9 ms·

Bridj shuts down

• acomjean 10y ago
  As a bike commuter in the Boston Area, I saw the BRIDJ vans (they were actually bigger than vans but smaller than busses, but I have not a name), during my commute. I could never see inside to see if the vehicles were full. I looked into using them, but they didn't serve my area. Seemed like a good idea, there was even talk they would be used when they cut late night T (bus) service again in Boston. For an City that has such weak transportation, and terrible winter weather, they'll be missed here.
  • mcphage 10y ago
    What did they do?
    • acomjean 10y ago
      Basically cross Uber/Lyft with shuttle bus. They had an app that let you schedule a pickup and destination. Its seemed to have a flexible schedule but routes. I never used it but saw them driving around. The hospitals and universities in Boston all run their own shuttle bus service to augment the existing public transit system.
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  • kennydude 10y ago
    So they're a private "almost-bus" company?
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  • okaramian 10y ago
    I think this was the issue. I commute into Boston from just outside the city. I would have considered using this over public transport had it been an option at all. Their routes seem to connect Boston and some edges of Cambridge that are close... but that's it.
  • fiatpandas 10y ago
    Also saw them a lot on my bicycle commute into Boston through Kendall Sq. Never saw anyone get in or out of them.
  • egeozcan 10y ago
    What is (...was) the difference between Bridj and private bus services?
    • accountyaccount 10y ago
      Private bus services are generally long distances, bridj was more or less a shuttle-sized uber.
    • kevinmannix 10y ago
      They had an app where you could easily schedule a ride for the next day. It took away the opaqueness that comes with using private transportation.
• xapata 10y ago
  Here's the most important paragraph: "We made the strategic choice to pursue a deal with a major car company who promised a close date for a sizable transaction in lieu of a traditional venture capital funding round. The close date timeline extended from weeks to months, as they sought to gain the appropriate internal approvals that we (and they) thought were already in place. Throughout, we remained convinced of the close strategic fit and both sides had every expectation that the transaction would close. Despite assurances, and all parties acting in the best of faith, that didn’t happen." Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's bizarre that the board advisors would let that happen. I'm curious how they'd explain the failure. If you've ever done business with an enterprise, you should know that decisions can take years, not weeks or months. Though sometimes a few days if you get to the right person at the right time.
  • seibelj 10y ago
    IMO, it sounds like a cop-out. More likely the business was pretty shaky and no one would invest at even semi-reasonable terms, so they use the "deal fell through" excuse. Are we supposed to believe they only pursued one source of funding, which was delayed months, and during that entire time never tried to find anything else? More likely... they couldn't.
    • xapata 10y ago
      Further, the way to convince someone to close is to give the credible threat of going with someone else: "If you like it then you should put a ring on it."
    • KallDrexx 10y ago
      I don't find it a cop-out at all. A massive sales opportunity came up that could potentially allow them to bootstrap the service without further investment, or investment on better terms based on the increased revenue and growth from the sale. By the time they realized the sales opportunity wasn't going through the investors that were interested had gotten pushed back without reasonable growth to back up the push-back, and uncertainty of the major deal going through, which means the investors would have wanted more for their money then they wanted before. The situation would have then spiraled out more and more as time went on. Such is why strategy and execution of these types of decisions is key for a startup to succeed.
• michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  A more detailed Boston Globe article on the shutdown [1] Bridj was a service that was interesting as it hit a point somewhere between traditional bus services and on demand Uber/Lyft style transportation options. 1 - https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/04/30/bridj-local-demand-bus-service-shutting-down/56xoGs674wYgyUWdrD9EuO/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/04/30/bridj-local-...
• accountyaccount 10y ago
  I think part of their problem is Uber's aggressive fair discounting and driver subsidies. Why would I take a Bridj when I can get a 20-minute-long UberPOOL ride through Boston for $3 - $4? People at my company literally take an Uber to/from work daily because it's only moderately more expensive than the subway (MBTA fares are $2.25 - $2.75). At this point Uber's grown to the size where they can just slash prices and outlast anyone who can't lose as much money as they can. I wouldn't be surprised if public transportation actually started losing a considerable amount of fares to Uber.
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  • Finnucane 10y ago
    Your coworkers haven't figured out how to get a monthly pass? A lot of employers offer a program to buy them with pre-tax income, so effectively a large discount. Can you get Uber for $40/month?
    • accountyaccount 10y ago
      They're aware of pre-tax passes — but UberPOOL prices are generally within a dollar per-trip, so they'd rather pay that premium to save the time and hassle involved with public transit. Bridj was also slightly more expensive than public transit, and still had many of the downsides.
