Revolutionizing Rideshare: Louis Paulucci's Vision for Equity and Innovation in Urban Transportation

00:03 - Speaker 1 Hello, my name is Louis Paulucci. I'm the CEO of your Drivers Network and I'm striving to disrupt the rideshare industry to make it a more equitable and transparent environment that will benefit both drivers and passengers alike. 00:20 - Speaker 2 I'm Brian Boyd and today, on Conversations with Giants, we are talking to a giant in the rideshare industry, Louis Paulucci. Now, he's done a lot more than that, so I'm really excited for today's conversation. Louis, welcome to the podcast. 00:35 - Speaker 1 Well, thank you for having me on Brian Pleasure to be here. 00:42 - Speaker 2 Oh, I'm really glad you're here too. 00:43 - Speaker 1 You sound like you're probably from the Northeast. Where are you from? Originally from the Bronx, but I'm in Northern New Jersey now. 00:48 - Speaker 2 That's great. How long were you in the Bronx? Did you grow up there? 00:52 - Speaker 1 Yeah, my early childhood, and then I moved to New Jersey in grammar school. 00:59 - Speaker 2 A lot of Yankees games. Are you Yankees? I guess you're not Mets, you're Yankees probably no, I was more the Mets. 01:05 Wow, More of a Mets fan. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, it's great to have you on today. We want to talk a lot today about ride-sharing, and everyone knows about it. You know. You use it in urban cities, in rural areas. Of course, we're huge in airports. I just came off of a trip where we were using it internationally. But before we get into that and what you've created in this company, tell us about you, Lewis. What's your background and what's your history. Where did you come from? 01:36 - Speaker 1 Well, I went to school for hotel and restaurant management in college and after leaving that I wound up running a stable of horses, but the whole time during this my father had a company that was in the pharmaceutical industry. So we did printing and binding, dealt with sales reps from pharmaceutical companies for years. So I've done that forever and wound up with steel rule dye companies and everything of that nature, worked with a lot of executives from pharmaceutical companies, from Johnson and Johnson to Bristol-Myers, squibb to Merck, all things like that. So I've gotten to know a lot of people in that industry and through that and working through that uh, I've learned how to deal with uh customers on a high level client basis. 02:29 So you have to respect people when you're in that industry. So right, that's how, uh, I've used that, that, uh, that experience in that industry to help come up with this idea for this application. 02:44 - Speaker 2 So have you been? You've always been entrepreneurial. Do you like the whole startup lifestyle? 02:49 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I've always had things, projects that I've done with a couple of partners of mine on the side. That's cool. 02:57 - Speaker 2 So what was the impetus for? Well, let's talk about that. What is the your Drivers Network? Tell us what that is. 03:05 - Speaker 1 Well, it's a new ride share app that's going to both benefit, uh, passengers and drivers. 03:11 So there are a number of different things that we implemented uh in this, in this application, and, um, basically there were complaints from drivers. I use ride share a lot and, uh, what I found out was that the drivers were complaining all the time, they were overworked and underpaid, and so I asked friends of mine that were using ride share and they were complaining about the surge pricing and how they felt like they were getting ripped off. So I said, gee whiz, uh, you know, I wonder if there's something that can be done here. So what I did was I took a deeper dive into it and I started driving for these bigger companies and then, through that, I got to know a lot of drivers and I got to know a lot of passengers by talking to them and asking about their experiences, and I got the same answers basically all the time Passengers were sick of the inconsistent pricing and drivers were sick of not getting paid what the passengers were paying, and it was really confusing. 04:20 - Speaker 2 So let's wait let's back up a second. Louis. So you're a customer of Rideshare, like a lot of us are. You hear the rumors, you hear there's problems, so you, you say I'm going to get in the middle of it, to, to, to be in it, so I actually know what they're going through. Right? So you start, you actually work for a Rideshare company, and how long were you actually driving people around to get an idea of what was going on? Did you do it just for a couple of weeks or a couple of days? 04:50 No, I did over 1,700 rides for all this research and development Urban area rural area. 04:57 - Speaker 1 where'd you go? Yeah, I went all over the place to the airports. I only drove in New Jersey, but I wound up meeting a lot of TLC drivers from New York being at the airport Hoboken, jersey City, all over New Jersey. It took you all over the application. So it wound up all over the place, even taking people to New York, and then you couldn't pick up anybody in New York because you didn't have a TLC license to go back to New Jersey. So you'd come back empty handed. Right. 