Whatever happened to Jobike?

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Jobike was a high-flying company. It had operations in four of Bangladesh's biggest public universities. When its popularity grew, it expanded services to Bangladesh's biggest tourist spot, Cox's Bazar.

Its co-founder and CEO Mehedi Reza had big plans for the future. The startup's services were appreciated not only by university students, but also by cycle lovers for being climate conscious and environment-friendly. Jobike began with three individual investors initially: Tanveer Ali, Fahim Saleh and Shameem Ahsan.

However, the on-demand bicycle rental service could never recover from the damages caused by the pandemic. During recurring lockdowns, it initiated different schemes to survive, but none really took off.

In the post-pandemic scene, Jobike is completely absent. 

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Mehedi shared with The Business Standard that his company's operation is completely halted for now. He admitted he had made a couple of attempts to come back, but they did not work out. In addition, the startup failed to gain attention from investors. However, Jobike is far from its death, said the CEO.

"Before the pandemic, Jobike meant 'bikes of the campus' for everyone. In March 2020, when all the educational institutions were shut down, including DU, JU, CU, and SUST, we too had to shut down our services," he said. 

To keep the dice rolling during the pandemic, it had to pivot. It launched a delivery service. 

"From food and medicine to groceries and e-commerce products, online shopping grew, as did delivery services. As we had bicycles, we thought we could join the delivery business. We onboarded some riders, who would deliver for some companies," said Mehedi. 

However, this attempt fell short of success partly because around that time, there was lots of competition in the delivery service business. Most e-commerce companies in Bangladesh came up with their own services, such as Pandamart, HungryNaki, Foodpanda etc. Though Jobike had bicycles to begin with, its competitors had lots of capital and covered more areas. 

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Eventually, Jobike had to lay off most of its employees. Before the pandemic the number of employees stood at 22, now it has plummeted to 6. 

"The public transportation system was shut during recurring lockdowns. There was no mode of safe transportation. We thought bicycles would be gift solutions to short distance transportation, as riding them is contactless. So, we piloted a service in residential areas," he went on. 

The project began in late 2020 with 100 bikes in Dhaka's Gulshan and Mirpur DOHS. According to Mehedi, they got more than 35,000 registered customers within the first five months. Daily activities were as high as 500 to 600 users.

"Response was quite good. But soon we faced another problem. Many of our bikes were old. As Jobike was launched in 2018, the two year old bikes needed to be replaced. We needed more capital. That inevitably meant more investment," he explained to us. 

He added, "During the pandemic investors became too conscious. Everything seemed uncertain and we were failing to raise funds. We talked to a couple of firms, but nothing happened. Some term sheets were also signed with some companies. But in the final hour we could not close those deals."

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Jobike was in dire need of investors. After the pandemic, the campuses reopened, but Jobike could not resume its earlier operations as the bikes – left unused for almost two years – were out of service. Some bikes had broken circuits, some needed GPS and lock system upgradation etc. 

Mehedi admitted it may have been their fault that they could not present Jobike as a lucrative company to investors, especially when most investors are of the opinion that the bike sharing market is still nascent. 

He said, "In the Bangladeshi startup ecosystem, venture capitalists and investors are not that mature. They are more into SaaS (softwares as services)  based models rather than engineering or hardware based models."

"In SaaS, maintenance cost is minimal, and there is no manufacturing cost. So, Bangladeshi investors are probably not interested in hardware based startup models. This could be one of the reasons for our failure," he added. 

Mehedi said that many even think that the bikes – essentially the main capital – get stolen. "But only nine of our bikes got lost during our whole stint." 

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He shared with us the story of a Chinese bike sharing company called Mobike that opened in Mexico City a few years ago, and within a few months they had to stop their operations because of theft. 

"As per statistics, even in China 30% of bikes are stolen. In comparison, these problems in Bangladesh are very low. Bikes are the capital. If you think that capital will be lost, it is not true," said Mehedy. 

He added, "It is true that Jobike is a capital-intensive business. In other ride sharing models, the company is creating only the software. It is not responsible for the drivers and cars, it only gets a commission. But Jobike is different. We have to buy bikes and then maintain their quality." 

Though Jobike is non-operational right now, it wants to make a comeback. This time, they are thinking of bringing something new too. One thing would be providing services with e-bikes (bicycles with electric motors) along with conventional bicycles.

University campuses will remain Jobike's main priorities. On campus, the normal bikes will stay. In tourist or residential areas, e-bikes will be available.

In the next three to six months, Jobike has plans to resume its services in the four universities it had operations earlier. But it will be on a small scale. 

"Jobike is far, far from finished. But we probably need some time to get back on our feet. We have a good relationship with university authorities, DNCC and other parties. We can resume our operations if we are funded," Mehedi said.