7 ms·

All you've described is costs, not why costs must necessarily be higher than revenue. Every business has costs, many businesses have seasonality, and every VC b

All you've described is costs, not why costs must necessarily be higher than revenue. Every business has costs, many businesses have seasonality, and every VC blitzscaling business operates at a loss in order to capture market share. It's the playbook. Here's a counterpoint why it might be a viable business: it unlocks a new market. Scooters enable a new class of trips: trips between 0.5 and 2 miles. There's currently not a lot of trips happening in that distance... below that you can walk, above that you take transit, but that coffee shop 1 mile and change away is just enough of a pain in the ass that it's not worth going there. Unless there was something that made it easy to go that distance. Scooters are a new modality of transport that opens up an entirely new class of trips. Combined with the fact that the population is broadly trending towards dense urban environments, you have a whole new market you've unlocked. Scooters aren't about replacing Lyft rides -- no one uses a scooter for a full hour -- scooters are about servicing trips that are too short for an lyft.

javagram 7y ago
In several large cities there is already a workable solution for those trips though. Bike share with fixed stations, like CitiBike in NYC or Capital Bikeshare in DC. As I understand it the fixed bikeshare costs are controllable and those systems are not losing money at anywhere near the rate of Bird. EBikes will be rolling out soon for some of these systems too so that solves another one of the disadvantages they have against eScooters.
- 2FACTORAUTH 7y ago
  The problem with bikes is that you get incredibly sweaty even in the winter. I'm sure there's solutions to that as well but I would prefer not to have to towel down or change clothes after arriving at my destination.
  - smallgovt 7y ago
    This problem is fixed by eBikes. Jump on a JUMP bike in San Francisco and you'll find that there's little to no physical exertion.
  - lkbm 7y ago
    Maybe it's just because I bike a lot, but during the winter, I don't get sweaty at all. I used to be able to bike 95% of the way to work (2.5mi) in jeans without getting sweaty until late June or July. (Those last two blocks going uphill would usually get me, sadly.) And this is in Austin. Yeah, right now I'll get sweaty, because we hit 107f heat index every other day. During the winter I can bike ten+ miles in jeans and a t-shirt without getting sweaty.
- floatrock 7y ago
  And in the marketplace of ideas, why must there be only one workable solution? An electric scooter is a fraction of the cost of an ebike, so you can have more of them, creating a denser transport network. Not as durable, sure, but why not let the investors deal with that risk? And as much as I'd love the US be like the Dutch and have personal bikes go everywhere, I don't bike to the coffeeshop a mile away because the only bikes I see locked up outside in my city are missing, lets say, critical pieces. Bikeshare and scootershare offload the risk of personal property theft.
  - smallgovt 7y ago
    Well, in this case, there may not be enough (literal) space to fit both solutions. Since cities are regulating this, if one solution is generally superior for last mile commuting it will probably take the cake.
    - dublinben 7y ago
      There's plenty of space in every US city being used for storage of private automobiles to support both a bike and scooter share program.
  - Someone 7y ago
    Lease a bike, and offload all repairs to the leasing company (https://swapfiets.de/en/ https://swapfiets.de/en/) That doesn’t guarantee you will have a bike available at all time (if it breaks down, you won’t get a new one in a second), but neither do bikeshare programs.
  - DrScump 7y ago
    offload the risk of personal property theft ... which somebody always pays for (the customers, if the business survives, investors if it fails).
- itronitron 7y ago
  How about a compromise and people start using the Halbrad [0] instead? It has the upright posture that scooter users seem to like with the pedal action that cyclists are used to, plus you can carry it on public transport. Disclaimer, I want these to take off so that the unit costs come down to the point that I can afford one. 0. https://halbrad.de/ https://halbrad.de/
- tedmiston 7y ago
  The electric bikes are great but having a small number of relatively far apart docking stations is a big inconvenience compared to dockless with scooters. Particularly so when you find a station empty of bikes when you need one or completely full when you need to drop one off. I use scooters way more than bikes personally even though the bike program has been in my city years longer. Convenience is everything for a 5-15 minute trip.
blackflame7000 7y ago
Exactly how much do you expect someone to spend on a scooter daily? People can just buy their own scooter if Bird is forced to pay for all the real costs the Parent post described.
- elygre 7y ago
  My scooter will never be where I need it. The bird (or lime or Voi or...) can be picked up where I need it, and left where I don’t.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Much like a car or bike as you go from A > B > C > ... the scooter you own is where you are and thus where you want it to be. And just like car rentals for regular users ownership is much cheaper. Tourism or some other niche maker surely exists, but the overhead assuming they need to break even is huge.
    - elygre 7y ago
      No, the scooter I own would stay at home, as it would be in the way during my morning commute. (I’m not saying it’s for all, but for me, the shared scooter could not be replaced by having my own, which is the argument that kicked of this subthread)
      - Retric 7y ago
        It’s a hassle, but is it a ~10$ hassle because for most people the unsubsidized price is not going to seem reasonable. Bike shares have comparable utility with vastly lower costs, and often can’t break even.
    - Kiro 7y ago
      You pick up a scooter when you haven't brought other means of transportation. That's way more common than you seem to imagine (every day for me).
toss1 7y ago
The value in unlocking the 0.5-2mi trip distance makes sense, but the way you describe it seems like the biggest beneficiary is the hypothetical coffee shop that is just a bit too long of a walk away -- they get the benefit of the increased business and customer base, while each individual rider gets only a marginally better coffee, at the cost of a Bird ride. Perhaps Bird should be looking at hooking up with these sorts of businesses as ways to increase the reach of their locations, either as a co-marketing effort or using the shops as a source of revenue (e.g., sharing value for each ride to & purchase at the shop)?
- jonlucc 7y ago
  The benefit to me as a non-coffee-shop-owner is variety. It's not only better coffee, but more options for lunch, groceries, meeting locations, etc.
  - toss1 7y ago
    Definitely, both benefit -- if there was no benefit to the rider, it'd have long since failed. GP's description just provoked me to notice a new angle
docker_up 7y ago
If there were a scooter every single time I wanted to use a scooter, then it would make sense. But that's not reality. The reality is that trying to get a scooter is haphazard at best. You need to walk around and find one. And during rush hour, it won't be at the Caltrain station because they're already taken and distributed around the city. It's clear as day that there's no way this is going to work at scale in order to justify a multi-billion dollar business.
- floatrock 7y ago
  Wait, so in a thread about a company raising more money for the VC blitzscaling playbook, you're complaining that popular demand for this service appears to be outstripping supply? Lyft and Uber have shown that you can improve matching logistics by bolting on games like demand charges and utilizing various supply-side nudges to direct assets to where you need them to be. These are solvable problems. It seems like you're saying you would happily use the service if there was more of it available.
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    If only scooters could drive themselves to your doorstep... Hey wait a second, that could be it! I'll start my self-driving scooter company today.
    - siphon22 7y ago
      Random billionaire looking to invest here. Email?
  - docker_up 7y ago
    No that's not what I said. I said the only way it unlocks a new market is if there is guaranteed availability, which is functionally impossible. It doesn't take much effort to show that if the scooters start from an area that is very useful, then end up in random locations around the city, and once they are in an unuseful location, they stop getting revenue. And even worse there's the additional cost of getting them charged and then picked up overnight and redistributed by hand. You need to flood the market with scooters so that people get scooters when they want it but cities won't allow it. Plus, it's cost prohibitive. Creating a new market is NOT a solvable problem, especially at the scale of funding that they have received. You can't throw a billion dollars and expect that a new market will create itself. That's why Bird is going to die, probably by the end of 2020.
kameltoz 7y ago
That new market you are talking about was opened centuries ago by a cool little thing called the bicycle.
- duderific 7y ago
  Although, then you have to exert your own energy, which many people find untenable.

