Matt, Gett's Global Marketplace MD, shares four secrets for creating a new category in traditional markets: solve a vastly better problem, claim first-mover status, explicitly name the category, and enlist partners to speak for you. Gett aggregates taxis, rides, and fleets into a single ground transportation management platform, charging both sides a small fee.
Questions this video answers
While many claim to be marketplaces, Gett believes its platform is unique because it connects a wide spectrum of providers (large e‑hailing firms to tiny remote fleets) with diverse corporate clients across many geographies, handling complex tax, legal, and regulatory issues, and a deep tech stack that goes beyond simple A‑to‑B transport.
Emphasize the network effect: the more partners engage, the better the service for all. Invite them to become design partners, sit on a product board, and enjoy early access to new features. Simple gestures (e.g., offering wine) can also help.
Adopt a partnership mindset: be humble about your strengths, acknowledge where others excel, and leverage complementary skills. Position your solution as a connector that adds value without threatening existing players.
Start with a simpler, scalable value proposition (e.g., B2C) to build critical mass, then expand to complex B2B needs once the platform is robust. Alternatively, focus geographically or vertically, partner with second‑tier players first, and use those wins to attract larger partners.
Speed is essential: move quickly, say no to non‑core initiatives, and prioritize features that lock in the unique value proposition. Rapid execution and focus create a defensible position before incumbents can react.
Chapters
Okay, welcome everybody to SAOSTER Annual 2021. Matt, we're so happy and thrilled to have you here today. You're going to be leading a discussion on the secrets of defining a new category in huge but traditional markets. So we're really excited to hear from you today and get the conversation going.
Great, thank you Courtney, and very excited to be here at SASsoft today. It's my first time, feels sad not to be there in person, but I'm sure you're all having a fantastic event and I trust I'll make it out in person next time. So as Courtney said, 3 keywords to remember for today: category, huge, and traditional. So why you should listen to me? Well, I'm the speaker. That should be hopefully interesting enough. But maybe the fact that I recently ran two large-scale app projects in the UK might give me some additional credit. I've been the CEO of BP Pulse, one of the largest network of charging for electric vehicles. So a market that will be huge but still very traditional. As the act of putting fuel in your car is still a very traditional one, whether that fuel is electric or petrol or diesel. And then Gett, in my new position, you will learn soon what we do, and I trust it will be very relevant for many of you. If this is not enough, well, maybe the charming Italian accent will do some wonders, and I can confirm that I will keep it the whole way through. So why is category creation such a cool thing? Well, don't believe to what I say, but let me bring an example from Steve Jobs. And actually not from Steve Jobs, but from Henry Ford, which is someone that Steve Jobs actually quite often referred to. Henry Ford has been the real father of the automobile industry. He basically built the very first car at the end of the 20th century. And by the way, in his first attempt, he went bankrupt after 18 months. So not always an easy journey, as you can imagine. But as Ford decided not to put money into genetically engineering horses, as maybe his customers were asking for, like faster horses, Equally, Apple didn't place their money in making mobile phones smaller, or making phone calls clearer. They just really looked for a new space, or an ocean, if you want. And this is how they positioned the iPhone, something which is in a new space, or in a new ocean, that sets a new category apart. So, why blue oceans are so good? Well, first and foremost, you have fun, which in business often means making money. And I appreciate that for some people in the room, making profit is not priority number one, but one day someone in the boardroom will inevitably ask, how do we make money? And it's better to have a good answer at that time. Second, if you are in a blue ocean, you are surrounded by beautiful animals. Your customers. And last but not least, you can really swim alone, fully immersed into all this beauty. So now that I've gone some way to establishing why you should listen to me, and why you might want to create a new category in an old traditional market, an ocean, let me share the juicy parts of today, the 4 secrets for building and defining a new category in a huge and traditional market. Secret number 1: make sure you solve a different problem, or you solve an existing problem in a far better way than anyone else. So what do we do at Gett? Well, we run, you know, taxis all over the world, which is a huge and traditional business. Can we agree on this? And the needs of our customers are very, very simple. They want to move from A to B faster, cheaper, and greener, as of today. And I'm sure in the company— in the room, there are companies that are selling far more complicated products than ours. Our business is very simple, but it doesn't mean it's easy, though. Now, the beauty of this huge traditional category is that underneath there is a mess. Particularly for corporate customers. Endless reports, paper receipts, different negotiations, different