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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later?

I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don't remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company again.)

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I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.

I've been cycling in SF for more than a decade and am a SF Bike Coalition member, so I doubt I'm underestimating it all that much.

But even if you are right I don't understand why Uber is eager to buy in now. If this takes off so much that Uber is obliged to get in on the action, they can wait. It strikes me as like Apple with MP3 players or smartphones or smartwatches: it's cheaper and easier to let somebody else prove the market and then just come in and crush everybody.

If you've been bicycling in the city for more than a decade, then you're definitely underestimating it. In that "over a decade", you've internalized the mountain of suck that bicycling is, sometimes, and have accepted that as "just how it is to bicycle in the city". Jump, in particular, doesn't have to contend with some of those.

In particular, you've had to lock up your bike and still had it/parts stolen - not your problem if it's not your bike. Not being your bike also takes care of the maintenance - not your bike means it's not your problem! (I mean, don't go around trashing their bikes for the sake of it, but it means you don't have to worry about the derailleur alignment or tire/rim sizes.) There's the logistics of biking - if you go out, but take a taxi home, then you have to come back to get your bike later. Jump means you don't have to, and if you don't bike back, you can take an Uber instead.

You've definitely had a car almost kill you - likely more than once. The new protected lanes that are popping up all over the city don't make that problem go away, but it's a big step forwards.

Imagine having never experienced being almost killed by a car.

Finally, there's that whole pedaling thing. Not to be (further) presumptuous, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 10+ years, there's a stop sign that's been run. If you stop, then you have to start again. That gets old pretty quickly on any street with stop signs every block. Jump bikes being electric makes that stop being such a workout.

None of these problems are truly insurmountable - as your experience proves! There are other problems w/ bicycling that Jump doesn't solve, but Uber's bet is the kind of friction that Jump does solve, will make this purchase profitable for them, $2 for 30 mins at a time.

Finally, since Uber knows where its riders have been dropped off, it's able to use that data to move Jump bikes around the city to optimize their placement.

If you wait until something's a "sure" thing, then it's too late - the price has gone up, so there's less money to be made. The time to buy BTC was 10 years ago, not now, but if you think it's this weird sketchy thing now, 10 years ago it was E-gold 2.0.

I live in a city with ubiquitous (non-E) shared bicycles (Shenzhen), and unfortunately maintenance does become your problem... You have to go from bike to bike performing basic maintenance tests (is the brake working? Is the chain non-rattly? Seat adjustable? Anything broken?) and still sometimes end up with a non-working bike that doesn't work quite right. For the bike sharing company it's an even bigger problem (the two/three remaining companies employ an army of staff to keep moving the bikes to where they are needed and attempt some basic maintenance, literally a team on every street corner).

Ah, the getting on a public bike ritual. But I imagine that this is a problem that could be solved by more money, however I have no idea where the bike sharing company would get it except if they hike the prices.

Mobike in China are on about their 10th version of their bikes. The very latest one seems to be a massive improvement on their earlier ones so far, so it seems they are getting there. Most of their money has been coming from VCs so far...

I've been using BikeShare and have friends with electric bikes, so again, I don't think I'm underestimating it as much as you expect.

But again, even if you are exactly right, it won't be too late for Uber. Either they'll be successful, and so have plenty of money, or they'll be troubled, and this business won't be nearly enough to save them. And in the meantime, it's at best a giant distraction, and at worst they smother it, as happens all the time with large-company acquisitions.

Compare with Apple. They were 3 years behind on smartwatches, 4 years behind on MP3 players, 6 on smartphones. It didn't matter, because they had skills, assets, and market power. It was better for them to wait and let others prove the market and then come in when the shape of consumer need and likely solution was clearer. I think the same would be true if Uber were a successful, stable company.

Also a cyclist, and I think one of the reasons share bikes haven't taken off as much in SF is the terrain. Bikes are a convenient way to get from place to place, but who wants to get sweaty and scared riding around SF hills?

And that’s precisely why Jump bikes are awesome in a city like SF. The electric assist is just enough of a boost that you feel the hills but not so much that you’re breaking out in a sweat going over them.

Ah, my bad. Sounds perfect.

Second Mover Advantage is as valuable as First Mover Advantage.

