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Imagine you are on a day out with friends and you want to stay an hour longer, but you can’t because you have to miss the train.
There’s no way to get the next one without spending a fortune on a new ticket.
It’s a familiar scenario for many Britons, who have been plagued by rail problems for as long as they can remember.
The rail industry has been in the spotlight over the past year with frequent strikes raising serious questions about the efficiency of the current system.
Launched in 2018, Seatfrog train app believes it could be the solution to our train problems and aims to bring much-needed innovation to the industry.
Seatfrog allows customers to upgrade their standard tickets to first class through an in-app auction
Upgrade to first class for £10
The app was actually set up because co-founders Iain Griffin and Dirk Stewart needed more legroom.
At a combined height of 4m, the towering duo felt increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of space in the standard class, having spent a lot of time traveling while working for a global advertising agency.
Griffin recalls the time they tried to sneak into first class in an attempt to stretch their legs: “The train was empty and we said, let’s get on it first and see if we can get away with it.” The security guard comes by, he wasn’t happy… I needed a mortgage to pay for an upgrade.”
It was then that Griffin and Stewart realized how inefficient the system is, both for train companies and customers, and Seatfrog was born.
“There are people standing around the toilet eager to take a seat. Perhaps some of those passengers would like to sit in first class… which would free up more seats in standard class and give people a better journey.
‘There are 570 million empty first class seats in Europe’s seven largest rail countries every year. The average train companies fill 25 to 30 percent of their first class carriages…
“It’s hard for a train company to balance inventory because unlike an airline that flies from A to B and changes planes at the last minute, you can’t change the size of the train.
“If you think of a train as a unit of value worth £4 million for each train then a huge chunk of that value is just traveling empty. It is a perishable good and you will never earn money from it again.’
Launched in 2018, Seatfrog mainly focused on the ‘upgrade’ service, which allows users to upgrade any standard train ticket to first class through an auction function or ‘buy it now’ price, similar to eBay. This can be done at any time before departure.
The price of an upgrade depends on demand, but varies between £10 and £50. Griffin claims that Seatfrog has saved passengers more than £43 million since launch.
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‘Trains are stuck in the eighties’
Clearly, Griffin and Stewart have capitalized on customers’ growing frustration with trains. Seatfrog now has almost a million users in the UK.
The team secured LNER, then Virgin Trains, as its first customers and now has every railway company in the country under contract for five years.
The pandemic put a brake on travel, but it took Seatfrog just four weeks to return to its pre-Covid revenue after the lockdown was lifted.
“We’ve been setting weekly sales records pretty much every week and we’re growing about 25 percent monthly,” says Griffin. “All our growth comes from organic channels, we don’t spend anything on marketing.
“The reason we’re so successful is because we have a product that people love.”
Much of Seatfrog’s traffic remains centered around the UK’s main cities, and while London provides volume, it’s not the lion’s share, says Griffin.
Most Seatfrog customers make journeys of about an hour, although more and more customers are now using it for shorter journeys.
And with more people returning to the office, there is room for Seatfrog to expand even further.
Large order: At a combined height of 4 metres, Dirk Stewart (pictured left) and Iain Griffin (right) launched Seatfrog to make it easier to find more comfortable seats
“We’re disrupting a category that’s massively under-digitized, which has tremendous opportunity,” says Griffin.
‘Trains remain technologically stuck in the eighties. It is hugely under-digitized and that causes a lot of friction.
“One of the big points of friction is wanting to catch an earlier train…or see some friends I haven’t seen in a while and want to get a few more beers, but I can’t get the later train…either me or a buy a whole new ticket, or stand in line at the station or call center.’
Seatfrog introduces a ‘train change’ feature, which allows customers to transfer to any train within 24 hours of departure with just two taps. It’s already live on the East Coast and there are plans to roll it out in the UK soon.
“One of the biggest problems in rail is that trains kind of get in the way of life, and they really shouldn’t,” adds Griffin. ‘People need more flexibility in the way they live their lives and trains don’t fit that bill. This is a way for us to change that.”
Flexible: Seatfrog’s ‘seat swap’ function allows customers to transfer to another train
Why the Railroad Industry Needs Repair
We all know how frustrating train delays and cancellations are, especially as ticket prices continue to rise.
The recent strikes have only emphasized how inefficient the system has become.
While other industries, such as financial services, have been dragged into the 21st century by challenger banks, insurance companies and the like, trains have been largely neglected.
A total of 359 million trips were made in Britain between July and September last year, but the sector continues to be overlooked by entrepreneurs and investors.
Why is the rail industry so underserved?
“The people left behind to do the innovation aren’t particularly innovative and are solving the wrong problems,” says Griffin.
Traveling by train should not only be more affordable, it should also be more innovative and fit into your life
‘Rail companies operate with a margin of two percent, if they are lucky, and there is simply no room for innovation within that budget.
At the same time, when doing a cost-benefit analysis, railway companies think that every decision is based on the fact that the only benefit to a consumer is that the train will be faster, because they need to save people time.
‘You have to save people time, but you don’t have to spend 25 years and £70 billion building HS2.
“You need to build something like a train switch, which costs £5 million to build and will certainly save people the 40 minutes on either side of their journey.”
It’s likely there will come a point where the industry will be forced to change, and apps like Seatfrog could be just the thing to spark a much-needed revolution.
And as sustainability becomes a growing priority, the government will have to start encouraging Britons to consider ditching their cars in favor of public transport.
‘People will only take trains if they change trains. It has to be more flexible…more cost-effective,” says Griffin.
“Not only should it be more affordable, it should also be more innovative and fit into your life. That’s what we’re trying to do.’
This is the first article in a new series about companies disrupting industries that traditionally lack innovation.
We’ll be looking at some of the most exciting companies in industries we encounter every day that want to do things a little differently.
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