vendors all over the country, a lot of inefficiency, and to be honest, a lot of overspend. It's incredible how focused corporates have been in the last few years in nailing down the travel management for airlines, hotels, but completely neglected the ground transportation. So Our solution, yes, basically really solved that, and we built what we called a marketplace. It's actually called Ground Transportation Management that connects sellers of a service, drivers or fleets, to buyers, corporate customers. Everyone wins— more work for the fleets, better service for, uh, for the customers, and more importantly, more choice for them. So this is what we really call a ground transportation manager. Well, uh, why we did we call it ground transportation? Uh, we didn't call it ride-hailing for business. We didn't call it business taxi aggregators because these two terms do not really describe what we're doing. It's a completely more holistic approach to ground transportation. And then remember the the possible question from the board before, how do we make money? Or how do you capitalize? Well, we take a small fee from both ends of the equation for the benefit of them of being connected. The buyers on one side are happy to pay because they get all the different options in one place, namely all ground transportation providers in the world. And sellers, Fleet and Drivers, are are happy to pay as they get new customers at basically zero cost of acquisition. So recap, principle number 1, or secret number 1: solve a different problem. Now, second secret: tell everyone you are the first, which basically is what I've done 2 slides ago. And I'm sure someone is saying, well, there is a big company, giant of the eailing space, starting with the with a, with a, with a name with 4 letters starting with a U that is already doing that. Well, not really. That company, which has an amazing service that I really admire, is only available in countries where they have their own drivers. And so they don't really give you choice beyond those countries. And at the same time, we are really specialized in optimizing the ground transportation at the root in the company, helping the customers to choose the right vehicle for the right customer for the right journey. So secret number two, number two, tell everyone that you are the first. Secret number three, well, tell everyone that you are creating a category, new category in a huge traditional market. And this is what we are doing today. Our category is global ground transportation management. It doesn't— it didn't exist before us. We are building it. We are the first. And I'm actually saying today that we are creating it together with the other panelists. So, well, at the same time, sometimes it's difficult to explain what you're doing, particularly when you are such a pioneer. So what to do when people don't understand who you are or what you do? Well, for this one, I have The last secret of the day, which is number 4, which is get your partners to talk about you. Very, very simple, but extremely powerful. So let me surface again an example from Apple, Steve Jobs. How did they build such momentum behind the iPhone? Having the best software companies engaged into that. They reached out to them. In some cases, they even babysit them. Through the whole app-making process, at least in the early days of apps. They really nurtured those relationships. And same, from a more humble approach, I'm trying to do. I've done it at BP Pulse. We really built very, very strong and deep relationships with the car OEMs. They've been vital for us as we were, together with them, jumping into this soon-to-be huge and traditional market. sorry, huge market for electric vehicles, but very traditional because we're still talking about cars. And again, to bring an example closer to the US, we are partnering with Curb, which is the largest provider of yellow taxis in New York and in many other cities in the US. And same, same as before, we partner with them We give them additional work, they give us back an amazing service, and we're very happy to nurture and build this relationship together. And trust me, the only barrier for getting partners to talk about you is really in your mind. If you believe in what you're building, and your partners follow you in your journey, there should be no reason on earth why they shouldn't support you. And asking doesn't hurt, particularly at the beginning when the momentum around your brand, you know, naturally still needs to grow. So if you have someone in your team that says, ah, our partners, our customers do not want to recommend us, do not want to talk about us, well, give it another go because sometimes it's just a matter of asking and sharing the mission for the benefit of both. And on this note, that's a wrap. I think the 10 minutes are up. These are the 4 secrets that I wanted to share with you today. I won't read them again, but happy to take any questions in the next few minutes. Thank you. So I will go in the Q&A. Um, so there is a question saying, isn't the example you have shown just another marketplace? Is there really category creation? Beautiful question. There are many, many companies that claim that they are building a new type of marketplace. We genuinely believe that we are one of them, but in our own right. Because our marketplace is connecting entities, being fleets and drivers and customers, that are using very, very different technologies. We go from large e-hailing providers like the one I mentioned before to very small fleets in the most remote locations in the