> it's cheaper and easier to let somebody else prove the market and then just come in and crush everybody.

before there is a dominant player

WRT to your Apple and MP3 market, Microsoft tried the same thing with it's Zune, and failed miserably.

The Zune was not just late but also very ugly.

Totally fair! They're taking off in Europe right now which will help set the tone for how cities can accommodate these bikes. I think incidents like shutting down the L line in New York will help propel e-bikes/scooters forward much faster than anticipated.

Of course, that may not translate to every city but I think it will move across the US much faster than pure dockless schemes.

For your question on why not? I bet being able to move a significant number of trips by volume from your competitors back onto your platform is well worth the cost and mind share that you could build. (e.g. no bikes available? How about you take this uber for x% off instead!)

That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don't think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan & SF I can't think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster/better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any large potential (compared to the Uber scale). Could be wrong though. I actually really hope I am!

Seattle? Portland? Minneapolis/St. Paul? You might consider bicycling while you travel more. In Seattle alone, OFO, LimeBike, and Spin are all competing.

American bicycle infrastructure is behind, but it exists. I don't own a car. I get around those cities on bike without issue. It's as fast or faster than a car in many cases and I'm peddling the old fashioned way (with legs).

Minneapolis? As someone who commuted via bike "before it was cool" in Minneapolis I want to ask what you're smoking :)

The density simply isn't there, and the infrastructure is pretty horrible aside from some exceedingly small areas of the city proper, and of course the amazing bike paths (which typically are not useful for anything other than leisure). If that's what you consider a high bar for "bike infrastructure" in the US, I think the situation is pretty dire.

I moved to Chicago largely due to transit-related reasons, and the bike commute here isn't exactly stellar - but it's at least night and day compared to the average suburban-oriented city in the US.

That said, spending significant time in the Netherlands may have raised the bar too far for me to really think of any US bike infrastructure as being much more than an afterthought at best.

Maybe you need to visit to check up on the state of affairs in the 'cool' era. I biked as primary transit in Minneapolis 2007-2014. The city is commonly ranked in the top ten for bike infrastructure in the U.S. (as you pointed out, admittedly a low bar).[1][2] I've been biking in Chicago for 5 years now and if you're going between any two points that don't happen to be connected by one of the non-deathtrap segments of lakefront, the cycle infrastructure here is at least a decade behind where Minneapolis is at. Most of it due to generally dismal road maintenance which impacts cyclists much harder than motorists, but lots of tremendously unsafe shared road conditions, too.

1. https://www.outsideonline.com/1930411/10-best-bike-cities-no...

2. https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/outdoors-and-adventu...

I don't understand biking in Chicago or Minneapolis. What do you do when it rains, or snows, which is like 2/3 of the year? And after that it's 95 degrees and 98% humidity. There are probably no more than 30 to 45 days a year where it's really decent biking weather.

LOL. There are probably 15 days a year that a truly inhospitable to biking in Minneapolis. On those days the hardcore riders go out anyway, and the rest work from home or catch the bus. Snow isn't a big deal except immediately after it falls, because the city does a damn good job cleaning it up, at least on the major streets. Your pants will get filthy, so plan to change them (or wear snowpants). These are things people in the North deal with even when not biking; have you tried scraping the windshield of a car that's completely covered in half-frozen puddle slush? When it's falling you can bike too, just need to take it slow (same as motorists do) and maybe pick an alternate route that's more secluded from car traffic. I actually think it's kind of fun to slip around in the fresh snow and fall on my ass, while I never much enjoyed spinning the tires on my car. I may just be weird though.

There's nothing out-of-ordinary about the amount of rainfall in Minneapolis or Chicago so not sure where you're coming from with that one, but you just wear a rain jacket and, again, have a dry change of clothes if you're going somewhere that demands formal dress. In Chicago I've found the wind has a much bigger impact on my biking than precipitation.

Well, in Chicago you pretty much bike on the good days. The infrastructure isn't great (like noted by OP in his followup to me) - but the density of the city makes it pretty workable if not entirely enjoyable. You can typically get around on bike on the good weather days faster than most other forms of transit - largely because you're only a few miles from anywhere you need to be.

So in Chicago the typical bicycle commuter commutes on the nice days (maybe half the year?) and will take public transit the rest.

