minimally complete 2 trips to qualify for the incentives
2) Driver must have a minimum 85% Acceptance Rate. This Acceptance Rate, refers to the trips that GrabCar pushes to you. Everytime a trip appears on your phone, you should try to accept it as much as possible. If you do not accept it, your Acceptance Rate drops, and if it hits below 85%, for the week, the Driver will not be able to meet the Eligibility Criteria and not receive any incentives for the week!
3) Driver must have less than 10% Cancellation Rate. This Cancellation Rate, refers to the Driver manually Cancelling a trip after accepting it. This can happen for a lot of reasons, such as having an emergency, or just deciding that this trip will take the driver too far away from where he would want to be. Cancelling trips is a big no-no for GrabCar, as they believe that each Driver should honor the service due to the Passenger, especially if they have accepted the Job.
These 3 simple Criteria are all a GrabCar Driver needs to know in-order to earn his Guaranteed Incentives.
Uber Eligibility Criteria:
1) Drivers must maintain a minimum of 1.25 Trips per Hour (TPH) for each Peak Period they drive. TPH is by far the criteria that confuses the most Drivers. It is essentially a Criteria to get Drivers to drive harder and to pick up more Passengers per hour! E.g. From 7am to 9am, i've picked up and completed 3 trips. Thats 3 trips in a period of 2 hours, giving us a TPH of 3/2 = 1.5TPH ! The easiest way to think about this, is to ensure that during each Peak Period, you pick as many riders as you can, with as little time without passengers as possible, and if there really isn't any riders, perhaps stopping the app and driving to a better pick up location before turning the app back on may be key!
2) Drivers must Accept at least 90% of all trips requested from Uber. This is similar to GrabCar's Acceptance Rate. Where each trip that comes to the Driver, should be accepted and not ignored, otherwise the rating will fall below 90%
3) Drivers must complete at least 70% of total trip requests. This is a more flexible Cancellation Rate, whereby Drivers are able to reject a total of 30% of the total trips each week, but it also includes other aspects such as no-shows.
These are the 3 Eligibility Criteria that each Uber Drver must know in-order to earn the Guaranteed Incentives.
Referrals
Each Driver is also encouraged to bring in more Drivers to GrabCar/Uber, and doing so nets the Referring Driver a sweet referral bonus. The amount varies per week, so be sure to check the official website for more!
Analysis
All this being said, which is the best platform to drive on? It all depends on what the driver is looking for. Cash in hand? Knowledge of Destination? Incentives for the week.
GrabCar's Incentives work per trip, as such a good driver will find a way to pick up as many rides as he can during the Peak Period. Whereas Uber's Incentives pay out per hour, allowing you to take a more leisurely pace (while still hitting your TPH).
However, both Uber & GrabCar are staffed by really smart people, and they have calculated both incentive schemes to such a degree of accuracy, that it is very likely that on average, both pay out the same amount of incentives for each peak period.
As such it really is up to you to decide which platform you really enjoyed the most!
Problems with Incentives
After speaking with a couple of Drivers, I had to add on this last bit. What happens when theres a discrepancy in your Incentive Payout? I was really lucky when I first faced my first problem. Having rented my car from Lumens Auto.
I brought up this issue to them, highlighting the fact that I should have qualified for the Incentives. They immediately went straight to the respective company and spoke with the relevant managers, and got them to investigate and rectify the issue swiftly.
If ever you do receive an issue with incentive payments, or payments of any kind, please do contact the company you rented your car from, or go straight to GrabCar/Uber and speak with them. After all you did work hard for this money, and it should go to you!
I wish you all the best! Vroom Vroom!
Eligibility Criteria
I've been mentioning this term, and this is a very important clause that most Drivers miss. Without meeting this criteria, your Peak Period Incentives are Void! As such it is of the highest level of importance, that each week before Monday 4am, every Driver hits this criteria to ensure that his past week's effort does not go to waste!
GrabCar Eligibility Criteria:
1) Each Peak Period to Drive at least 2 Trips. Meaning for each Peak Period that you are driving, in order to qualify, you have to minimally complete 2 trips to qualify for the incentives
2) Driver must have a minimum 85% Acceptance Rate. This Acceptance Rate, refers to the trips that GrabCar pushes to you. Everytime a trip appears on your phone, you should try to accept it as much as possible. If you do not accept it, your Acceptance Rate drops, and if it hits below 85%, for the week, the Driver will not be able to meet the Eligibility Criteria and not receive any incentives for the week!
3) Driver must have less than 10% Cancellation Rate. This Cancellation Rate, refers to the Driver manually Cancelling a trip after accepting it. This can happen for a lot of reasons, such as having an emergency, or just deciding that this trip will take the driver too far away from where he would want to be. Cancelling trips is a big no-no for GrabCar, as they believe that each Driver should honor the service due to the Passenger, especially if they have accepted the Job.
These 3 simple Criteria are all a GrabCar Driver needs to know in-order to earn his Guaranteed Incentives.
Uber Eligibility Criteria:
1) Drivers must maintain a minimum of 1.25 Trips per Hour (TPH) for each Peak Period they drive. TPH is by far the criteria that confuses the most Drivers. It is essentially a Criteria to get Drivers to drive harder and to pick up more Passengers per hour! E.g. From 7am to 9am, i've picked up and completed 3 trips. Thats 3 trips in a period of 2 hours, giving us a TPH of 3/2 = 1.5TPH ! The easiest way to think about this, is to ensure that during each Peak Period, you pick as many riders as you can, with as little time without passengers as possible, and if there really isn't any riders, perhaps stopping the app and driving to a better pick up location before turning the app back on may be key!
2) Drivers must Accept at least 90% of all trips requested from Uber. This is similar to GrabCar's Acceptance Rate. Where each trip that comes to the Driver, should be accepted and not ignored, otherwise the rating will fall below 90%
3) Drivers must complete at least 70% of total trip requests. This is a more flexible Cancellation Rate, whereby Drivers are able to reject a total of 30% of the total trips each week, but it also includes other aspects such as no-shows.
These are the 3 Eligibility Criteria that each Uber Drver must know in-order to earn the Guaranteed Incentives.
Referrals
Each Driver is also encouraged to bring in more Drivers to GrabCar/Uber, and doing so nets the Referring Driver a sweet referral bonus. The amount varies per week, so be sure to check the official website for more!
Analysis
All this being said, which is the best platform to drive on? It all depends on what the driver is looking for. Cash in hand? Knowledge of Destination? Incentives for the week.
GrabCar's Incentives work per trip, as such a good driver will find a way to pick up as many rides as he can during the Peak Period. Whereas Uber's Incentives pay out per hour, allowing you to take a more leisurely pace (while still hitting your TPH).
However, both Uber & GrabCar are staffed by really smart people, and they have calculated both incentive schemes to such a degree of accuracy, that it is very likely that on average, both pay out the same amount of incentives for each peak period.
As such it really is up to you to decide which platform you really enjoyed the most!
Problems with Incentives
After speaking with a couple of Drivers, I had to add on this last bit. What happens when theres a discrepancy in your Incentive Payout? I was really lucky when I first faced my first problem. Having rented my car from Lumens Auto.
I brought up this issue to them, highlighting the fact that I should have qualified for the Incentives. They immediately went straight to the respective company and spoke with the relevant managers, and got them to investigate and rectify the issue swiftly.
If ever you do receive an issue with incentive payments, or payments of any kind, please do contact the company you rented your car from, or go straight to GrabCar/Uber and speak with them. After all you did work hard for this money, and it should go to you!
I wish you all the best! Vroom Vroom!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)