When it comes to mass transit in New York City, most people think of the subway, Metro North and buses. But there’s a whole network of “shadow transit” that spans the city too: dollar vans.
Like Uber, dollar vans provide a ride-sharing service. But these vehicles hold as many as 20 people, charging just a couple of bucks per passenger. They also don’t do door-to-door service; they drive along a fixed route. Traditionally, this informal transit system has been used by NYC’s communities of color who live beyond the reaches of public transit as an affordable way to get to work or school.
“They’ve been around for well over 30 years, and primarily work in the outer boroughs like Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Most of the drivers and riders are folks from the Caribbean, Chinese immigrants, folks who are from the Latino community,” Sulaiman “Su” Sanni, a lifelong New Yorker, told Built In. “My theory is that it’s because these dollar vans are reminiscent of the informal transit these communities have in their home countries.”
This is true of Sanni’s family, too, which is originally from Nigeria. His uncles were dollar van drivers when they first arrived in the United States in the ’80s, and, growing up in Jamaica, Queens, Sanni often used dollar vans himself to get around.
It was this experience that inspired Sanni to create Dollaride, an app that allows users to see where nearby licensed dollar vans are operating so they can get a ride. It also helps drivers spot potential passengers more easily and get paid directly through the app. In short, Dollaride is modernizing an industry that desperately needed some innovation.
The company currently only runs out of NYC, but Sanni says the plan is to expand its services into cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore and Miami soon.
Although it was founded in 2017, Dollaride has been growing quickly in just the last several months, finding its footing in an industry that has been turned upside down amid the pandemic.
Built In spoke with Sanni about this recent growth, his journey as an entrepreneur and Dollaride’s potential to transform informal transit around the world. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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Tell me a more about how Dollaride works. Walk me through what a customer experiences when they use the app.
Because dollar vans are usually informal — there is no signage, there isn’t a schedule, there’s no passenger manifests — it’s really difficult for people who aren’t familiar with how the system works to use them. So Dollaride brings down the barrier to entry by allowing riders to find a dollar van through our mobile app, then indicate to the driver where they want to go, as well as pay their fare right from their smartphone.
I want Dollaride’s technology to be the underlying platform that makes these things more transparent, more safe and more equitable for the drivers and the riders.
This isn’t the first company you founded. Tell me about WeDidIt.
WeDidIt was my most recent venture, it was a technology company that helps nonprofits fundraise online. We built a web application that nonprofits can use to raise money via fundraising campaigns or selling tickets to their event, as well as using it to do donor research in order to find major gift donors — high-worth individuals that could donate, like, $25,000.
That was a business that I founded and ran for about eight years. We ultimately served 2,000 nonprofits and we got to the point where we were processing over $60 million a year in online payments for different charities. These included local zoos, museums, aquariums, as well as brands like ASPCA, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch.
WeDidIt got acquired last year, so that basically gave me more time to focus on Dollaride as my next venture.
I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here. Between WeDidIt and Dollaride, you seem to have an interest in assisting underserved areas and communities. Why is that an important mission to you?
I can’t help but think about business from the standpoint of helping other people and helping solve their problems. I usually think about solutions to the real-life challenges that people face and then, if I have enough conviction around that problem and a potential solution, those tend to be the ideas that I really focus on and develop into a business. I usually get attracted to these types of businesses where, at the end of the day, I'm making some type of impact on people’s lives.
I personally grew up in low-income housing in New York City. I grew up in a transit desert, which is a part of a city where you have remarkably limited access to public transportation. And, as a result, I ended up relying on dollar vans when traveling to school or work. I had lived the problem. So I just wanted to provide that solution to more people who are also living in transit deserts around New York City, and now, potentially, around other cities around the country.
I also benefited from working at a nonprofit, and went through programming that was sponsored by a nonprofit organization. So I thoroughly benefited from the work that people in this sector do. And that just kind of made me more inclined to get involved in doing things that I thought can make an impact.
Speaking of fundraising, I see that Dollaride is in the middle of a crowdfunding campaign. You’ve managed to far exceed your minimum goal and have garnered more than a thousand donors. What do you think that says about Dollaride and its potential? Why do you think it resonated with so many people?
I’m excited about this campaign because, for one, I started it because I wanted regular people — my friends, family members, the people that we work with, and the drivers in our community — to be able to invest in Dollaride and participate in our upside as a technology company.
We do have VC backing, I am going to continue to raise money from venture capital firms. So we’re already on this track to becoming a fast, high-growth technology business. Potentially, within a few years, we could exit and be able to return, you know, many millions of dollars to our shareholders. And I thought it was important to share that potential with the community of people who are using our service, and also powering it.
The response that we’ve gotten so far, and the success that we’ve had, is a reflection that people really dig this idea. It also resonates with them because they’ve lived through the problem. On the site, investors can indicate why they invested, and more than 50 percent of the people who’ve invested are saying it’s because they live in transit deserts, or they were familiar with dollar vans. This just makes sense to them.
When the campaign wraps up in December, how do you plan to spend the money you raise?
It’s going to be used to expand throughout New York City. Right now, we have about a dozen routes that are already displayed in our app. But we honestly need to create, like, 30 new routes in order to meet the demand that’s out there for transportation. So all the capital that I’m raising this round is going to go toward creating new routes in New York City and then redistributing the network of drivers around the city to serve our 600,000 daily riders.
Obviously, all transit has taken a hit amid the pandemic. How was Dollaride affected?
It was really scary, actually. In March and April we lost more than 90 percent of our daily ridership.
But a month later, in April, we got a huge spike in interest from corporate clients and organizations who wanted to leverage Dollaride for their own use as a mobility service. So, while one aspect of our business was tanking, another aspect of our business was going through the roof. So we’ve been able to weather the storm of COVID by focusing on business clients as a way of getting ridership and generating more revenue for the business. Surprisingly, that’s been the fastest growing part of Dollaride.
For this enterprise service, we create a route for companies or for a local government agency and then they sponsor that route. They’ll actually pay us for it. Then they end up doing the marketing to their community members or their employees, and then those people will become riders. We end up at the same end goal of creating a transportation solution in areas that don’t have great public transit, but the way we get there is definitely completely different. But fortunately, it’s been more lucrative for us and for our drivers.
In light of these changes and your recent growth, what lies ahead for Dollaride? What excites you most about this company’s future?
The grander goal right now would be to become the operating system for informal transit all around the country. Maybe even all around the world.
If you look at most major cities, the way that the regular public commutes is through these types of dollar vans. They call them something different wherever you are, but it’s essentially the same type of informal transit operation. It’s operated by drivers who own their own vehicles and manage their own time. But, across the board, the drivers need more tools to be able to capture more ridership and make a more sustainable business long term. I think Dollaride is positioned to provide that toolset.
We’re starting out in New York City because this is where I have an unfair advantage. My family has been a part of this type of business, and I have a lot of knowledge of New York City’s transit system and all the players that are involved. But we ultimately want to operate in every major city that has informal transit. There’s about 20 billion trips that are taken every single month all over the world through informal transit. That’s a lot of rides that we could be powering and serving.