world. We connect very different type of clients from large companies to multinational global enterprises that are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in ground transportation. So the different requirements of these stakeholders are very, very different. We are active and we will be active in more and more geographies, and this brings an enormous amount of complexity around tax, legal financial implications, regulation. So it's really, it's really complex. And last but not least, in terms of tech, and, and, you know, the tech stack is very, very deep when, when it's a matter of connecting one company to a fleet. So it seems obvious to move someone from A to B, but as I said, there are a pretty interesting tech stack that stays in the middle. So it's a marketplace I think the uniqueness of our marketplace is the complexity at 360 degrees. Second question: you say that most of the work of getting partners to talk to you is just asking them, but what should I say? Another beautiful question. Again, there is no perfect recipe, but One of the fundamentals of marketplaces, for example, is the so-called network effect. A marketplace, by definition, is something that works better for both ends the more people use it. So one way to involve partners, regardless if they are suppliers or clients in older terms, is to help them understand that the more effort they put in helping you in building this marketplace, the better the service will be for them as well. And you can even stretch it further on. You can really involve your partners, particularly clients, in becoming design partners for your solution. So you bring them on board, you make them part of a product board, so that they not only— they really feel part of your decision-making process when it's a matter of product, but they will also have the benefit of enjoying the very first releases of new features ahead of the others and commenting on them. Normally, it's something very much appreciated by partners. And of course, if you add a couple of glass— of nice glasses of wine on top, that doesn't hurt. Um, another question: any suggestions for introducing a better tech solution into an industry that is very resistant to change? Um, I think it depends where the resistance is. First and foremost, the resistance can be because that industry might see you as a threat or might think that they will do it better than you in that space. Connecting to what I said before, the beauty of today is that with technology you can connect companies that do very well different things. So in our case, we pretend to be pretty good in front-end tech, in integration with corporate customers, managing their spend, but we are not expert in managing drivers or managing cars. There are hundreds of companies that do that far better than we do. And then I think that the approach that we are using is to be pretty humble, accept the fact that we can bring something on the table for everyone, and then leverage on the mutual kind of efficiencies and complementary skills between the different parties to make the most. So at the end, partnerships again is a big word that is very much used, and I really encourage everyone to approach any conversation conversation with this partnership mindset from, from the very beginning. Another question: for an early startup creating a new category, cost of educating customers on working with many partners might not be pragmatic. Can you suggest something that works for an early stage company? So yeah, I think scalability is is sometimes a challenge. I think many companies, many B2B companies, and we have been one of them, we started from being a B2C actual player, and we built our own muscles in that space. So we gained the critical mass on a simpler, more scalable value proposition for the general public. And only, only once we felt confident and robust enough to handle more complex requirements that came from corporate customers, then we made, we made that leap. So that can be one route. On the other end, thinking about partners, True, that the finding many partners is a challenge, or can be a challenge. It depends, of course, in which industry you are. But for example, in our industry, it's enough if you really narrow down your focus geographically, for example, to one very specific area or city. Or maybe in another industry, you can narrow your focus to a specific vertical and then find the partner for that specific vertical, work with them, and then expand from there. My personal recommendation: don't go to partner number one, or don't go to the biggest, the strongest. Go to the good second or third first, because more likely they, you know, they probably are also on a quest to challenge the leader. And you will find traditionally more open doors. And then, you know, there is a chance that once you break that door with the second or third or the fourth, then also the big players above will start considering you more seriously. New question: you enter the new category How do you ensure you protect it? Why the current incumbents— oh, sorry, I lost the question, disappeared. Why the current incumbents won't be able to get in? Are there some strategic trade-offs that won't allow them to get it? Good question as well. Protecting your, your space is, is key, is often a matter of speed. So once you find that blue ocean, it's a matter of saying no to anything else, which is something that normally product people are very good at, and in defining priorities and kill everything which is not a priority. But as much it might sound basic, it's really the key.
