On a warm afternoon, Pratik Nilangekar found himself heading toward Nagpur—a city that held echoes of a past he hadn’t revisited in years. This wasn’t a business trip. It was personal. He was going to reconnect with someone who had once meant the world to him. The journey was supposed to be simple. Familiar roads, old memories, and maybe, if fate allowed, a new beginning.
He booked a cab through a popular ride-hailing app and waited at the pickup point. The car arrived, but the driver lingered before starting the trip. It felt odd, but Pratik brushed it off. As the ride began, the silence inside the cab slowly gave way to conversation. The driver’s tone was soft but carried a heaviness that couldn’t be missed.
He explained how ride-hailing companies were taking 25 to 30 percent of drivers’ hard-earned money as commission. Each day, after hours behind the wheel, battling traffic and fatigue, he was left with just enough to survive. Not enough to thrive. Not enough to grow. Pratik listened, taken aback—not just by the numbers, but by the resignation in the man’s voice.
The driver admitted he preferred to work outside the app whenever possible. If a passenger agreed, he’d rather take a direct payment than hand over a chunk of his income to a faceless company. The app’s OTP-based system gave him no control, no flexibility, no sense of ownership over his own labor.
As the car moved through Nagpur’s dusty lanes, something shifted in Pratik. What started as a quiet ride was turning into something far more meaningful. He had planned to revisit a chapter of his past. Instead, he found himself staring at a broken system in the present. The driver’s story, raw and honest, planted a seed in his mind—a thought that grew louder with every passing mile.
He couldn’t shake the question: How could a man who does all the work end up with so little?
That evening, the conversation replayed in his mind on loop. He thought of his grandmother—a woman who had defied the odds and become the first woman in Maharashtra to receive a permit to drive an auto-rickshaw. She was a fighter, navigating the chaos of a man’s world with resilience and pride. Her story wasn’t just a piece of family history—it was a torch passed down through generations.
Pratik realized he was meant to carry that torch forward.
From that moment, the idea of ZeroRiide was born—not as a startup pitch, but as a promise. A ride-hailing platform where drivers would keep 100 percent of what they earned. No commissions. No exploitation. Just fairness.
It wasn’t just a business decision—it was a moral one. Pratik began building a team that shared his belief in transparency, dignity, and empowerment. They worked tirelessly, knowing they weren’t just building an app—they were building a movement.
When ZeroRiide launched in Chennai, it was more than just another service entering the market. For the drivers who joined, it was liberation. They no longer had to calculate how much they’d lose with every ride. They no longer felt like invisible cogs in a giant machine. They finally had a platform that saw them, respected them, and stood with them.
Pratik knew the journey ahead wouldn’t be easy. The ride-hailing space was dominated by global giants with deep pockets and entrenched systems. There were legal hurdles, market skepticism, and logistical mountains to climb. But he also knew that when something is built on truth, it endures.
With every passing day, the word spread. Drivers told other drivers. Passengers began noticing the difference—cleaner cars, warmer smiles, smoother rides. When drivers were treated fairly, it showed. Not just in numbers, but in spirit.
ZeroRiide was no longer just an app. It was a rebellion against injustice. A celebration of labor. A quiet revolution riding through the streets of India—one that started not in a boardroom, but in the back seat of a cab.
Today, Pratik Nilangekar continues that journey—not just as a founder, but as a man who listened when it mattered. Who saw a problem and chose not to look away. Who turned a moment into a mission.
And this mission is just getting started.
Because ZeroRiide isn’t about disruption. It’s about restoration. Of fairness. Of respect. Of what’s rightfully theirs.
And somewhere in every ride, you can still hear the echo of that first conversation—the one that changed everything.