javagram 7y ago

In several large cities there is already a workable solution for those trips though. Bike share with fixed stations, like CitiBike in NYC or Capital Bikeshare in DC. As I understand it the fixed bikeshare costs are controllable and those systems are not losing money at anywhere near the rate of Bird. EBikes will be rolling out soon for some of these systems too so that solves another one of the disadvantages they have against eScooters.

2FACTORAUTH 7y ago
The problem with bikes is that you get incredibly sweaty even in the winter. I'm sure there's solutions to that as well but I would prefer not to have to towel down or change clothes after arriving at my destination.
- smallgovt 7y ago
  This problem is fixed by eBikes. Jump on a JUMP bike in San Francisco and you'll find that there's little to no physical exertion.
- lkbm 7y ago
  Maybe it's just because I bike a lot, but during the winter, I don't get sweaty at all. I used to be able to bike 95% of the way to work (2.5mi) in jeans without getting sweaty until late June or July. (Those last two blocks going uphill would usually get me, sadly.) And this is in Austin. Yeah, right now I'll get sweaty, because we hit 107f heat index every other day. During the winter I can bike ten+ miles in jeans and a t-shirt without getting sweaty.
floatrock 7y ago
And in the marketplace of ideas, why must there be only one workable solution? An electric scooter is a fraction of the cost of an ebike, so you can have more of them, creating a denser transport network. Not as durable, sure, but why not let the investors deal with that risk? And as much as I'd love the US be like the Dutch and have personal bikes go everywhere, I don't bike to the coffeeshop a mile away because the only bikes I see locked up outside in my city are missing, lets say, critical pieces. Bikeshare and scootershare offload the risk of personal property theft.
- smallgovt 7y ago
  Well, in this case, there may not be enough (literal) space to fit both solutions. Since cities are regulating this, if one solution is generally superior for last mile commuting it will probably take the cake.
  - dublinben 7y ago
    There's plenty of space in every US city being used for storage of private automobiles to support both a bike and scooter share program.
- Someone 7y ago
  Lease a bike, and offload all repairs to the leasing company (https://swapfiets.de/en/ https://swapfiets.de/en/) That doesn’t guarantee you will have a bike available at all time (if it breaks down, you won’t get a new one in a second), but neither do bikeshare programs.
- DrScump 7y ago
  offload the risk of personal property theft ... which somebody always pays for (the customers, if the business survives, investors if it fails).
itronitron 7y ago
How about a compromise and people start using the Halbrad [0] instead? It has the upright posture that scooter users seem to like with the pedal action that cyclists are used to, plus you can carry it on public transport. Disclaimer, I want these to take off so that the unit costs come down to the point that I can afford one. 0. https://halbrad.de/ https://halbrad.de/
tedmiston 7y ago
The electric bikes are great but having a small number of relatively far apart docking stations is a big inconvenience compared to dockless with scooters. Particularly so when you find a station empty of bikes when you need one or completely full when you need to drop one off. I use scooters way more than bikes personally even though the bike program has been in my city years longer. Convenience is everything for a 5-15 minute trip.

