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The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

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Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#61

Post by Johnny555 »

RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…

I make regular use of bike share -- I have 2 bus options to take me home, one drops me off 2 blocks from home, one drops me off 2 miles from home. When I take the farther bus, I usually use a bike-share bike for those last 2 miles (the route is on a dedicated bike path).

Works great for me and apparently someone uses the bike in for their commute in the mornings since the bike is usually gone in the morning when I get to the bus stop.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#62

Post by mdorazio »

fooblitzky wrote: post #46
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…

Seattle collects data on bike share usage, available here: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs... Seems in the sunnier months they get about 200,000 trips, from a fleet of 10,000 bikes. I think a lot of people start riding the share bikes before deciding to purchase a bike themselves too. Overall ridership is up 12% this year.

Great link, thanks for sharing. A couple more stats for other readers here:

- In May 2019, bike share users took about 218,400 trips on a fleet of about 4,400-5,100 bikes. (~43 trips per bike average during the month)

- Around 95,000 individual users

- ~2 trips per individual user during the month

So, realistically not that great on a per-user basis and it seems like a lot of users are only trying it out a few times or grabbing a bike once in a while. That meshes pretty well with the idea that people who find themselves using the service frequently probably just buy a bike.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#63

Post by extrapickles »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #54
CydeWeys wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of innovation are you expecting? Plenty of innovation is still happening in the realm of adding motors and batteries to bikes. Beyond that, what else is there to do with bikes? We're already deep into the realm of severely diminishing returns on weight and aerodynamics, and braking power is limited by physics. What else is there to improve? All I can think of is ABS.

Has anyone looked into a pneumatic powered bicycle? Is it way less efficient than a chain drive? What if you pedaled to compress air into a reserve tank that was then discharged to somehow propel the wheel(s)? That could soften the peaks and valleys of power and allow perhaps for regeneration during braking. With a large enough tank you could save up power during plains to propel you up large hills.

Its much more efficient to store the energy as electricity. Compressing Air, and using a pneumatic motor has about 5-7% total efficiency.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#64

Post by Johnny555 »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #54
CydeWeys wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of innovation are you expecting? Plenty of innovation is still happening in the realm of adding motors and batteries to bikes. Beyond that, what else is there to do with bikes? We're already deep into the realm of severely diminishing returns on weight and aerodynamics, and braking power is limited by physics. What else is there to improve? All I can think of is ABS.

Has anyone looked into a pneumatic powered bicycle? Is it way less efficient than a chain drive? What if you pedaled to compress air into a reserve tank that was then discharged to somehow propel the wheel(s)? That could soften the peaks and valleys of power and allow perhaps for regeneration during braking. With a large enough tank you could save up power during plains to propel you up large hills.

I'd think that a pneumatic bottle would have to be very large, and/or very heavy to store enough energy for a useful return, the heat lost from the compressed air would lower efficiency, and an air turbine that can provide usable power over a wide range of pressures from the bottle would add additional weight and contribute to inefficiency.

The fact that there are few compressed air hybrids is probably a good sign that it's not significantly better than batteries.

Few electric bikes even use regenerative braking, it's generally not worth the weight and complexity.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#65

Post by breuleux »

fooblitzky wrote: post #46
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…

Seattle collects data on bike share usage, available here: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs... Seems in the sunnier months they get about 200,000 trips, from a fleet of 10,000 bikes. I think a lot of people start riding the share bikes before deciding to purchase a bike themselves too. Overall ridership is up 12% this year.

In Montreal, the figure ranges from 600,000 (May) to 900,000 trips (July) from a fleet of 7,500 (there are no bikes from mid-November to mid-April). They're everywhere.

Edit: I was still on the 2017 figures for some reason. 800,000 trips last May, 975,000 last August. (https://montreal.bixi.com/en/open-data)

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#66

Post by blotter_paper »

microtherion wrote: post #56
DenisM wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are there any well known cases of startup CEOs who were wildly successful as employees in another company? Wildly might be a high bar, but otherwise it's pretty much majority of acquisitions.

My impression is that the CEOs often (typically?) leave as soon as whatever vesting periods are defined in the acquisition have passed. But now you mention acquisitions, it could be argued that NeXT CEO Steve Jobs did OK as an Apple employee…

I'm not arguing with the rule, but one notable exception is Kevin Systrom who stayed with Instagram for years (growing it from 30 million users when the acquisition was announced to over 800 million). He discusses the choice to stay, and the reactions from others in the company, in this interview: https://tim.blog/2019/04/25/kevin-systrom/

Direct mp3 link, since Tim Ferriss puts a wall of text before his actual content: https://rss.art19.com/episodes/6c7b3008-cf08-4aae-93f8-d3fde...

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#67

Post by DC-3 »

rasz wrote: post #19
nradov wrote: post #14

It's a shame that there's been little innovation from road bike manufacturers in the past 10 years or so. The last major innovation was aero carbon frames. Since then everyone is just copying each other and trying to improve by fractions of a percent for weight, stiffness, and efficiency. Most of the value and innovation has shifted to the groupset suppliers, with Shimano taking the lion's share of the market and a f…

Why bother innovating when its not needed? Expensive bicycles are in the same market as fancy watches. Its all just wealth signalling. Nobody needs 10% lighter frames, or 5% more aerodynamic shapes. If you want to drive faster or burn less energy you go electric, If you want health benefits you buy the shittiest heaviest bike you can find and pedal harder.

Nicer bikes are more pleasurable to ride; they make the activity more enjoyable. What's signalling about that?

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#68

Post by sethhochberg »

RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…

There's a definite network effect... its hard to justify riding a shared bike somewhere if you can't be reasonably sure there will be one for you to ride back when its time to return. Maybe you could cobble a trip together with multiple vendors in cities where there are competing systems, but thats more hassle and makes it difficult if you're buying a yearly pass or some other monthly discount.

If you want some real data from a large program with good public support, CitiBike in NYC publishes open ridership data: https://www.citibikenyc.com/system-data

The tl;dr is that the system is very popular, and they're constantly expanding it - currently averaging around 62k trips per day on 12k bikes across 750 stations.

I own my own bike, but I'll use a Citibike for a one-way trip or to bridge a gap when I'm already out away from home without my bike. There is also a ton of utility for people who ride more casually, or don't want to carry bikes up stairs, or don't have room in their apartment, etc, etc.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#69

Post by megaremote »

RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…

> I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them.

Used them all the time in London and Paris, and visiting other cities. They were great. Loads of people used them in the cities I saw.

I think there are a sort of people who will only use cars for everything, and don't really notice anything not car related.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#70

Post by bsder »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #15
DanFeldman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can be surprisingly hard to get a job at BigCorp with CEO on your resume Why do you think that is? It's so common to hear advice that bigco's will always want to hire people w/ Startup experience, but does that not extend to the founders?

I can only speak for places where I've worked and hired folks, but the consensus seemed to be that people who seek out the CEO role are highly correlated with a need to control everything and less well correlated with "team players" (or people who can work with peers in a give and take sort of situation). In acquisition scenarios such companies are sometimes much more keen on keeping the VP of Engineering ("get thing…

> In acquisition scenarios such companies are sometimes much more keen on keeping the VP of Engineering ("get things done") person than the CEO ("I'm the boss") person.

I think it's less "The Boss" than the fact that the CEO is generally more marketing/finance focused (far less relevant after a buyout as the purchasing company already has that established) than the CTO or VP of Engineering.

There are, of course, exceptions where a company gets bought specifically to install their CEO in the CEO role of the purchasing company.

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