      • lovich 10y ago
        Speaking first hand. UberPOOl costs me an average of slightly under 5 dollars per ride so about twice as much as the T. In exchange my commute goes from 45 minutes minimum on the t, with walking included, to about 28-30 minutes. Between the time saved, not having to walk through weather, and not having my eardrums destroyed by screeching of the rails on the red line or the random delays that can possibly double my trip time, it ends up being worth it. If the price goes above 8 dollars I do end up taking the t however. It's unfortunate that public transport isn't better in Boston, but Uber is almost always a better value for the time and reliability
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• swampthinker 10y ago
  As someone who lives in Boston, Bridj's office location raised a huge red flag for me. They have office space on the ground level of Newbury St. For those not familiar, Newbury St. Is Boston's luxury shopping street. Our "5th Ave" if you will.
  • meddlepal 10y ago
    I'm from Boston and I had no clue that was where there office was located. Definitely a WTF.
  • lighttower 10y ago
    When I lived in Boston they were in Cambridge innovation center at Kendall
    • swampthinker 10y ago
      Yeah I remember them there, which made the move even more shocking.
  • lovich 10y ago
    They really had their office there? Why wouldn't they go somewhere cheaper and have a bridj line to their office so they could dogfood the service as well?
  • xapata 10y ago
    That and the app was terribly buggy when I checked it out. Sure, it had just launched, but I couldn't even create an account.
• Animats 10y ago
  Did they tell all the people who are waiting for their buses?
• vabmit 10y ago
  It seems like they did fail to really analyse the potential in the Boston market. I live in Southern New Hampshire and like nearly everyone that doesn't hold a minimum wage job here, I work in Boston and commute into the city every day (because the New Hampshire corporate tax system is terrible). The commute is an absolutely miserable experience. I used to drive but finally gave it up when my employer changed the way they compensated commuting expenses. Now, I take Boston Express Bus which costs me $315/month. The buses are always over full. There's probably about $100K per month for the Bus Company just in work day commuters. They also do a large number of air port runs through out the day. The problem with the buses is they go to a train/subway/bus station on the south side of the city. But, many (if not most) of the commuters work on the north side of the city. So, they have to buy an additional $65/month subway card and waste an additional 45-75 minutes a day travelling through the congested city to get to and from the buses. Using the subway system in Boston is even more miserable than driving because it is horribly managed and badly maintained. Most riders would love to avoid it. Instead of doing local uber-like shuttles in a city already over served by subway and bus routes that compete with each other (in additional to taxis, uber, employer shuttles, etc), Bridj could have charged $350-$500 per month per person to do a run from southern NH with a Kendall Square drop off and pick up. People would have loved it. Similar routes could have been set up from the South and and West. I think they easily could have done $300,000 to $600,000 per month in revenue with that model. It's a shame they didn't take a good look at the market. The roads in and out of Boston are hopelessly overloaded. They could have made a ton of money and improved people's quality of life significantly. I assume many other large cites (SF, LA, NYC) are the same. Employers locate in the large cities and don't pay their employees enough to live in the cities. That is a problem calling out for a business like Bridj to address.
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  • inthewoods 10y ago
    "I used to drive but finally gave it up when my employer changed the way they compensated commuting expenses. Now, I take Boston Express Bus which costs me $315/month. The buses are always over full. There's probably about $100K per month for the Bus Company just in work day commuters." Most buses hold about, what, 80 people - 80 x $315/month = $25k. How did you get to $100k? It looks to me like a tough business from a capital perspective - if each bus costs your $300-500k (or you lease them), you'd have them utilized for only 4 hours per day.
• taude 10y ago
  The BridgJ's leaving Coolidge Corner were often full durig peak times (and as such, charged about $6/ride). It was nice because ( could go to Seaport or Kendall Square without transferring trains and with a guaranteed a seat (with WIFI). It was a convenient, good service. It easily takes an hour from Coolidge Corner to an office near South Station, despite it only being about 4.5 miles. Two trains + a walk. Sometimes I'd take Lyft Line, but it often wasn't as cheap as pricing varied wildly....
• pedalpete 10y ago
  Slightly off topic, but... I have a request for anybody who is going to be putting up your next "we're shutting down page", please tell us what it was you did, or were aiming to do. I find whenever I see one of these notices, I have no idea what the company was, what they were trying to do, how far they got. It's like a eulogy which only tells a bit about how the person died, but shares no information about what they accomplished or even aimed to accomplish in their lives.
  • xapata 10y ago
    It's funny that you draw the parallel to humans. I'm now imagining the obituary of my startup: Xapateria filed for bankruptcy last week, after a long fight with customer churn. They tried an experimental fundraising approach that gave a few months of extra life, but ultimately succumbed. Xapatistas enjoyed off-sites in the Caribbean, craft espresso, and weekly frisbee tournaments. They are left behind by an excellent collection of Aeron chairs and Apple hardware.
    • pedalpete 10y ago
      I was thinking much more along the lines of "Xapateria's lifelong goal of ... we experienced ... we discovered... ultimately failed due to ...", but I like your humour angle.