In Minneapolis I commuted via bike for financial reasons so it was mostly a "suck it up, buttercup" sort of deal. You brought changes of clothes, outfitted your bike for the weather, and otherwise just made do. Honestly summer was worse than winter because I sweat a lot in heat. I cannot imagine living in that area without a car voluntarily. You just cut yourself off from far too much - but I suppose this was pre-Uber so the situation is a little bit more tenable.

Public transit in Minneapolis is basically for poor folks or those with DUIs - so it's not exactly stellar and usually not an option for most folks living in the metro area.

Edit: The follow up of "maybe 15 bad days" you had is for what most would call hardcore riders. The number of days the casual fair-weather bicycle commuter rides is far, far, less. I feel pretty comfortable saying this considering my family was known as crazies because we'd bike throughout the winter no matter the weather.

> Public transit in Minneapolis is basically for poor folks or those with DUIs

What? No.

I'm in Minneapolis. I live downtown. I find using the bus and light rail far more convenient and easy then a car. Let alone the baggage a car brings such as maintenance, insurance, upfront costs, and not to mention parking.

I bike here in Scandinavia through all fall and winter, not really sure what's stopping you except from proper clothing and gear.

Is this using a properly sorted MTB (switching to fat snow tyres in the winter months)?

Or the heavy Boris bikes or the small wheeled shopper style that a lot of these bike share companies use and most of these bikes are probably badly maintained.

Not sure who you are but I bet we were friends. Left MPLS for SF. MPLS is "the best city" for nearly anything if you ask a local. Too bad they wasted the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot $20M on shitty latex paint bike lanes at $75,000 per block.

What do you think they should have spent that on?

They treated it like a slush-fund with no accountability. All of the projects were late and gave a feeling of "a little paint cost how much?" Now they're spending more money to make better bike lanes they could have built in the first place. That's a MPLS thing though. They're always trying to reinvent the wheel instead of using the good infrastructure that's been tried other places.

I think your experience in the Netherlands is coloring your opinion a bit. Minneapolis is consistently ranked one of the best cities for biking in the US.

Regarding Seattle and Portland, while it's true there are bike share programs, I don't see them used very often. The few who are using the bikes are either tourists (minority) or the homeless on stolen bikes. Additionally, just about half the limebikes that I see are abandoned under bridges or broken and unusable.

Portland itself is a very bikeable city and a lot of time/energy is spent to improve and grow this infrastructure. Traffic is getting to the point where cycling is faster for inner-city trips, but as I live outside of the city it's a non-starter because public transportation from my end of town is severely limited.

Seattle doesn't seem nearly as bike friendly, and while it's certainly faster to bike or walk during rush hour, it doesn't seem nearly as safe as Portland. I certainly have no interest in cycling in Seattle, driving is bad enough.

I rode up Capitol Hill at 4:30PM every day last spring/summer, took me 10-15 minutes to get home from 2nd & Seneca and never had any safety issues. Drivers in Seattle are fairly aware of their surroundings with everyone walking randomly at all times and the city is adding new bike lanes often.

Going up the hill on a Lime, Spin, or Ofo...no way -- you see those at the bottom of every hill.

I'm in Seattle as well, I have to disagree. Drivers here are mostly clueless. I know many who bike or ride motorcycles, and they have many stories to tell about the cluelessness of Seattle drivers. It's a dangerous city to ride a bike.

Every biker in every North American city has stories about clueless drivers and close encounters, if not full impacts.

Seattle is probably in the top 5 cities for driver awareness, but it has room for improvement.

I would argue it's fairly safe, especially comparing to rural areas. I now live south a few miles outside of the normal Seattle walking/biking and I've already experienced a few near-death situations, but didn't have any problems in my two years downtown. This is just a personal anecdote, but I still do feel people driving Seattle downtown & on the hill are fairly aware of bikers and people walking at any time they want.

If you live on the Burke Gilman trail, biking in Seattle can be pretty good. And they even have a bike lane over 520 now for those hardcore Microsoft bike commuters.

For most trips in Seattle more than half a mile and less than 5 miles in distance biking is the fastest way to travel. It stays competitive for east-west travel and places without mandatory parking minimums for longer distances.

