Gift Provider Interview: Nichamon and Sirasom – Founders at “U Drink, I Drive”

Here at Pickabooclub we’re committed to bringing online the best experiential gifts Thailand has to offer. Recently we signed up with the team at party chauffeur service “U Drink I Drive” to provide their amazing packages via our site. To celebrate we got together with founders K. Sirasom Borisutsuwan and K. Nichamon Wiriyalampa to hear more about their unique service, and how it’s helping make Bangkok’s streets safer for party goers.

U Drink I Drive - Co founders K. Sirasom Borisutsuwan and K. Nichamon Wiriyalampa

U Drink I Drive – Co founders K. Sirasom Borisutsuwan and K. Nichamon Wiriyalampa

Pickabooclub: It’s great meeting you ladies, thanks for speaking to us today!

Perhaps we can kickoff with a quick overview of your entrepreneurial background? How did U Drink I Drive become a business?

K. Nichamon: No, thank you for this cool opportunity!

How did we get into business? Well actually U Drink I Drive was born of an assignment we got as part of doing our Masters’ degrees in Economics at Chulalongkorn University. We teamed up on the assignment, and since we both felt very passionate about the project we decided that once we graduated we’d evolve it into a business.

Pickabooclub: What you’re doing is unique in Thailand, can you maybe share a little about what exactly U Drink I Drive is?

K. Sirasom: We’re a chauffeuring service that helps people get home safely with their own cars after a night on the town. Basically our customers hire us to drive them home safely after they’ve been drinking.

Pickabooclub: That’s a really cool concept but what made you decide to make it into a business?

U Drink I Drive in style...

U Drink I Drive in style…

K. Nichamon: It’s a service I always wanted to use for myself and for my friends, and since I was aware of this model operating elsewhere I felt it would be a great fit for Thailand as well. Our research indicates that in South Korea there are over 200,000 people using similar services every night. I think with Thai’s reputation for being a fun-loving people, we can do at least as well over here.

K. Sirasom: I sincerely believe we have a real opportunity to change perceptions and save lives here. The sad reality is that road accidents cost Thailand 1% of the GDP annually. According to World Health Organization statistics, Thailand ranks #3 for Deaths by Road Accident, and 40% of these deaths are due to drunk driving.

Pickabooclub: What was the original idea behind starting up this venture? How close is the existing business to the original concept?

K. NichamonWe started out by looking for ways to reduce the death toll of due to drunk driving, and we’ve remained true to that concept. The details of the execution have undergone changes as we searched for ways to create a business that would appeal to a Thai audience.

Pickabooclub: That’s an interesting point. You mentioned similar services exist in other parts of the world as well, how did you have to adapt U Drink I Drive to appeal to a Bangkok audience?

K. Nichamon Thais LOVE their cars and we realized early on that people are very touchy when it comes to trusting others to drive them. We had to put in place a very stringent process of background checks for all our drivers. We’re even working with the police to get special “Clean Record” certificates for our team, so people can really relax about handing over their keys to us. We also make sure our drivers video tape every trip with a wearable video camera, so our clients have a record of everything that transpired.

K. Sirasom: About 50% of our customers are women, and often they feel more comfortable knowing we have women drivers on our team as well.

K. Nichamon It seems like Thais are also especially over-confident about their driving when they’re drunk. We’ve had cases of people calling us just to help them get through a police check-point. Needless to say this isn’t what we’re about, so it’s going to take a while before we manage to educate the market as to what it is exactly that they can expect from our service…

Pickabooclub: Maybe now would be a good time to talk about that. Who’s the target group or your service? Who are your ideal customers?

K. Sirasom: Anyone who drinks and needs to drive home is a potential customer but in fairness we’re focusing primarily on individuals, 25-45 years old, with enough available free income to support a good lifestyle that includes going out regularly.

K. Nichamon Interestingly we’re finding our best repeat customers aren’t really very drunk when we pick them up. They just tend to be highly responsible people who are completely unwilling to take any risk of driving under the influence. It’s really inspiring for us to see how many people already have that outlook, because it really validates our model.

Pickabooclub: About that. How’s it been going so far?

K. Sirasom: We’re really pleased with our results so far. We were worried our 500 thb price point coupled with the general lack of awareness for our offering would make it impossible for us to have any real traction in the first 6 months of operations, but amazingly we’ve had paying customers from the very night we launched, and we’ve been seeing a 30% month-over-month growth in our clientele ever since!

Pickabooclub: That’s pretty amazing! So what are your plans for the future?

K. Nichamon Well in the short term we need to increase the size of our driver team to match the demand. We’re looking to grow from 25 drivers now to a team of 60 within the next three months.

K. Sirasom: We’re also looking to increase the volume of our activity to at least 300 rides a month, ideally having a large portion of those coming from repeat customers. We’re working closely with Pickabooclub and others to buildup our relationships with venue owners. We see ourselves as a key stakeholder in the nightlife industry, after all, every patron loves his/her clients, and we’re making sure they get home safely so they can come out an party again…

Pickabooclub: Thanks very much! It was a pleasure talking to you and we’re very excited to be able to offer your services via our site. Getting people home safely today, so they can have another great experience tomorrow, is indeed a worthwhile goal!