blackflame7000 7y ago

Exactly how much do you expect someone to spend on a scooter daily? People can just buy their own scooter if Bird is forced to pay for all the real costs the Parent post described.

elygre 7y ago
My scooter will never be where I need it. The bird (or lime or Voi or...) can be picked up where I need it, and left where I don’t.
- Retric 7y ago
  Much like a car or bike as you go from A > B > C > ... the scooter you own is where you are and thus where you want it to be. And just like car rentals for regular users ownership is much cheaper. Tourism or some other niche maker surely exists, but the overhead assuming they need to break even is huge.
  - elygre 7y ago
    No, the scooter I own would stay at home, as it would be in the way during my morning commute. (I’m not saying it’s for all, but for me, the shared scooter could not be replaced by having my own, which is the argument that kicked of this subthread)
    - Retric 7y ago
      It’s a hassle, but is it a ~10$ hassle because for most people the unsubsidized price is not going to seem reasonable. Bike shares have comparable utility with vastly lower costs, and often can’t break even.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    You pick up a scooter when you haven't brought other means of transportation. That's way more common than you seem to imagine (every day for me).

toss1 7y ago

The value in unlocking the 0.5-2mi trip distance makes sense, but the way you describe it seems like the biggest beneficiary is the hypothetical coffee shop that is just a bit too long of a walk away -- they get the benefit of the increased business and customer base, while each individual rider gets only a marginally better coffee, at the cost of a Bird ride. Perhaps Bird should be looking at hooking up with these sorts of businesses as ways to increase the reach of their locations, either as a co-marketing effort or using the shops as a source of revenue (e.g., sharing value for each ride to & purchase at the shop)?

jonlucc 7y ago
The benefit to me as a non-coffee-shop-owner is variety. It's not only better coffee, but more options for lunch, groceries, meeting locations, etc.
- toss1 7y ago
  Definitely, both benefit -- if there was no benefit to the rider, it'd have long since failed. GP's description just provoked me to notice a new angle

docker_up 7y ago

If there were a scooter every single time I wanted to use a scooter, then it would make sense. But that's not reality. The reality is that trying to get a scooter is haphazard at best. You need to walk around and find one. And during rush hour, it won't be at the Caltrain station because they're already taken and distributed around the city. It's clear as day that there's no way this is going to work at scale in order to justify a multi-billion dollar business.

floatrock 7y ago
Wait, so in a thread about a company raising more money for the VC blitzscaling playbook, you're complaining that popular demand for this service appears to be outstripping supply? Lyft and Uber have shown that you can improve matching logistics by bolting on games like demand charges and utilizing various supply-side nudges to direct assets to where you need them to be. These are solvable problems. It seems like you're saying you would happily use the service if there was more of it available.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  If only scooters could drive themselves to your doorstep... Hey wait a second, that could be it! I'll start my self-driving scooter company today.
  - siphon22 7y ago
    Random billionaire looking to invest here. Email?
- docker_up 7y ago
  No that's not what I said. I said the only way it unlocks a new market is if there is guaranteed availability, which is functionally impossible. It doesn't take much effort to show that if the scooters start from an area that is very useful, then end up in random locations around the city, and once they are in an unuseful location, they stop getting revenue. And even worse there's the additional cost of getting them charged and then picked up overnight and redistributed by hand. You need to flood the market with scooters so that people get scooters when they want it but cities won't allow it. Plus, it's cost prohibitive. Creating a new market is NOT a solvable problem, especially at the scale of funding that they have received. You can't throw a billion dollars and expect that a new market will create itself. That's why Bird is going to die, probably by the end of 2020.

kameltoz 7y ago

That new market you are talking about was opened centuries ago by a cool little thing called the bicycle.

duderific 7y ago
Although, then you have to exert your own energy, which many people find untenable.