In June 2011, Tallis Gomes emerged from an event in Rio De Janeiro believing his idea to create a bus monitoring app was going to be a success.

The aim of the gruelling 54-hour event was to create a business from nothing. However what happened next would shift the course of this young entrepreneurs life forever.

Waiting for a cab outside for what seemed like an age, rain drumming down, Gomes had the stark realization that it wasn’t a bus-monitoring app that was needed, but instead a means of hailing a cab from a smartphone.

He was certainly on to something and got to it, and by August 2011 his plans began to materialize, the app was in beta and the team grew with new hires.

About a year later, having seen huge value in the business, interest was sparked from the Samwer brothers and Rocket Internet who invested heavily.

Since then Easy Taxi has seen rapid growth, it has 8 million users per month, and half a million taxi drivers across their vast South American and Asian network.

This may seem like every entrepreneurs dream, but it was by no stretch easy. Something this weeks guest and Easy Taxi Co-CEO Jorge Pilo was fast to point out.

“I believe creating a business like Easy Taxi is 1% the idea and 99% execution.”

At the time of creation, Gomes was informed that Google were building exactly the same app.

Where many would have given up, Gomes decided to take a different route. By setting up on the ground in each place his plan was to beat competitors by providing an unparalleled localized experience.

To find out more about the Easy Taxi story and Pilo’s plan to feed the vast network into a system set to make Latin American cities smarter and less congested- listen to this weeks podcast.