Washington, DC is a big bike commuting city. Jump bikes are everywhere here.

los angeles is perfect for bike transport. it's sunny and doesn't get too hot or too cold most of the year (in the LA basin proper, the san fernando and inland valleys are a different story). the city government is pro bike path and installing more bike lanes every day. biking is faster during the 6 hours of rush hour a day. most amenities are within 2-3 miles (~15 minutes) of where you live. you can take your bike on buses and trains for the daily commute.

the biggest challenge is bike security (not getting it stolen). bike racks and locks are a poor solution if unattended. if we could put bike racks right in front of the gate attendant booths that most public parking garages have, it would be a much better deterrent to theft. and for residential buildings, you could have lockers or a locked bike storage room (possibly with security cameras too).

>"los angeles is perfect for bike transport."

Except that LA is a sprawl and almost nothing is close together. Maybe if you live at the beach its nice.

True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go.

Also, a bicycle can serve as a last-mile connector to the transit system - imagine someone who lives at Wilshire and La Brea but works in West Hollywood, and would like to take the Red Line, but doesn't want to lose an hour to walking.

> True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go.

Isn't LA like, the single place on earth where this is least true?

Most Texas cities are arguably worse, but since it's Texas, the expectations are pretty low.

>"True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go"

I have never heard this before? Do you a citation for this? More likely in LA is that people simply "limit their tether to 5 miles."

the LA i live in (not at the beach) allows me to walk/bike/bus/train to basically anywhere i want to go, most of which is within 5 miles of where i live. when i need to go farther, i can take a lyft or rent a car.

but you gotta get over that perception of sprawl to realize how great LA is for multi-modal transport.

>"but you gotta get over that perception of sprawl to realize how great LA is for multi-modal transport"

multi-modal transport? You mean the bus? The bus in LA is a joke. Nobody wants to take the bus in LA - it takes way to long to get anywhere. The metro is notable in how little area it covesr. I think this map illustrates this well:

https://media.timeout.com/images/103334943/image.jpg

So what does that leave? Cars. You yourself even mentioned ""Lyft and renting a car." Owning a car, renting a car and calling a car are all car-centric modes of transport.

And LA doesn't have a perception of sprawl it is actually sprawl.

I think this is the first time I've ever heard someone make an argument for LA as a bikable city. Very interesting indeed.

I biked around LA as a tourist, but the sprawl was so bad, that the majority of the time you spent in transit only to stop off at certain points. Biking in the Berkeley area is like night-and-day, where I don't have to sit on the bike for 10 min. to get to the next plaza. I'd do it again as I enjoy biking much more than driving, but I'm definitely more on the bike-nut side of things.

i can see that being a tourist in LA could be a little frustrating, especially on a bike. the major attractions like the getty, venice beach, k-town, hollywood, the tar pits/moma, the disney concert hall, disneyland, the huntington gardens, the forum, the hollywood bowl, beverly hills, LA live, the zoo/science center, watts towers, the sunset strip, malibu, etc. can be annoyingly far apart.

but as a resident i almost never do that kind of ping-ponging around town. you can find good food, drinks, and entertainment in each neighborhood so i typically hit up only one area of town on a given evening, depending on which friends i'm with (or visiting).

berkeley is nice and chill and bike-friendly, but it's also tiny compared to LA (18 vs 500 sq. miles).

This seems to be a little bit of coastal elitism. Do you know what the largest market is right now for Bike Share?

It's....Dallas! We have over 20,000 bikes in the city now.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-bike-share-regulat...

Seattle seems like it's doing well with Ofo, Limebike, and Spin however it will never be a replacement for a car, and they're 40-70lb bikes that can't make it up Seattle's hills which makes them kind of useless outside of downtown. They are used often and I see people riding them all day down by the waterfront, especially in the late spring/summer.

I unfortunately don't see them being any kind of major replacement for anything in Seattle anytime soon unless the Mayor actually puts high tolls on downtown exits -- especially since we have fairly good public transit.

Limebike now has electric assist bikes[1] scattered throughout Seattle which makes climbing those hills a breeze.

[1] - http://www.limebike.com/electric-assist-bike

I haven't tried the Lime e-bikes yet, but I'm definitely interested because I see them all around my workplace now.

Have you tried and confirmed you can make it up the hill with little to no issues?

I've watched people go up the hills on e-bikes. It looks easy enough.

Are any of them actually making money? We had Pronto too but it was hopeless as a business.

I live in Toronto - a bike is ALWAYS the fastest way to get anywhere in the city under about 5km (although it's pretty close).

Traffic is pretty bad at core times and the hassle of parking adds quite a bit of time at each end.