05:29 - Speaker 2 Which was another old disaster for a driver. Let's talk about the. Before we move on, let's talk about your driving. I've heard rumors of incredible rude passengers that affect drivers. Did you ever have a? Was there any of those drives 1700 drives that stand out in your mind as being? Why am I doing this? Why am I driving? 05:51 - Speaker 1 You know I really didn't run into too many rude passengers. Everybody was pretty nice, you know, so long as you were nice to them, you know, if you keep your car clean and everything, I never really ran into rude passengers during that whole experience. And guys that say they have rude passengers, I guess they do. Maybe they're drunk or whatever late at night, but I didn't run into them, I really didn't. I can't say that I had. 06:17 - Speaker 2 Oh, that's good. That's good. What was your? Did you get five stars throughout your 1700 drives? Stars throughout your 1700 drives? I hope so. Uh, 4.85. So, not too bad, that's good, so. So so you, you do this, you have this idea. You hear the rumors you're you're driving 1700, you know drives around. Um, you, you think there's a better way to do it? It sounds like so. You, how did you craft the better way to to handle ride share? 06:46 - Speaker 1 Right. So, uh, first we I addressed the issue of the drivers, right. So they were complaining that they weren't getting paid enough for what they were going through. So, after having driver focus groups and everything, they were saying that they were getting about 50% of the fare, which was probably about what I was getting when I was doing my ride. So we came up with a pay rate of 71% for the drivers. So that is an increase from what the drivers are getting now. 07:17 So then we addressed the passengers complaining about the no surge pricing. Right. So we put in no, rather the surge pricing. So now we implemented no surge pricing, right. So we put in rather the surge pricing. So now we implemented no surge pricing at all. So we're going to have transparent pricing for all the passengers. So no matter if it's raining or snowing or anything, the price is going to stay the same. Now, also on the passenger side, they have issues with safety because the proper driver picking them up. So we implemented a patented biometric identifier for the driver. So when he comes to pick you up and he presses the arrive button, he has to pass the facial recognition on the application. You then get a notification for the passengers stating that it's safe to proceed to the vehicle. Your driver has been verified so they know they're getting into the proper vehicle with the proper driver. The one that has you in? 08:16 yeah, it's been an issue. You could check on the internet. There's lawsuits all over the place going on where not the proper uh, not the proper driver has picked people up. So, wow, okay, yeah, I mean, as far as these other ride share apps are concerned, uh, as far as I know that, um, you know you could lose your phone and anybody could turn on that driver app and be on their way to pick you up. 08:40 - Speaker 2 Sure. 08:40 - Speaker 1 It's kind of weird. 08:41 - Speaker 2 So, so a big deal. So you're in the middle of implementation. What do the drivers think about the 71%? What's their take on that? 08:56 - Speaker 1 Oh, they love it because I've had focus groups with these drivers. But we also have two more things that we have in the application. We have a patented 5% referral for both the passengers and drivers. So anybody that you refer to use our application and they use the rideshare service after you refer them. You then receive 5% commission on the fare every time they use it. So the drivers are completely ecstatic about this because now they can leverage their income. They can make money while they're sleeping. You know, if a driver refers 10, 20, 30 drivers and they're all on the road, they're making money off of those drivers. And that's while we're giving the drivers the 71%. We're giving up to another 10% back on the referral side. 09:50 - Speaker 2 And the passengers and don't any other ride share services. Have this referral system. 09:54 - Speaker 1 No, they don't. They don't. We have this patented, so they can't use it. That's great, yeah, and as far as the passengers are concerned, they can use that 5% referral on their friends and family that they tell to use the application for future rides, so they will be getting free rides down the road. It'll just stay in their e-wallet and they can use that for rides in the future. 