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Lyft Plus

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143 pointsfrancoislagier108 comments

How can companies get away with saying things like 'the most affordable premium option' without providing any pricing information whatsoever? Why do they even think that it is acceptable to do so?

Honestly, I don't care. I'm pretty much auto-ignoring any "request an invite" bullshit these days.

Launch your product, or don't. But I'm not clamoring for an "invite".

When it's actually for-real, then it's easy to compare the price/service ratio.

Maybe it's vaporware. With Lean Startup glasses on, this could be someone(s) trying to validate an idea. Although, I do admit, I thought the page was an April Fools leftover joke.

Marketing critique aside if the idea has legs, people may be interested (perhaps with a better message). That's my takeaway. Practically, at the right price, I might use a service like that.

1. Don't have to drive 2. I can be somewhat assured of quality (and not have to rent a limo & driver for myself).

This could be an MVP. Build a landing page. Drive traffic to it. See if anyone cares. If they do, then design the product. It's quite simple really.

Technically I wouldn't call that an MVP. I'd call that a 'survey'.

You can't have an MVP (minimum viable product) without product.

This is the ultimate form of Lean Theory bullshit. It's parasitic and ridiculous.

It's not just Lean Theory/MVP blah blah. Microsoft has done this for years. Splashy PR announcement of a hot-shit new thing they cooked up in R&D. Then a year later, closed down.

Is it? I think it's a great way to test hypothesis for early-stage companies.

For lyft, on the other hand... not so sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery its real, deal.

It's not the puffery that's being objected to, it's the way they are actively avoiding providing basic information needed to understand the puffery.

Don't woo me with "the orangest chairs in America" and film it in black and white.

oh so there is a legal term for "peacockin'"

How can they get away with "a custom grille displays our signature 'stache in brushed steel"... And that's after the diamond stitching mention. Come on! It's six seats and snacks so just say that.

It now says "Lyft Plus promises the most affordable premium option"; is this different than it was before?

Generally, I look at language like this as how they want to position the product in the marketplace; I think there is still some value in knowing this, although you cannot trust it until they offer something more tangible.

Some businesses say, "If you find a competitor with a lower price for the same item, we'll sell it to you for N% less." I suppose that's one way to get away with such language.

Also, "affordable" is a weasel word. "Most affordable" may not mean "lowest price."

Considering how few players there are in this market, shouldn't it be pretty easy to guess? Usually I'd agree with you, but in this case I'm not sure if it's really that vague. Just assume somewhere around an Uber black car.

Surely you aren't proposing any limit on free corporate speech.

"We started by reimagining ridesharing."

I've always viewed Lyft as Uber X with a pink furry mustache. What exactly have they "reinvented" before this announcement that wasn't already "reinvented" by Uber before them?

Uber started at the top and then did Uber X to go down in pricing.

Lyft started at the bottom and now goes up.

My biggest problem with all of these services is that there aren't enough drivers (at least in Boston), and I can rarely actually find one on any service when I need it. And it seems a large % of the drivers are actually chilling at home, waiting for a ride (which is fine), but sometimes don't "move" on the map for 10-15 minutes from the time they accept the ride. It will appear they are a 5 minute drive away, but that becomes a much longer wait.

I've noticed that too, it's infuriating. And with Uber and cabs, they all mark themselves as having 'arrived' some 2-5 minutes before they pull up - it's like, dude, I can see you on the map as six blocks away, how the hell do you get away with this?

With Uber, marking themselves as "arrived" does nothing but notify the passenger. I asked one driver about it and he says he does that a few blocks away because he doesn't want the text to be delayed.

The actual paid portion of the ride doesn't start until you enter the vehicle and the driver taps the Start Trip button.

You can also verify the entire trip later on your receipt. It shows the entire trip on a map, plus the start and end times, so you can verify that it matches your expectations.

Huh. I find it annoying because I'm usually watching for the car once I get the text and so extra time after being told "I'm here!" feels longer (it's like having a recorded announcement break into the hold music on a phone call), but also I think because I had assumed that they were getting somehow tracked on how long it took them to get to the pickup and they were gaming it by making the signal less useful to me. I know it's not increasing my trip length, thanks!