I'll throw Baltimore's name out there. They even have a Bike Share program (https://www.bmorebikeshare.com/), which is, interestingly enough, sponsored by Lyft.

There are a lot of cities with older areas which have gentrified into concert/eating/drinking-hang-out hubs. These areas weren't planned so they may be too spread out for foot traffic and adding bikes may increase travel in the area. People aren't about to bring their own bikes but if they're already there why not use them. And if the bike sharing startups prove to cities that people are willing to ride bikes cities, especially those with universities, may begin planning to have dedicated bike lanes. As drivers learn to look for bicyclists it will become safer and easier politically to plan for bicyclists. I'm all for it.

City bikes are huge in Washington, DC. I think there are now four brands of bike shares in the city.

It's also a great fit because traffic SUUUUCKS and there are a lot of healthy people who buy into the concept.

Sounds like what people said about Segway. Don't remember if it was Jobs, but somebody of approximately his tech reputation said "this will change the way we build cities."

Yes, the trouble is, the cities are already built. Basing your business model on cities spending a metric tonne of $$$ on reworking their city isn't going to work.

European cities were built before the car.

American cities were built for the car.

African cities are growing rapidly and can be built for the car, the bike, or something else entirely.

I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly

That is literally what people said about Segways.

This is such a silly reason to be against it, they are incomparable.

I am not against it (well, anymore than any decent person would be against things Uber do in general) just pointing out the eerie similarity

As an additional data point: https://www.statista.com/statistics/397765/electric-bicycle-...

ebike sales are growing rapidly and in general will start to shape cities in europe very rapidly. That will trickle over to the US in a lot of the big cities that are already dense, and then shift over to the less dense but flatter cities (think LA!)

Living in SF these days and up until a week ago I thought the same way. I serendipitously had an opportunity to try a Bird electric scooter. I was heading to a meeting a few blocks away and one happened to be parked outside of the building I was leaving. It was far enough that I would have normally used Uber to get there but not far enough that I couldn't have walked if I didn't have to rush over. Long story short, I grabbed the App, started the scooter, and really enjoyed the ride over. It cost a fraction of the Uber ride and got me there faster.

I've been seeing these scooters popping up all over SF including Lime and Spin branded ones.

I hope to see more of them spring up as a viable alternative to using a car to get everywhere. Though I see the lack of helmets being included with these as a disaster waiting to happen.

Yea I've never seen anyone riding with a helmet on these scooters. U see them all over south park bear the ball park.

I've rode a personal electric scooter for over a year now and I can say a helmet is a must. The biggest dangers I've seen is clueless uber/ lyft drivers cutting you off (happens a lot) and pot holes / cracks in the pavement. They travel at 10+ mph so if you hit a big enough pot hole your going to eat it.

To support your point, e-bikes are fast. They go like 25km/h, and they often beat cars in speed as they do not get stuck in traffic.

It could be a way for Uber to generate goodwill, particularly in Europe where they have been effectively banned from several cities.

Yes, but is the US the area where the product will have the most revolutionary impact? In my view, I would target high density cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Delhi, Paris, etc.

Europe and Asia seem like the most important markets for the technology rather than the US which is littered with sprawled out cities.

The US is the least penetrated market when it comes to bikes. Uber changed the way people interact with taxis/cabs enough to make a cultural impact in many parts of the world, and it has the clout to do the same with bikes. I think it's a good diversification on their part, kind of insuring against the future where driverless cars won't necessarily become the de facto universal means of transit worldwide as the rest of America/SV seems to envision.

Paris has already had a few experiments with dockless bikes, while the docked biked offered by the city are not available because of global replacement done by the lowest bidder.

Since the dockless bikes did not ask for permission of the city, they're now forbidden and the few I've seen were in a bad state.

Also winter. Most of the dense cities in the U.S. also have significant winter weather that makes biking less ideal.

That's a problem being solved already in Scandinavian countries. It just takes education and continually improving infrastructure. The more bikers that are on the road, the safer everyone feels riding a bike, which means more bikers on the road :)

Out of curiosity, how is this being solved in Scandinavian countries?

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/copenhagenize-worlds-most-bike...

The only thing that article says about snow is to prioritize clearing it on bike routes. That isn't good enough by a long shot. Sorry I'm not riding a bike when it's below freezing and I'm not riding a bike in the snow or the rain. Just forget it.

