Today we interviewed José Luis Mellado, co-founder and financial director of Journify, a ridesharing application that seeks to solve daily mobility problems through shared transport.

Hello José Luis, very briefly, tell the community who you are and what is your proyect about:

Journify is the best ridesharing app for daily travels. Thanks to our management system,
users organize their routines quickly, traveling in a more flexible, economical and social way.
Allowing drivers to save 2.000€ per year!

What differential value do you contribute in the sector?

Current ridesharing apps focus on routes between cities, while carsharing focuses on urban
routes. We saw the need to optimize interurban routes, such as going to work or to
university.

A sector currently covered by public transport, which is often very rigid due to its excessive
implementation costs. Complementing them, we give access to all the badly connected
areas and allow drivers to save thanks to the collaborative economy.

Who is your product or service aimed to?

Our product is aimed at two types of customers. University students who on the one hand
spend too much time on public transport and on the other hand drivers who need to save on
gasoline. Large companies and technology parks, with more than 200 workers, who by law
have to implement sustainable mobility plans and Journify can be part of the solution.

Tell us about the team, what motivates you to create a startup and why

Curiously, the entire entrepreneur team lives outside Valencia and we suffer this problem
every day. This motivated us to enter into a contest organized by Google and TechStars, to
try to find a solution. That’s how we met and Journify emerged.

Like most startups, it’s not easy at all. We are in a country where people are used to go everywhere alone, so in addition to capturing our user, we have to educate them to share a car. But it is not a thing that discourages us, on the contrary. If we want our day-to-day actions have a high impact on society, we must work hard to contribute to the change.

So each new reservation is a reason to celebrate! In addition, it comforts us to see that society’s mentality is changing and universities, companies and accelerators recognize the problem and try to help us.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

We want to be present in all the European countries. We see ourselves as a benchmark in
the field of collaborative economics and placing Journify as a standard among the different
day-to-day mobility solutions.

How do you see the mobility sector (in the specific sub-vertical in which you work) in both Spain and Portugal? And internationally?

The mobility sector is constantly growing and many solutions are emerging both in Spain
and Portugal. But, in many occasions, they don`t get the change to consolidate, due to the lack of education. There is still a lot to do, and especially with ridesharing, we must take the
example of leading countries such as Germany or France.

How do you think your project can contribute to changing the way we move or interact with transportation?

Enormously. The daily transportation system is about to be modernized. We spend a lot of
time moving and we also spend more money than we should. Hence the importance of
implementing collaborative economy systems that allow us to improve our networks, save
time and money and have a high social and environmental impact.

Name 1 or 2 startups or corporates who inspire you and why:

Our company of reference is BlaBlaCar. It inspires us enormously to see how when they
started nobody shared a car over long distances, and that after much insistence and never
giving up, they have managed to educate people, and having today 65 million users and
being present in 22 countries. They have become a standard mobility solution for long
distance travels.

Why did you decided to join the Connected Mobility HUB?

Networking is everything. Startups do not have many resources, so the connections we
make can help us enormously. The Connected Mobility Hub brings together a large
percentage of entrepreneurs in terms of mobility. So it is a perfect window to share
experiences, learn from each other and build strong relationships that help us improve day
by day.