It's most probably because they have KPIs to fulfil set by Uber and they are gaming the system that way. If I were Uber I would definitely monitor quality of service by measuring the arrival times for each driver.

Is there no way to report this sort of behavior? Possibly by refusing to ride with the driver?

I have left feedback on it, refusing to ride would just slow me down even further at that point and isn't worth it to me.

Don't know what you're doing wrong. I live in the south end and use Uber and Lyft (mostly Lyft these days) all the time to get around Boston. Rarely do I wait more than 5 or 6 minutes. Often times it's 2-3 minutes. Both services have been pretty great on average. In Boston, I find Lyft drivers to be nicer (and Lyft marketing less douchey) so I try to use them when the wait times are similar. I'll wait an extra 3 minutes to ride Lyft if I have to but usually I don't have to.

As a point of comparison, in San Francisco (ground zero for these things), a city where flagging down a cab is very hit-or-miss, they're everywhere -- it works great.

I may be wrong, but Lyft did ridesharing before Uber. Uber X was initially professional drivers with mid-range hybrid cars, while Lyft used the ridesharing model. Then, Uber moved to the ridesharing model for Uber X with relaxed driver and car requirements.

(Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

Uber went into Lyft's space with Uber X. Lyft is going into Uber's space with Lyft premium. For Lyft users who prefer not using Uber is who its for.

As someone who has used both services (and others like Sidecar) they are all about the same to me. Generally, Lyft seems a little friendlier than Uber. However honestly all are light years ahead of a yellow cab- in which the drivers rarely accept cards (machine broken), refuse to use GPS, and talk on the phone nonstop (despite the laws on that).

I was a longtime Uber user who started using Flywheel a few months ago and haven't switched back. You get the convenience of an app as you would with Lyft/Uber along with the professionalism and expertise of a cab driver. I don't want to have to sit idle in the front seat of a Lyft for two minutes while the driver punches in the address on Google Maps, I want to say "Bush and Sansome" and have the driver take me there the quickest way possible. Also I don't have to feign interest in the driver's backstory and keep up a weak conversation during the entire ride--I just want to sit back, check my FB/Twitter feed, and zone out for a few minutes until I have to be "on" again when I arrive at my destination. If the cab driver sucks, you can just give them a low rating and you'll never get that driver again. I should note that I do not work for Flywheel, just a huge fan who switched from Uber due to some scummy tactics I read about (employees overwhelming competitive apps, etc).

Lyft allows you to input the address yourself right after you book a ride. The driver simply has to click on "Navigate" and he/she gets directed by their default maps application.

And I've never understood why people get so turned off by the driver talking to you. It's not that hard to tell the driver that you have to take care of some work on your phone- I've done this a few times before and the drivers have all been very respectful...

You get the ... professionalism and expertise of a cab driver

Hmmmm, that's usually stated in inverted commas and the precise argument why Uber/Lyft is better.

What I wonder about Lyft is the extent to which friendliness scales. That it has scaled so far is obviously due to the fact that they can simply project that sense of friendliness and then rely on individual drivers to actually do the work of giving that impression to customers, but what if they want to expand their business into domains where friendliness is unimportant or even a downside (an example might be something like the bike messaging that Uber is getting into in NYC, where prompt service basically requires the service provider to be brusque)? In such a market, the company wouldn't be able to trade on their reputation as the friendly alternative and in fact might be even harmed by the expectation that they would be that. Is friendliness a straightjacket in the making?

1. Friendliness is always important in customer interaction. 2. Chick-fil-A is an example of "friendliness" scaling up to x0,000 employees. 3. No, being nice is not a straightjacket in the making.

Of course, but I'm not talking about mere interpersonal politeness so much as having friendliness be a central component of your branding. Chick-Fil-A, for all its vaunted good cheer, still has all the trappings of a commercial transaction, whereas Lyft tries to downplay that in favor of appearing as merely a facilitator of intra-community interactions. That part, specifically, is the part that I wonder about.