While the amount of bike traffic definitely goes down during winter, I can't recall a day in Chicago this last year where I didn't see anyone in the bike lanes

>"I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities."

Outside of Europe what would you consider the major non car-centric cities?

New york city, the chicago core (probably not greater chicagoland), SF, LA, Portland, Seattle proper would all be excellent candidates.

An e-bike can go 20 miles comfortably which means you could take it to work, lock it up and charge at work, and ride back in the evening for most commutes. I'd guess about 30 minutes is the upper bound average for most commuters that would ride a bike to work. Seattle and SF are perfect for pedal assist e-bikes because hills feel like flat roads, and their public transit system isn't nearly as good as NY

Your listing LA as a non car-centric city? You must be joking. LA is the absolute antithesis of a non-car centric city. Maybe you missed this?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-traffic-los-angeles...

And maybe you haven't been to NYC in a while because although there is lots of mass mass transit, that does not make it non car-centric. It most certainly has a car traffic problem. Just because you don't have to own a car does not make a city non-car centric.

If you look at the inrix score care you will LA is number 1 for traffic and NYC is number 3.

http://inrix.com/scorecard/

Yep, instead of Lyft/Uber I've been using Ford GoBike or Jump bike.

Bit of exercise and gets you there faster and cheaper.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I imagine the key is in how you build defensibility around the core ride-sharing business.

Ride-sharing suffers from the problem of clustered networks - you can be a global player like Uber and still lose the entire city of SF to a competitor like Lyft, or feel a minnow like Juno tear into your margins in NYC.

Having bike sharing in your pocket helps you build a wider moat around these clustered networks. If I typically take a bikeshare to the subway every morning, and rarely Uber on the weekend, Uber might win 10 low-margin trips from me during the week (bikeshare to and from the subway every day), and through the use of a loyalty program incentivize me to make my 2 high-margin weekend ridesharing trips Uber trips.

So yes, it is an adjacency, and it is lower margin than ridesharing and capital intensive, but this is a difficult market and at this point in the game it might make sense.

This is the first economically feasible, rational, and internally consistent response in this thread.

While it still takes a leap of faith to buy, the argument is sound. And using some other posters' terminology, we can put it like this:

If this works, it will drive significant revenue growth and consolidation of both the rideshare and bikeshare markets.

If it fails, meh. It's just "rounding error."

Seems like a low-risk, high reward proposition to me, the way you stated it.

So Uber will use no-margin bike rides to market loss-leader car rides. As ridiculous as this sounds you may be correct.

Strongly agree on Uber's side; this seems like both a distraction and a rounding error even if it's successful.

As for Jump;

https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organ...

They just announced a $10M series A in January. To cash out at a $100M valuation doesn't seem like a bad outcome; after just doing just a series A, the founders' stake is likely to be in the 25-50% range (I'd guess in the lower end).

Obviously the zeitgeist is to shoot for a unicorn, but there are plenty of reasons to chose an earlier exit, only some of which suggest that the underlying business is shaky.

(Dodgeball sounds like a great deal BTW; rest & vest for a year or two, and then go start your company again except this time without having to bring in outside funding for your seed).

Yes and it's not like their 2nd iteration of Dodgeball (Foursquare) was that successful. They've pivoted to business analytics, but I doubt their investors are that happy.

On a scale of 0 to great success I think Foursquare has been doing just fine.

This seems like a defensive play against google maps. The most likely future for Uber is to be a route option in Google maps or some other app, where the user chooses the app first, and the transport method first, and Uber will just be an option with a price tag and time beside it, alongside Lyft and waymo and whatever other services are operating.

Bringing other transport methods under the Uber umbrella seems like a play to keep you opening the Uber app when you want to go somewhere, rather than opening somebody else's app and selecting Uber.

How is this their most likely future... where did this idea even come from?

I suspect it's really good signal for setting up or optimizing routes. Those bikes show very clear underserved endpoints that might otherwise be hard to discover. Might just be a cheap and interesting peek down-market on their geographic data-layer.

The quality of the signal seems to depend heavily on the quality of the bike service. If they aren't moving bikes to where there is demand, they aren't generating any information about where people want to go (because people aren't using the bikes).

It can also miss the forest for the trees if they have a few bikes that they usually put in an okay spot (but not enough bikes to meet the real demand).

