Bad title - article does not cover unit economics at all (it's barely mentioned)
> The pair hit on a number of topics, including the unit economics, safety and seasonality of the scooter business
Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
11–20 of 132 posts
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#12So what is the VC angle with these super high valuation scooter startups? It doesn't seem very defensible. The barrier to entry isn't very high. And it doesn't seem that customer loyalty would be much of a factor. The most obvious strategy I see is that the VCs think they can pump these companies then dump them on the open markets and cash out before thousands of global, regional, and local competitors flood in and m…
Pump and dump. Once the IPO is over and they had their ROI they don't care about what happens to investors or the company.
Why is this insightful comment being downvoted? I suppose Bird allocates a budget for vote manipulation on aggregator sites, unless random people are actually autonomously doing that work for free. I’m not sure which would be more depressing.
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#13Meanwhile in San Francisco we are stuck with two unknown companies, a very low amount of scooters, no scooters in the evening (after 9pm I think?), and you can't ride one if you don't have a driver license.
For a tech-pole, it is quite a backward city.
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I (also?) think these disruptive transport plays are a bit grubby, and probably predating public transport shared costs and the commons. Here in brisbane, they basically became scofflaw over "riding without helmet" and "riding on pavement" to force the issue. Why the state authorities caved instead of taking them to the cleaners is beyond me. We've already started to have drunks on scooters, elderly people feeling ex…
It might just be me, but I'm having a hard time following your post due to these terms: > scofflaw > taking to the cleaners > juicers I normally would just go look it up, but this is a high density of jargon/colloquialisms. Or maybe it's not and I just never heard them, but I'm just offering my data point here.
I think you were just a little unlucky and hit a post with a few words and phrases you don't know.
Scofflaw is a pretty old word, and being a combination of scoff and law many people could work out its meaning.
Take someone to the cleaners is a fairly common idiom.
Juicers seems to be slang related to the people who charge up the scooters, but again, juice + er is a pattern many people can pick up on.
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I (also?) think these disruptive transport plays are a bit grubby, and probably predating public transport shared costs and the commons. Here in brisbane, they basically became scofflaw over "riding without helmet" and "riding on pavement" to force the issue. Why the state authorities caved instead of taking them to the cleaners is beyond me. We've already started to have drunks on scooters, elderly people feeling ex…
It might just be me, but I'm having a hard time following your post due to these terms: > scofflaw > taking to the cleaners > juicers I normally would just go look it up, but this is a high density of jargon/colloquialisms. Or maybe it's not and I just never heard them, but I'm just offering my data point here.
Juicers is a lime only term afaik (it referd to someone who charges lime scooters) and the rest are reasonably common Australian expressions (maybe scofflaw is a little less common).
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#16I still think Bird's success is merely symptomatic of American shortsighted solutions to systemic US urban planning issues. I doubt this will reach the same level of popularity in cities/countries with great public transit, highly walkable streets, and good existing last mile solutions (bikeshares, bikelanes, high bus coverage), but I'm happy to eat my words if I'm just not seeing it and folks from Amsterdam, Seoul,…
I live in Paris with an arguably good public transport system in place and Lime scooters were quite popular this summer. This is only anecdotally ofc, but you see a lot of people using them. There are not as many Bird scooters yet though.
Where I see the niche is medium distances were the metro is not a fast solution but if scooters are ubiquitously available for these situations, I see value in them.
And yeah, Tourists seem to love them.
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#17I still think Bird's success is merely symptomatic of American shortsighted solutions to systemic US urban planning issues. I doubt this will reach the same level of popularity in cities/countries with great public transit, highly walkable streets, and good existing last mile solutions (bikeshares, bikelanes, high bus coverage), but I'm happy to eat my words if I'm just not seeing it and folks from Amsterdam, Seoul,…
I live in Paris with an arguably good public transport system in place and Lime scooters were quite popular this summer. This is only anecdotally ofc, but you see a lot of people using them. There are not as many Bird scooters yet though. Where I see the niche is medium distances were the metro is not a fast solution but if scooters are ubiquitously available for these situations, I see value in them. And yeah, Touri…
I know they are popular in a variety of places, but I think transit options that are disproportionately popular with tourists compared to the locals are a glaring indicator of being long-term inefficient (and potentially harmful to the development of the better options already present in the city). To me SF's tendency to celebrate random experimental transit is the main reason public transit is so underdeveloped here. Do you think there are potentially better solutions for the niche filled by scooters in Paris that could integrate more fluidly with existing transit or are scooters the global maxima with existing tech?
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#18I still think Bird's success is merely symptomatic of American shortsighted solutions to systemic US urban planning issues. I doubt this will reach the same level of popularity in cities/countries with great public transit, highly walkable streets, and good existing last mile solutions (bikeshares, bikelanes, high bus coverage), but I'm happy to eat my words if I'm just not seeing it and folks from Amsterdam, Seoul,…
Americans will try literally anything as long as it is neither sensible land use nor proven transportation schemes. This scooter stuff is extremely appealing to the American mind.
What about the American mind makes electric scooters so alluring? That statement sounds ridiculous.
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#19So what is the VC angle with these super high valuation scooter startups? It doesn't seem very defensible. The barrier to entry isn't very high. And it doesn't seem that customer loyalty would be much of a factor. The most obvious strategy I see is that the VCs think they can pump these companies then dump them on the open markets and cash out before thousands of global, regional, and local competitors flood in and m…
Electric scooters are a fruiting body of the electric car industry (brushless hub motors, batteries etc wouldn't have gotten so developed just for scooters)
Maybe the scooter rentals are propping up another of the vc's concerns?
Re: Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality
#20Can we please get parked scooters off the sidewalk where they present a safety hazard to visually and mobility impaired people?