How COVID-19 flattened our revenue curve by 95%

In just six weeks, our world has been turned upside down. What seemed like a far-away virus has turned into a global pandemic, infecting millions across the globe, taking 250,000 lives and putting many, many people out of a job.

These are unprecedented times and we hope that you, your family and friends are staying safe, healthy and most importantly, at home, to ensure we get out of the first phase of this global crisis as quickly as possible.

We say first phase because it is becoming clear that we are at the beginning of something that is much bigger than us and will affect society for years to come. The pandemic is putting many things back into question, including people’s day-to-day interactions.

As you can imagine, Poparide is heavily affected by this seismic shift.

Confinement, social distancing and the fear of others don’t work well with ridesharing. This is demonstrated by a loss in our bookings of over 95% between February and April 2020. Given that many businesses had to shut down completely, we feel lucky to still have some revenue to help pay for our server costs.

We are also privileged to live in Canada where the government is providing businesses with some financial relief. While this will buy us some time, it doesn’t take away the reality of the post-pandemic period: a slow road to economic recovery for the travel industry.

Medical experts agree that some social distancing and confinement measures will probably be in place until a vaccine is developed, which seems to be a year away, at best. We think it will be a while before most people are comfortable sharing rides again and for our business to get back on its pre-pandemic growth trajectory.

We are committed to our mission of making travel more social, affordable and sustainable for everyone and we know there will be an after COVID-19, when strangers will travel in cars together again.

In the meantime, Poparide will stay open for essential travel to support people who still need to get around during these difficult times. We will operate in a limited capacity given the reduction in our revenue, and will focus on responding to member inquiries and maintaining our technology.

We’re very proud of what we’ve built in the last five years and we’re thankful for all those who believed in us and have supported the business this far. This is just a bump in the road and we know better days are coming!

Stay safe, strong and healthy everyone!

The Poparide team

The Poparide team (top to bottom, left to right): Luke, Flo, Simon, Phil and Antonia