Yeah, super friendly - unless you're gay!

The one near me sponsors a pride parade every year, so I guess some things don't scale that well :p

In my experience the friendliness permeates the entire company. Lyft (as opposed to Uber) has heavily invested in Customer Service that is absolutely top notch. To my knowledge, this is a quality they actively look for in every hire they make regardless of whether that's a driver or a developer.

Aren't there laws against the whole "machine broken" thing?

The machine seems to start working when you tell the guy to mail you an invoice.

Yes.

There are plenty of them but it seems all of them are broken -one way or the other.

The difference between Lyft and Uber was once described to me as "Use Lyft if you want to talk to the driver, use Uber if you don't". So yeah, if you value conversation with the driver, you'll probably find Lyft to be the friendlier service. Me? I'd rather not maintain a conversation with the driver.

I've used Uber, Lyft & Summon (in SF). I was a big fan of Uber (UberX), but Summon is much cheaper than UberX or Lyft (I think 15% is the official number).

And yes, I do feel sometimes there are less drivers, but I just open those apps in order : Summon, then UberX, then Lyft.

I also talked a lot to the drivers (of all companies), and it seems like Uber drivers are really treated like shit, which is mainly why I switched to competitors.

Seems like the only difference is they give you chocolate and let you use the driver's cell phone charger.

By controlling for the vehicle, they can guarantee the comfort (leather seats & space for 6) and the amenities (charger, which usually Lyft drivers are always happy to let you use).

It's the other way around. Lyft was first with discount peer-to-peer "ridesharing" (Uber X copied that) and Uber was first with premium black car & SUV service (Lyft's copying that now). They are each copying each other.

I'm curious about the economics. I presume they're buying the SUVs?

By getting into the game of managing a fleet of vehicles, I imagine their margins will look more like a cab company's and less like a software company's.

It's as curious as if Airbnb started buying up hotels and their associated inventory risk.

    Lyft won't actually own the new luxury rides, which were 
    designed specifically for the company by West Coast 
    Customs. Instead, individual Lyft drivers are buying the 
    vehicles with some financial assistance from the company, 
    according to a spokesperson.

    The move means Lyft won't have to deal with issues like 
    car maintenance or storage, and also maintains the peer-
    to-peer element that has propelled the company. The costs 
    of the cars, and the total assistance offered by Lyft, 
    isn't being disclosed.

From http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/lyft-premium-service/

Lyft becomes the bank...

Lyft becomes the taxi brokerage that monopolizes the kinda of car you can use.

Lyft doesn't own these vehicles, the drivers own them (and therefore they can use them as their primary cars all the time). Lyft is just helping drivers upgrade (they've negotiated special pricing).

Interesting, this is what a lot of taxi cab companies here in Warsaw for the past 10 years. Škoda, Toyota and Fiat have all given them great deals on various models as a means to promote their car brands.

Uber has been maintaining fleets for a long time. Don't have a source off the top of my head but I know from talking to lots of drivers here in Chicago that they regularly take their top-rated drivers and offer them a (company-owned or leased) SUV or town car to drive as a part of Uber Black.

There are companies that get a contract rate with Uber to say, have X cars on the road 24/7. They in turn hire enough drivers to keep the cars moving all the time.

I'm fascinated by how logistics work, so I was asking my Uber driver a bunch of questions. He explained the above to me and said he was referred over to one of these companies because he didn't (or couldn't) buy his own car at the time.

This is not true. They perhaps contract with them to set minimums, but Uber does not own the cars.

The phone chargers are a small, but very big improvement. Snacks I could be whatever about, but getting 10% extra juice in my phone during a taxi ride could make the difference for me between requesting an uber ride or this.

It's worth pointing out that the chocolate pictured is $8+ for a 2oz bar.

It's small-batch, handmade in the nice part of the Mission with carefully-sourced beans. Basically as San Francisco as it gets.

Seems like the cost would add up, but I guess they hope most riders won't partake.

http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/

Notice they didn't exactly say the amenities would be free.

