2023
Featured

RideShield - Mobility Safety Platform

India's first accessible, hybrid safety ecosystem for motorcycle riders and gig workers, featuring real-time crash detection, ride tracking, and emergency alerts.

Mobility
Safety
Real-time Systems

Case Study Overview

A comprehensive breakdown of the product management approach, from problem discovery to measurable outcomes, following proven PM frameworks.

Problem Discovery

India accounts for over 70% of global motorcycle-related deaths, yet most riders rely on minimal protective measures. Through interviews and ride-along observations, we identified two underserved but high-risk user segments:

  • Long-distance motorcycle enthusiasts, who ride in isolated or remote environments and worry about delayed help in case of accidents.
  • Urban gig riders (Rapido, Ola, Uber), who need platform-compliant safety solutions but operate under tight financial and time constraints.

Both groups lacked access to affordable, proactive, and context-aware safety systems—digital or physical.

Business Alignment

We aimed to make RideShield India's first accessible, hybrid safety ecosystem that includes:

  • A smart companion app that functions with or without hardware
  • Real-time features like crash detection, ride tracking, and emergency alerts
  • Personalization for both enthusiast and gig economy user groups
  • A foundation for monetization via B2C subscriptions and B2B2C fleet partnerships

This was a strategic effort to create differentiation in a saturated market dominated by high-end gear and disconnected safety tools.

Solution Exploration

Based on segment-specific JTBD analysis and rapid prototyping, we delivered an app-first MVP with:

  • Manual and automatic SOS triggering, including countdown-based alerts
  • Crash detection using mobile sensors, optimized to reduce false positives
  • Contextual ride summaries: speed, distance, safety score, and mood logging
  • Location-aware weather forecasts and pre-ride safety checklists
  • Co-creation feedback loops to surface rider insights directly into roadmap
  • Language and design flexibility to support gig and enthusiast usage patterns

The app was intentionally designed to function independently of any connected gear, making it a viable first step into a broader hardware roadmap.

Execution

I led the end-to-end product process across discovery, development, and rollout:

  • Conducted behavioral segmentation and user interviews with both gig riders and tourers
  • Defined modular feature sets based on common workflows across rider types
  • Collaborated with engineers and designers to optimize app performance for both Android and iOS (using React Native + Expo)
  • Designed the feedback system to collect structured rider input at low friction
  • Led release planning for MVP, supported alpha user recruitment, and managed weekly update cycles via user insights

Our design and development cycles were framed around PET (Persuasion, Emotion, Trust) principles to ensure trust-building in a safety-critical context.

Outcomes & Impact

Outcomes:
  • Over 70% of alpha users engaged with SOS or safety score tracking within first 3 sessions
  • App maintained 85% retention among long-distance users across multiple trip logs
  • Positive rider feedback centered on the sense of control, simplicity, and the absence of ads or bloat
  • MVP validated demand in both individual and fleet partnership models, informing next-stage hardware integration and pricing experiments
Reflections:
  • For safety-critical products, confidence and speed matter more than complexity
  • Segmenting not just by income, but by intent and urgency, revealed underserved opportunities
  • Starting app-first helped us validate assumptions before investing in physical manufacturing
  • Personalization (weather, safety score, mood tagging) improved engagement beyond utility use

Project Artifacts

Supporting materials, frameworks, and deliverables created during the product development process.

Safety Framework

document

Comprehensive safety framework and incident categorization

Real-time Dashboard

image

Operations dashboard for real-time safety monitoring

These artifacts demonstrate the systematic approach to product development, from initial discovery through execution and measurement.