10:19 - Speaker 2 That's a big deal. That's great yeah. 10:22 - Speaker 1 And then we've also formed a website, yourdriversorg, and it's a community-based website so the passengers and drivers can go on there and comment, so we can listen to our passengers and listen to our drivers to enhance this application as we're moving forward, because we made it for the community to work together. We didn't make it just to make money. We made it to enhance people's lives and help these drivers and we're going to have accountants on there, accounting firms on there, to help them with their taxes and help them. Hopefully, insurance companies will get on there and help them with their insurance. Maybe we can cut down that for them and just to benefit everybody in the long run. 11:05 - Speaker 2 That's great. What do you think the what? So we talked about the drivers. They're getting better pay, it's. It's. They're treated more fairly. Compensation wise, the consumers. You mentioned surge pricing being eliminated. Do you feel like the rates for for fares are also competitive with the other ride share networks? 11:26 - Speaker 1 Yes, we've been comparing our rates now for almost four and a half, five months now and we feel we're right in the ballpark of everything. But they can be adjusted as we're moving along and that's why we have the community website to make sure that we're right in the ballpark. But you have to start somewhere, you know you have to crawl before you walk, you know Right, and and that's what we're doing. It's uh, it's, it's pretty simple. It's pretty simple and we don't have to do all this stuff that you know, these algorithms and these changing of prices and the disparity is. It's just kind of crazy. 12:01 I had a driver tell me last week in Manhattan. He said that when he was driving for one of these companies, they had tripled the price for the passenger in a two block diameter in Manhattan. Tripled the price and what they did was he got the ride, but he was two and a half blocks away, so he got the ride at the regular price, as the driver and the passenger paid. Triple the price, wow. So these kind of things are going on all the time, I would imagine, and that's why the drivers are really upset. 12:41 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so a driver could I know, because I've seen lots of drivers. They could be driving for several companies at the same time. 12:49 - Speaker 1 Right, they could have two or three apps running. Yeah, they're independent contractors, so they could. 12:55 - Speaker 2 Okay. 12:56 - Speaker 1 I can tell you another experience I I had in hoboken. Uh, I was driving down there and, uh, it was about six o'clock in the morning and the supermarket wasn't open and I there were. The parking lot was filled with cars and I said what is going on here? And I drove in there and there were all these drivers in there, all uh, lyft and Uber drivers. I go what are you guys doing? They go, are you driving? And I go yeah, they go, come over here, turn off your app, turn off your driver app. And I go what are you guys doing? And they said you got to turn off your driver app. We're going to manipulate the surge pricing. No, and we're going to put on our passenger app and wait until it doubles and triples and then we're going to turn on our driver apps. So they were actually manipulating the surge pricing while they were in Hoboken. I was like this is incredible, this is crazy. 13:52 - Speaker 2 Yeah. Because, they weren't getting paid enough. Right, so it's easily I don't know manipulated. 14:00 - Speaker 1 Yeah, they can manipulate it I guess Right. 14:04 - Speaker 2 I know you started in New York, is that correct? Are you only in New York City right now? 14:08 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we're only in the five boroughs. That's where we're starting. 14:10 - Speaker 2 yes, Okay, as we record this, it's just about August of 2025. And so when you're listening to this at home, it may be a different time, but clearly, in New York at this point, if you want to try out the your Driver Network, you surely can. 14:30 - Speaker 1 It's your Y-U-R. 14:30 - Speaker 2 Your Driver Network and you can download that in the App Store today. 14:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, your Driver's Network and the passenger app is your ride with two R's. Y-u-r-r-i-d-e. 14:42 - Speaker 2 So what's the? Let's talk about consumers for a second. You know consumers automatically gravitate to. You know a couple of the big apps that are already out there. What's your plan to get in front of other consumers? How are you going to get your name well-known in front of consumers for rideshare, at least in the New York City area? 15:03 - Speaker 1 Well, we're hoping that the word of mouth is going to continue. It started pretty well so far. We've got about almost 1,500 passengers, which I mean I know is really nothing, but we just started and we've got about 1,600 drivers that have signed up, and we're getting more every day. But we have a public relations firm, chris Roslin and Associates, that's helping us. Hopefully people will see your podcast or listen to your podcast here. I've done an article with Mediumcom that should be coming out next sometime in August. Hopefully we're going to hire an advertising agency in New York and hopefully get some billboards on some buses and billboards up in New York and we're looking to hire some brand ambassadors to go throughout the city. Hopefully, do some more podcasts. We have an instagram page tiktok and a facebook page and, uh, hopefully the word will spread. 16:05 You know, uh, like you said, like I said, you know, we we got to crawl before we run and uh, sure, and you know it's, it's made for a community of people and I think it's going to disrupt, uh, the industry and I think people will appreciate it. It's not made, you know, just to be to open up on Wall Street and be this big thing. It's made to help people and help people have a better life and a better experience at the whole thing. Sure. 16:34 - Speaker 2 And when drivers. 16:35 - Speaker 1 you know, when drivers have skin in the game, like they're going to have their own virtual black car base, really through our base in New York, because they're going to have drivers that are going to be really underneath them where they're making commission from. So it's really a game changer for the drivers and they're really going to respect the game a lot and they're really going to respect the game. 17:01 - Speaker 2 A lot Airports are a hassle. What's it like working with the airports to drive in there? Tell us what's that process like. 17:10 - Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a form we have to fill out for the airports. We didn't get there yet, but I want to tell you something what they do With our application. The nearest driver that's nearest to you is going to get the ping from the passenger. What happens at these stadiums and at these events and at the airports is they have an algorithm where they give the rides to drivers that accept more rides and drive slower. Now I'm going to give you, for instance, I've done a lot of testing with Uber and Lyft drivers in New Jersey and I've I've been standing right next to them. 17:51 So we did a lot of rides ourselves and I did rides with them and I would try and ping the driver that was standing right next to me and I would. It would take me five or six times to get the driver that was standing next to me because his rating on acceptance was 84. And a guy they would give me a guy four miles away because his rating and acceptance was higher than the guy that was standing next to me, because his rating and acceptance was higher than the guy that was standing next to me. So what happens at these stadiums and everything else and at the airport is they're pinging drivers that aren't at the airport, when drivers are waiting at the airport to pick people up. So you have all this traffic and all this convoluted stuff going on because they're not pinging the drivers that are at the airport. 18:38 - Speaker 2 So again, tell us what's different about your network. How do you? How do you? How do if I, if I'm exiting a Yankees game and I'm calling a car. 18:45 - Speaker 1 You're going to get a car. That's right there. If he's there, you're not going to get a guy that's two miles away, right, and that's what they're doing. They're causing their own congestion. They're causing their own congestion, they're causing their own problems. And then they're raising the fares on top of that because they're saying there's traffic, right. So it's really, it's really a messed up situation, and cancellations too. 19:11 - Speaker 2 I think I we've all been a victim where we a victim's a hard work, to say probably a little harsh, but uh, you know, you call for a car and then you uh wait, and then it cancels on you. 19:23 - Speaker 1 Uh right, cancel, yeah. And I've seen drivers do that in Hoboken and they've canceled on people and they say, yeah, I cancel on them because I wait for the surge pricing. And they do that a lot. They cancel because they're waiting for the surge pricing and they know it's going to come. 19:40 - Speaker 2 That won't happen quite as much with your network. It sounds like. 19:42 - Speaker 1 No, it's not going to happen at all, because the price is not going to change Right, because the drivers are going to leverage their income. They're going to make more money even though the prices aren't changing, because they have that 5% referral built in. Right. 