Actually, charging for concessions (conveniently via the app) might be a very interesting business model. At the very least it might allow them to subsidize their base price, which is super-important given the price war with Uber that's going on right now.

Deleted comment

It explicitly says: "100% customized for comfort Settle into complete comfort with our fully customized 2014 Ford Explorers." So unless they are only accepting applicants who have 2014 Ford Explorers, it seems like they are providing the car here which seems like a substantial change...

Modified by WCC? No thanks, don't want a ride in a gaudy death trap.

Are they really giving out $8 bars of chocolate with the ride?

http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/store/products/mantuano-ve...

They probably cost $3 for trade...

The thing seats six, which is overkill for a typical ride of one to three people. I guess they are going for a Super Shuttle kind of market of carting around assorted distinct customers. A souped up Explorer does beat a Ford van. But as anyone who has ridden in a Super Shuttle can tell you, it takes too long and doesn't save you much money over a cab anyway.

I think the market is for groups of people out partying (which in my group averages 4-6) who don't want to split up. Fitting 4 people into a Civic + driver is already uncomfortable so paying a small premium to keep the group moving together makes a lot of sense in urban markets.

It really seats 3 passengers plus the driver. A Town Car is an easier option for 4 adult passengers. I don't think adults are going to want to be in the middle seat in the middle row, or in the third row. I guess drunk people would, or children.

I'm sure the ride is private and not shared as in a Super Shuttle. The service seems to be more in position to compete with Uber SUV than Uber Black Car, where the best value is really in using it for larger groups of 5 or 6 people.

Do they still require Facebook?

I don't have a Facebook account. I wanted to try/use this service in SF but was disappointed when it required me to sign into Facebook.

They recently rolled out a "log in with phone number" feature, so there's no need to have a Facebook account anymore as far as I can tell.

Got so tired of this that I have reactivated mine, but I don't use it except for these logins.

Facebook is no longer a requirement to use Lyft. Just a valid mobile phone number.

That video was 15 seconds ...

lol yea it was pretty pointless. I definitely regretted clicking on it.

I used to work at Kozmo.com during the dot com gold rush. And I remember our escalating battle with UrbanFetch.

Economics went out the window as it was all about customer acquisition and beating and coming up with better deals for customers. Ultimately, the only person who made money from our ridiculousness were bike messengers and other service providers (real estate brokers)

A lot of what I'm seeing with Uber & Lyft reminds me of that time. Some of my observations on it here - http://4044walnut.com/uber-verus-lyft-kozmo-urbanfetch/

I am from St. Louis where there is currently a restraining order due to conflicts with the local taxi union. My understanding was that Lyft had the argument of "we arent a real taxi service since the amount paid is optional, and its peer to peer", which is why they felt they could launch in markets that let taxi commissions monopolize a market. Doesn't this just turn that gray area into black and white?

In many cities, the black-car market is regulated differently from taxis, and if Lyft Plus fits the definition of a black-car service that might sidestep the regulatory concerns.

Stolen from another comment http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ube...

Looks like they are selling the cars to the drivers. It's like NYC's medallion program, but weirder.

Why do so many new sites use this exact style of website? It's like it is so supposed to be new, modern and minimalist, but it is getting old already.

I'm not sure its supposed to be "new, modern and minimalist", just responsive.

Almost all of Lyfts customers have only ever interacted with Lyft via mobile.

Do you have any thoughts as to why this style has taken off? It's a one-off single page website. I would expect anyone designing it to use the common contemporary design to quickly and cheaply get something out the door. Not sure if a 1 page announcement needs a lot of original creative thought put into it.

I think Apple started the trend of large graphics alongside big marketing text. The pages look similar to this: http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/

It's kind of annoying. If you click the link to request an invite or become a driver and then close the popup, you can't use the back button to go to the previous page.

Fascinating that Lyft seems to be owning and administering the actual vehicles with Plus (custom Ford Explorers). To my knowledge, none of these services do that yet.

According to the Verge article, they are selling them to drivers, with priority to current Lyft drivers by seniority and activity

RubyRide in Phoenix also maintains its own fleet. However, unlike Uber and Lyft, it's a subscription-based personalized driver service.

