Multiservice applications — The future in the making?
How do you predict the future? Do you rely upon a crystal ball where the mysterious fortune teller reads some spells and the ball glows and showcases the tomorrow? Or fortune cookies at your nearest restaurant?
You must be wondering why am I even talking about non-scientific techniques (pun intended) for predicting the future? Because believe it or not, individuals such as Travis Kalanick (founder of Uber), Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk (founders of Airbnb) clearly predicted the future, and they did it the right way.
Can you make it sound like a story?
Sure. A decade ago, plans were made around the availability of transportation. Imagine, you couldn’t just go out for a football game without calculating the probability of getting a cab at 2 AM. Let alone shout “TAXI,” and a yellow cab magically appears (that doesn’t happen).
Even if your dad agrees to pick you up after the game, you cannot expect him to cook dinner for you. Therefore, another dilemma concerning “How to get food?”, cause clearly hotdogs and sodas won’t do you any good.
I believe the before-mentioned difficulties paved the way for apps to arrive as your Knight in shining armor. Applications such as Uber — for your ride, Ubereats — for your hungry belly, and Airbnb — for your stay, when its past bedtime & your neighbor’s dog hates you.
However, are we really talking about Uber and Airbnb? Not really. I am talking about the multi-service app, Gojek. Why may you ask? Because given the above scenarios, Gojek would have catered to almost all requests. Notice how I mentioned “almost,” because the application as we speak, is evolving itself. Smart AI? Well, I’d say, smart people.
What is Gojek?
For those who just got out of hypersleep, Gojek is an Indonesian startup catering to almost fifty-two (52) on-demand services including and certainly not limited to:
- Taxi
- Food & grocery delivery
- Medicine delivery
- Courier
- House cleaning
- Massage (yes, you’ve read it right)
- Cashless digital payments and soo much more
Founded by Nadieum Makarim, the company is valued over $1 Billion. A massive milestone achieved in less than a decade following inception.
Is the multi-service platform the future?
Although predictions have gone wrong. Like the ones where sci-fi enthusiasts a decade ago were sure the world will have flying cars by 2020. However, applications have changed the way services are offered. Gojek set the mark where one app rules all.
If you are looking to declutter your smart devices with a plethora of apps and run with just one, I guess Gojek is the one. Although, like any success story, it’s hard to say how long the service provider will continue its glory run. Only time will tell, or maybe, I will.
PS: This is not a paid write-up. Although if members of Gojek are reading this and super happy, I do not object to receiving discount coupons for your services.
Just kidding, or am I?