19:57 - Speaker 2 So let's talk about drivers for a second. You know the. You've talked about the referral system. You've talked about the more equitable pricing for consumers, but, um, how, how do you plan on attracting new drivers, do you think? Uh, tell me what. What's your? Is your pitch to drivers about the, the increased pay, or is the safety a big deal? What's the biggest driver driver? I used the word twice. 20:21 - Speaker 1 What's the? 20:22 - Speaker 2 biggest attractant for a driver to join the EUR network. 20:27 - Speaker 1 Yeah, for the 71% in pay, which is almost a 20% boost in the pay. So you don't have to worry about that surcharge pricing really. And then you have that 5% kicker on the referral. So let me just give you, for instance you refer a driver and he does $1,000 in fares per week in New York, which is really nothing. He'll do it in two to three days. Ok, you're earning an extra $50 a week from that driver for doing nothing. Now you could take that and get 10 guys. Now you're making $500 a week more, sure. And now you know there's only 13,300 cabs in New York. You know how many TLC drivers there are registered. 21:16 - Speaker 2 No, how many. 21:18 - Speaker 1 Over 180,000. 21:20 - Speaker 2 Right, Because there's only so many medallions. Right? They still use the medallion system for the taxis, right? 21:25 - Speaker 1 For the taxis, yes, but there's 183,000 TLC drivers that are driving rideshare. 21:33 - Speaker 2 So you have all these drivers that can be referred. Right, that makes a lot of sense and they do a million rides a day, Brian. 21:43 - Speaker 1 A million rides a day in the five boroughs. 21:46 - Speaker 2 Wow. 21:46 - Speaker 1 It's a lot of money. 21:49 - Speaker 2 What about safety? Are they interested? Is the safety piece that you mentioned, the biometric safety they all like? 21:55 - Speaker 1 it. Is that something the drivers like? They like it. They don't mind it at all. 22:00 - Speaker 2 It's good. 22:01 - Speaker 1 And you know you want people like that. You don't want people who are oh, I don't want to put my face on the app when I'm picking up a person because you know they're going to do something malfeasance Sure, you don't need them in your business. You don't want them. 22:19 - Speaker 2 You know, one of the things in the news here in New York City is the pricing for entering Midtown Manhattan. As you drive into Midtown Manhattan, you're charged. The consumers charge $9, right to enter the congestion zone Right below 60. And for those of you who don't know, the congestion pricing is what it's called. It's anywhere south of, I think, 62nd Street on Manhattan. 22:46 - Speaker 1 I think it's 60th. 22:47 - Speaker 2 Street 60th. Yeah, if you enter from north, south, east or west, you are automatically billed nine bucks during the day. How does your network deal with the congestion pricing? 23:00 - Speaker 1 So this is something that Uber and Lyft had lobbied for. They lobbied for this actually, because when you're in a ride share car, you only get charged $1.50. So they actually lobbied for this. So we're the same situation you only get charged $1.50 below 60th Street when you enter. So yeah, they actually spent millions of dollars to lobby for that so that people wouldn't vote there so, yeah, so we're in the same boat. They, they knock every door down and we're just walking right through there you go yeah, so what's the biggest challenge facing the euro drivers network is there. 23:39 - Speaker 2 Have you? What obstacles do you need to overcome to grow the company? 23:43 - Speaker 1 Well, basically it's just acquiring the passengers and acquiring more drivers and just getting the word out and it's moving slowly but it's moving steadily. So, I figure, in a couple of months or we're going to start advertising really hard for our company within a month or so and and really try to blow this thing up the way it should be. So, uh, you know, uh, we don't want to make any mistakes, you know what I mean. 24:11 So, it's a. It's a, it's a catch 22 with the passengers and with the drivers. You have to have the same amount going both ways. So we're trying to grow them equally, you know, and uh, we don't want passengers not being able to get a ride and we don't want drivers not being able to get a passenger to get a ride. You know what I mean. So it's a catch-22, it's a. It's a hard thing to do and you know we're going up against two giants, right, so it's. But you know, I know that drivers are really really have had it with the uh, with uh, what they've gone through with these companies, because I, I really don't, they don't, they don't feel like they're really being taken care of well they, they all, they have definitely work hard. 24:57 - Speaker 2 I can tell you, I've been in many ride shares with incredibly nice, kind drivers who get me where I need to be to the doctor. Um, when our, when our dog was sick, you know, rushing us to the vet. We've all had those experiences. Right, yeah, and and uh, um, so I, I do. I do hope that everyone gets treated fairly. So let's, let's