Wow, that video told me nothing.

For anyone from Lyft-- you need a loyalty program for all of us that spend hundreds of $s a month :)

It would seem that you are being pretty loyal without one ;).

Interesting. Guess it was only a matter of time with the proliferation of ride share platforms. I wonder if drivers are employees or contractors? Seems as though the cars will be more uniform than Uber Black/SUV.

This looks desperate, Lyft is just grabbing for ways to stay relevant. I don't see how they ever raise enough to actually compete after giving away nearly 40% of their company on that last round.

Is this satire or is this an actual company? I honestly can't tell. This could very well be viral marketing for Silicon Valley.

I was 100% sure this was a joke until clicking into the comments

So, other than the mobile phone app, is there any difference between this and the other limo services out there?

For some reason the "watch the video" button isn't displaying in Chrome but it is in Safari.

You didn't miss much, the webpage is more informative than the video.

Youtube link if you feel so inclined: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVPy-2tqIn4

Is this just a straight livery service?

Looks like they're staying out of that. The plan seems to be sell these cars to their top Lyft drivers, with the promise of more ride money.

From: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ube...

"[Lyft is] purchasing the vehicles and having them outfitted, but then drivers have the opportunity to buy them and drive in them. The first crop of drivers given the chance to buy into that are some of the oldest and most active, Lyft says; how much they'll pay for that privilege, the company won't say."

Who in their right mind would invest in one of these? You're taking a serious risk that one day you might not be able to make a living with your swank, expensive luxury SUV. Or is there so much earning potential there over the top of regular Lyft rates that it's worth rolling the dice?

We threw around some wild-ass guesses as to the numbers in the office, and came up with the idea that it's probably a bit better to be a Lyft+ driver than a Lyft driver, assuming (and this is a big if) that Lyft can deliver you a similar volume of rides.

The big thing is that this Ford Explorer is probably not a lot more expensive than a Prius is. Priuses tend to cost about $30,000 all in. Ford Explorers start at $30,000. Assume $10,000 in after-market add-ons, but then assume that Lyft negotiates your base price down to $25,000 because they're buying a bunch of them, you're only an additional $5,000 in the hole compared to a Prius. Gas is twice what a Prius owner pays.

And they're charging twice what Lyft ordinarily costs.

So, basically, if they can deliver the same number of rides, your gross is twice as high, your costs are something on the order of twice as high or actually a bit less than that, means that your take-home pay is probably about 150% what a normal Lyft driver makes.

Again, the big if here is whether you are in fact getting the same volume of rides that the downmarket offering is. And the question there is how much supply Lyft wants to put on the road. Are they willing to have more failed rides in order to support their drivers' incomes? Is the demand for a Lyft premium option there at all? Alternately, is the demand really high and you're going to be surging (yeah, yeah: "prime time tipping") more often and making a higher gross? Nobody knows right now.

Disclaimer: I work for Flywheel, a Lyft competitor.

Agreed. It seems like the "right" thing to do if you're running a personal taxi service is to buy a reliable used car in the high tens of thousands of miles, and then drive it until it dies. Buying a new car -- you'd have to make thousands of dollars more per year to justify the depreciation.

I was wondering the same thing, but I'm sure they ran the numbers and gauged driver interest before launch. Quite curious to see how it turns out.

I always thought the mustache cars were Uber. I barely even knew about lyft ... but there's the mustache and ...

Hopefully this is useful to marketing/awareness people at either Uber or Lyft ... I can't be the only one that has this completely wrong in their head.

Uber has always been the black car, and now they have glowy stickers. Pink mustaches have always been Lyft's gig.

Don't think your mix-up is too common. =P

Why are all the comments here treating this as a serious product? It's satire! The car has a moustache! They used the words "ford" and "luxury" in the same sentence! They have a photo of dandelion chocolate!

If this drove itself that would be amazing.

Okay, I have no idea whatsoever what the site is trying to tell me or sell me, what do they offer, and if this is a joke or not. Anybody care to enlighten me?

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