Bridj shuts down
bridj.com
bridj.com
"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.
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.
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.
So it may not be as simple as eggs in one baset.
Maybe that "major car company" deliberately ran out the clock on them with the goal of purchasing the fraction of Bridj assets that they actually wanted at fire-sale prices, while avoiding purchasing the assets they didn't want.
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.
Bridj was also slightly more expensive than public transit, and still had many of the downsides.
It's unfortunate that public transport isn't better in Boston, but Uber is almost always a better value for the time and reliability
https://newsroom.uber.com/us-massachusetts/july-pool-pass-ri...
My wife uses the unlimited flat fare package in south bay, 2.99 per pool ride or 7 per uberX ride (with caveats that apply rarely).
- Their software isn't set up to do $0 rides. Even the "free" rides show the total charge and take off a discount.
- They want to do analysis on the price elasticity of demand and don't want to have a divide by zero error.
- Someone thought it'd induce better behavior. Humans start getting weird with "free" things.
Imagine it's snowing or raining on you and three buses skip your stop because they are already full... the extra couple of bucks for door-to-door service without waiting outside and faster, predictable transit is very much worthwhile.
In addition, Uber has offered a month-long/30-day "POOL Pass" for a flat fee, with a buck or two fee per ride which isn't affected by surge pricing. When the pass was introduced it was just one cent per ride, which made it cheaper/comparable to a bus pass. The pricing has since been raised (not cheaper than bus) but still a good deal, considering the benefits. And the program has seen many adjustments without being widely rolled out or promoted, so it seems to still be a program that they are testing out.
took me a minute (I'm a little slow after beer-o-clock) to figure out what you meant.
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-...
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.
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.
There are similar bus schedules from the next city over to the west, Nashua, down Route 3 and another similar schedule from the next city over to the east, Portsmouth. There are additional bus companies that service different cities and towns in Massachusetts. However, they all go to the bus station on the south side of the city.
You would have to lease the buses. The drivers would be the most expensive part of the model, though. There is a shortage of people with commercial licences in this area. The drivers can make anywhere from $45K-$60K per year in salary (not counting benefits). Brijd had already purchased shuttles/buses and had drivers. The Brijd buses were much smaller - probably 25 to 30 seats. But, had they discovered the potential business model early enough they could have bought different vehicles. There is enough demand in the area to deploy double decker buses (80-100 seats). I, and probably many others, would pay a significant premium over the existing $315/month to load/unload on the north side of the city and avoid the additional hour of commute and MBTA subway pass costs.
It would be much more difficult that a cloud based software start-up due to the capital outlays. But, it could definitely be done and be profitable.
BTW, I'll bet if you can get in touch with someone from Megabus they'd set up that route. In other cities they drop off in all sorts of random places. It might be some licensing or regulation issue.
For those not familiar, Newbury St. Is Boston's luxury shopping street. Our "5th Ave" if you will.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....