look, let's look ahead a couple of years. Uh, Lewis, New York's killing it. You got the five boroughs locked down. What's next? Where do you? You can, just as a secret, no one's, no one's listening to this anyway. So you can tell me, Lewis, where do you head next? How do you grow? Where do you go? 25:38 - Speaker 1 Well, I can tell you this. Uh, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the rideshare guy. He did one video on our company and since he did that video I've gotten emails from drivers and I've had drivers trying to sign up all over the country, from Illinois, pennsylvania, california, texas, ohio. It's been crazy. Please bring your company here, please bring it there. It's just been crazy. But I would think that I don't want to say a city off a hand where we might move next. But the thing about this is that we're leaving 10% of the income in this, the revenue that's being done in this industry in the city, where it's being done for the passengers and for the drivers, and I really feel that it's going to. It's going to help the city itself because the money staying there it's not being sucked out of the city and taken to some corporation somewhere. That 10% of that money, it turns out to be a lot of money where people can spend in that city and I'm hoping that cities invite us to come. 26:51 - Speaker 2 I hope so too, and and New York's not a cheap city, right no, no, so yeah right. What so so you? Undoubtedly as a startup Right so undoubtedly as a startup, lewis. You're putting in a lot of time into this project and I admire CEOs and founders who really lift up their bootstraps and they do the work. 27:15 - Speaker 1 So I'm really impressed. 27:16 - Speaker 2 I've done it myself and so I'm really really impressive it's a lot of hard work. It is when you're not working on this project. What do you like to do for fun? 27:27 - Speaker 1 Oh, I play golf and I play the guitar. Oh, that's awesome. And fish. 27:33 - Speaker 2 That's great. 27:34 - Speaker 1 So yeah, I've got three good habits there, Three good, uh nice little getaways. So that's and do a little recording. I'll do recording. I'll do all the parts of the guitar on, you know, and record the different tracks and record songs myself and stuff like that. That's good. 27:52 - Speaker 2 Well, this is Conversations with Giants, and today we're talking to Louis Paulucci, the founder of the your Drivers Network, and you can find the your Ride app in all the app stores wherever you want to go. Unfortunately, as of recording of this podcast, you can only do that in New York City, but if you are anywhere and you know someone in New York, you can tell them to download the app and they can earn. I guess they can earn their 5% too, right, lewis? 28:20 - Speaker 1 That's absolutely right, that's absolutely right. You can download it from anywhere and you can refer anybody in New York to use it. When they're in New York, they use it. You make 5%. 28:30 - Speaker 2 How fulfilling is this to you, lewis? To build this company from the ground up. 28:36 - Speaker 1 It's a pretty cool thing, you know. Sometimes you think about your life and what you're doing with it and what's the importance of it, and this can really change a lot of people's life and bring a lot of people different meanings to their lives, and that's really one of the fulfilling parts about this whole thing. So I'm hoping it gets off the ground in the right way and a lot of people appreciate it and it makes me feel pretty good. That's good, that's great. 29:06 - Speaker 2 Well, remind our audience how they can join the your Drivers Network. 29:11 - Speaker 1 You can go to yourdriversnetworkcom. That's the website Y-U-R driversnetworkcom. Or you can go to the app store and search your Drivers or your Ride. That's Y-U-R-R-I-D-E or the Google Play Store, and you can download the app there and you can check it out. You'll have all your referrals. They wind up in your back office on your app. You can check them, you can see your percentages of what you're earning and you can have a lot of fun with it. And that's it. 29:43 - Speaker 2 Good Louis, that's awesome. I think we all are using ride shares Most some of us often, more often than others, at airports, and you know, like I mentioned before, to get to the doctor, if you live in New York City, not a lot of people have cars, so using a ride share or the public transportation is the really only way to get around cars. So using a ride share or the public transportation is the really only way to get around, and so I hope, I really do hope, that you, you, you, gain some ground here in New York City. It sounds like you're treating the driver's fare and the consumers, and I really wish you all the best in growing your company. 30:16 - Speaker 1 Oh, thanks so much, Brian. It was great talking to you. Thanks so much. Thanks, Louis Learn more at https://ccbmarketing.net.