Need a ride? A new ride-booking app launches in Columbia, created by SC entrepreneur
After four years in the making, Kingstree native Ron McKnight will launch a ride-booking app called HOPIN in Columbia next month.
This new app has the same on-demand or pre-scheduled ride ordering system as apps like Uber or Lyft, but with more safety features and inclusion, said McKnight.
McKnight got the idea to create a more inclusive ride-booking app after losing all of his credit cards in New York City and having to buy a prepaid credit card to use for a ride home. It was then that he found out other ride sharing apps do not accept prepaid credit cards.
McKnight said he thought about the millions of people nationwide who do not have a credit card or even a bank account. Federal data from 2019 shows that 5.4% of Americans were unbanked, or approximately 7.1 million households, and 8.5% of U.S. households used general purpose reloadable prepaid cards.
The majority of the unbanked in the U.S. are low-income households or people of color, according to the FDIC. HOPIN is an African American-owned business McKnight created to fix this transportation problem for racial minorities.
“It’s all about inclusion because those who came before me, they left out a certain demographic,” said McKnight. “There are so many individuals that are literally limited within everything that they’re doing, other than them being able to purchase prepaid cards.”
McKnight was also motivated to create a safer app for both riders and drivers after the 2019 abduction and murder of University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson by a man posing as an Uber driver.
HOPIN includes an SOS safety feature that provides riders with the option to notify up to three people of their location, give the driver’s description and the car’s details — all with the press of one button.
The app also allows riders to save their preferred drivers in the app. The HOPIN app’s Premium feature offers rides exclusively for females to find female drivers.
There are other ride options in the app for individuals or small groups, SUV rides for up to seven people, luxury vehicles or metered taxi rides. Rides will be $1- $1.25 cheaper than the competitors, said McKnight, and he will not allow surge pricing during busy times on HOPIN.
“We want our drivers, whether you’re part-time or full-time, to make a good wage, but we don’t want to kill our riders, price-wise,” McKnight said.
The HOPIN driver’s app launched on March 16 in the Apple Store and the Google Play store and has multiple drivers signed up. The company plans to launch the actual ride-booking service app within the next month, according to a company press release.
McKnight is a graduate of Norfolk State University and formerly taught mass communications at Benedict College and Voorhees College. He’s currently enrolled in business classes at Harvard University.
HOPIN is headquartered in Columbia, but McKnight hopes to expand the company to other cities on the East Coast quickly after debuting and one day offer HOPIN nationwide.
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 10:59 AM.