One of my favorite purchases over the past few years has been a RadRover from Rad Power Bikes. ( https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/radrover-electric-fat... for the curious.) It's still going strong a year and a half after I got it, and the motor covers all the sins of heavy tires and rolling resistance that a fatbike would otherwise bring to the table. My initial worries about range and getting stuck having to pedal a long way back home have fallen to the wayside- as long as I start with a fresh battery, it will outlast me. And as someone in their mid-40's, it is so nice to be able to feel free on a bike again, without having to worry about struggling up that one hill that blocks an otherwise lovely ride.

I don't mean to sound like an advertisement. I just want to note how transformative owning an ebike has been. A good 50% of my car trips have been replaced, and I enjoy the ride while doing so. And I like my car, too. But ebikes are just that much fun.

Hopefully Uber starts attempting to optimize routes again, if anything they have gotten worse. and every driver I have chatted with seems to agree, most just use Google maps and ignore the directions from Uber.

Huh. As a regular cyclist, I'm a bit suspicious. My view of the city is very different than a car's. And I'd think that Uber could buy bike data for way less than $100m.

These bikes are definitely going to eat into the number of uber rides. It's happened to me personally where I compare the time an Uber ride would take vs a bike and I end up choosing the bike. Interestingly this weekend I ended up choosing an electric scooter over a bike.These things are going to be used in a continuum depending on the situation, especially for younger people in urban environments.

I did the exact same thing. Those electric scooters are also a lot more fun than sitting in someone's Prius. Especially as the weather here in DC warms up, I can see myself shelling out the $2 fee for a bike/scooter way more often than I'd be willing to spend $8-10 for a Lyft.

It looks like a marketing play. There are studies proving that Uber is increasing traffic and pollution (not even talking about workspace issues and drivers explotation). Bikes are eco-friendly and everybody like them.

>everybody like them.

not entirely true concerning the bike share companies. when they are fighting for dominance like they are in Dallas, the city gets littered with the bikes and people start vandalizing them. This happened in Paris so much that the dockless bikeshares pulled out.

The dockless bikeshares pulled out of most of the city where they tried to deploy in France.

I can only hope we in Dallas can achieve the same.

I think marketing play too - there has been so much negative press about Uber they badly needed an ecologically sound, 'no victims' vehicle to move people's minds away from the self driving car death of a bicycle pusher, and the Travis Kalanick era'Fight Club film extra' visuals a lot of people see as the Uber brand...

The relevant buzzword is multimodal transportation, i. e. the trend towards using a variety of different options either on a single route (bike to train) or depending on circumstances (bike when the weather is good, Uber otherwise).

Bike sharing is therefore complementary to "ride sharing" and having the two within one system could potential improve both.

   The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small.

Are you sure that the odds are worse than surviving the 10 year mark without an acquisition? Would hardly be the first time someone sold because they simply couldn't make the growth math work, and they were all out of good options for financing.

I'm not sure, but that's the way I'd bet.

They just took $10m in January, which is a fair bit of runway for testing hypotheses. When they start to run low on that, they can go to every single VC firm for more. Inside Uber, they are going to have approximately one executive to get funding from. Currently that executive obviously likes them. But feelings change, and they're just a reorg or an executive departure away from somebody who gives zero fucks.

Isn't this the same problem with a VC? The funds might like you now, but watch those ride numbers drop a bit and suddenly folks want ridiculous terms and you don't have many options. I would bet that getting $10m a year in the budget for a few years is no sweat at Uber...they had gross revenue of $37B in 2017. I realize they are trying to cut that, but increasing engagement in already profitable cities might have a material impact in the other direction.

I'll bite, Uber benefits from people dumping cars, maybe they see more available personal transport as helping with this?

Acqui-ad? Doing something bike-related is the "politician posing with a baby" of car companies.

If they combine accounts there will be true synergy though: many people either have zero rideshare accounts or almost all of them, the famous lack of moat. The same is probably true where multiple bikeshares are available. Those who have zero accounts in one "x-share" group and multiple in the other would be 100% locked to Uber when they occasionally do cross over from bikeshare to rideshare or vice versa.

You are 100% right with this being just a drop in the bucket though.

