Shaxi

Overview

Shaxi, short for Shatta Taxi, is the ride-hailing platform launched by Shatta Wale in December 2021 to create work for young drivers in Accra. SmartQix designed, built, and has run it since launch: the rider app, the driver app, the dispatch backend, and the website. Over the following years the platform grew into what the brand now calls Ghana's safest super app, adding a buy-and-sell marketplace, property listings, a jobs board, an in-app wallet, and games, while keeping rides at the centre. Both apps are on the App Store and Google Play under SmartQix LLC.

The challenge

Ride-hailing is unforgiving. A rider needs a fare estimate, a nearby driver, live tracking, and a way to pay in cash or with mobile money, all on mid-range Android phones over patchy data. A driver needs requests that arrive instantly, clear pickup and drop-off details, navigation, and earnings they can trust. Behind both sits a dispatch engine matching hundreds of concurrent drivers to riders in real time, and an admin operation that verifies documents before anyone goes online. Then, as the business grew, the same app had to carry a marketplace, listings, and jobs without becoming confusing.

What we built

We built two Flutter apps on a shared Laravel backend. The rider app opens on a single question, where are you going, with saved and recent places, a map picker, route preview, ride options with a cedi fare range, and cash or digital payment, then live driver tracking, receipts, and ratings. The driver app is built around going online: a live map, incoming requests with a countdown, estimated fare, distance, payment type, and rider rating, then arrival, slide-to-start, and a trip-complete screen with earnings and a fare review safeguard when movement cannot be verified. Drivers get earnings by period with commission and net figures, wallet, subscriptions, ride history, vehicles, documents, and emergency contacts, and every account is reviewed by admins before it can accept rides. Real-time location and dispatch run over WebSockets with Firebase push for requests, and Google Maps powers routing. The super app layer adds a marketplace with categories, listings, seller stores, chat, and safety prompts, alongside properties and jobs, all mirrored on the shaxigh.com web platform.