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In a two sided marketplace customer acquisition and marketing are absolutely fundamental. Uber operates in >600 major cities across the world at this point. 1

In a two sided marketplace customer acquisition and marketing are absolutely fundamental. Uber operates in >600 major cities across the world at this point. 1200 employees would indicate about 1 person per market per side of the market.

xmprt 7y ago
Which is exactly their point. Why localize your marketing when you can build a much more centralized message. This way they spend less on marketing and have a better global brand identity.
- aresant 7y ago
  I'm not going to fight this one to the death but I have direct experience in this marketplace. It is much more nuanced than "let's be centralized" and the idea of handing it all over to an agency is a joke. Marketing / customer acquisition is literally their highest non-driver line item by a gi-fucking-gantic amount. Sales & Marketing represents $3 - 4billion dollar cost vs a total marketing payroll of ~$165,000,000 There are absolute returns to pull out of each market by having localized expertise and control. The fact that even on HN the consensus to my thread is that this should be outsourced indicates the degree to which UBER has masked their real DNA - this is one of the world's largest direct response marketing agencies with a ride-sharing platform attached! If the CEO is taking head shots at marketing you can be absolutely sure that under-performers in the rest of the organization are on notice. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-money/ https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-mo... https://qz.com/1592971/uber-ipo-filling-reveals-how-it-spends-its-money/ https://qz.com/1592971/uber-ipo-filling-reveals-how-it-spend...
  - jandrese 7y ago
    This makes them look closer to a MLM scheme than a traditional business. Most of the corporate focus is on marketing to "employees" at the bottom who end up getting kind of screwed by the system. The product is entirely secondary.

xmprt 7y ago

Which is exactly their point. Why localize your marketing when you can build a much more centralized message. This way they spend less on marketing and have a better global brand identity.

aresant 7y ago
I'm not going to fight this one to the death but I have direct experience in this marketplace. It is much more nuanced than "let's be centralized" and the idea of handing it all over to an agency is a joke. Marketing / customer acquisition is literally their highest non-driver line item by a gi-fucking-gantic amount. Sales & Marketing represents $3 - 4billion dollar cost vs a total marketing payroll of ~$165,000,000 There are absolute returns to pull out of each market by having localized expertise and control. The fact that even on HN the consensus to my thread is that this should be outsourced indicates the degree to which UBER has masked their real DNA - this is one of the world's largest direct response marketing agencies with a ride-sharing platform attached! If the CEO is taking head shots at marketing you can be absolutely sure that under-performers in the rest of the organization are on notice. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-money/ https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-mo... https://qz.com/1592971/uber-ipo-filling-reveals-how-it-spends-its-money/ https://qz.com/1592971/uber-ipo-filling-reveals-how-it-spend...
- jandrese 7y ago
  This makes them look closer to a MLM scheme than a traditional business. Most of the corporate focus is on marketing to "employees" at the bottom who end up getting kind of screwed by the system. The product is entirely secondary.