I know Uber initially formed a business partnership with JUMP a couple of months ago and I think they started analyzing the data and found a compelling reason (like user adoption, freq, stickiness, etc.) and found a business value to just own the platform.

Uber has become an expert in handling legal frameworks (in particular grey areas), politicians, and precarious workers. Bikes are exactly in their expertise area. Diversification is (IMHO) a good strategy to increase strength.

I suspect this move is about being the go-to transportation provider in any large city, regardless of the mode. Uber is seemingly good about paring back offerings that don't contribute to that vision, like UberRUSH

The extremely cynical view is that Dara is trying to curry favor with Menlo Ventures (backer of both Jump and Uber).

That's interesting. They only took money in January, though so it seems early (and expensive) for a mercy killing. Do you have more theory as to motivation?

No, just doing as Deep Throat advised and following the money.

Why wouldn't he sell? He gets rich.

Because he values something else more than getting rich. E.g., achievement. Or even getting filthy rich.

Note that Mark Zuckerberg could have sold Facebook early on for a variety of "he gets rich" prices: http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t...

And I'd add that anybody who gets into doing a startup only because they want to be rich is probably better off buying lottery tickets.

> Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later?

The two valuable things Uber has is customer credit cards on file and an app installed on their devices. Deals like this that add to those is valuable, and is a barrier to their current and future competitors.

Colleges.

I remember my time as a freshman, getting a bike from Walmart became a necessity after the first couple weeks.

After every winter, I had to fix or buy a new bike just because parts got rusty, broked or vandalize.

So I would totally be happy to just use a shared bike if it was available back then.

If the goal is to jump in and steer the market away from affecting its other line of business then it may make sense... in a protective move that aligns with its car manufacturer partners as well.

I have to believe that some of this about brand awareness.

Citibike is similar, its not a cash cow but every single bike is painted up in Citibank livery and logos.

I am assuming the jump CEO will be too busy sleeping on the pile of money he just made to actually care.

Uber gets you from A to B. I don't see how they couldn't get in now.

It's a shame, Uber won't work on this nearly as hard as the founders did. Like you said founders delude themselves that buyers will help make their vision a reality. Even Facebook, seemingly the best, most hands off startup buyer, is now consuming WhatsApp and Instagram and moving out the original founders.

But...

From Uber's perspective, they have a lot of cash right now. They are worried about a self driving future where Waymo takes all the rides from them. Drivers are expensive (at least half the ride price), and electric assist bikes removes driver wages from the ride expense. And really what is Uber's big monopoly advantage? Just the 2 sided market, but it's local. With a 1000 drivers + advertising you could compete in a local market with them. Right now they are subsidizing a lot of their rides with the world's largest pool of capital, but eventually their capital will run down. If this is a good business they will get competition.

The shared bike business is capital intensive (buying bikes, building infrastructure) but that capital actually buys you some monopoly moat power. It's a really tough business for a startup to be in, but a pretty good fit for a big company. Uber could also do some cool things like a long haul Uber carpool to a bunch of Jump bikes just outside of downtown. Ie. shuttle up 101 to SF, Jump bike to get you through traffic.

For the Jump founder, they have been working on social bikes since 2010, the Uber deal probably includes a cash payout for some of their stock (often after a year). A reasonable guess is that the first 7 years of that were starvation times with a capital intensive business and low capital. At this point the founders might have 20 to 60 percent of the company, with half their stock paid for in cash they might get 10 to 30 million dollars in a year plus the same amount in Uber stock, which is pretty liquid. Plus whatever new grant in Uber stock they get for staying on (it would not be weird if this was another 5-10 million per executive over 5 years). And fundraising is just a massive pain.

From the Jump CEO's perspective:

  Sell
    $10-40 million / founder, almost certain payout
    Never fundraise again
    Lose company (everyone pretends, but that's what happened)
    Still get to run company for a few years
    Slowly watch your good culture be consumed by Uber's bad culture.

  Compete
    Compete with
       - the 3 electric scooter startups that have launched in SF in last 2 weeks  
       - Uber and Lyft
       - buses
       - Go bikes
       - self owned bikes and ebikes
       - driving personal cars     
    2-7 years of hard work before cash, but then more money
    Go before Board of Supervisors meetings to explain your plan for fishing bikes out of the bay
    Keep company and autonomy
    Make vision a reality

The world loses a lot when great startups like this don't compete, but it's understandable that founders sell.

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