Micromobility

On this episode, Horace joins Oliver on the show to talk about what an entry by Apple into the mobility market would look like, and why a car is perhaps the wrong form factor to be looking at. They talk through the growth prospects for micromobility, and why Apple’s entry into the market would be a meaningful contribution to the world of mobility. This is on the back of Horace’s post ‘Apple Computer’ published on the Micromobility Industries blog recently. Check it out here: https://micromobility.io/blog/2021/1/11/apple-computer Specifically they dig into: - The parts of the upcoming Micromobility World conference that Horace is most excited about - The size of the car market vs the micromobility market as it currently stands - Where the margins lie - Why Apple has typically entered into industries that are still ‘embryonic’ - What a meaningful contribution could look like and what technologies would materially affect the user experience - The constraints of infrastructure on useability and the ‘feel’ of

Fun fact: Seoul, South Korea is the largest market for shared scooters globally, and Beam is one of the largest players there. This week, Oliver interviews Alan Jiang, founder of Beam, the largest shared Micromobility operator in Asia-Pacific. Asia is one of the hotspots for micromobility given its home to the majority of the world’s population experiencing the growth, density and ensuing urban congestion where micromobility really thrives. We’re very excited to cover more of it in 2021. Alan has a great view over the market and it's nuances. Speciflcally they dig into: - Alan’s background at Uber and then Ofo - how he’s seeing the market develop in Asia and Australasia - Seoul - it’s the worlds biggest scooter market, and you're one of the largest players. What are the benefits to scale and what are they seeing? - Beam’s unique commodity hardware strategy - fundraising and what he’s seen change in the conversations over the last 12-24 months - how Alan think of the ridehailing players, and whether Grab

Today on the show, Oliver interviews Puneeth Meruva, Associate at Trucks VC about their latest report: The Three Axes of Micromobility: Supply Chains, Distribution and Maintenance about the often unseen world of getting Micromobility into the hands of consumers. This is a topic that hasn’t received much coverage to date, so it was a fascinating conversation fully of nitty-gritty and relatively technical details about the opportunities for development and investment in the micromobility ecosystem. Specifically they dig into: - a recap of Trucks VC, their thesis and other portfolio companies in the Micromobility space - Puneeths background and how he got there  - what the research was about, and why Trucks undertook it - key findings in the fields of components, distribution, maintenance etc - Whether timelines for new product development are getting shorter vs longer and why - Who the interesting businesses are in the distribution and maintenance space - future opportunities in design and tech both in vehic

This week Oliver interviews Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman, cofounders of Ridepanda, about their efforts to build a better customer journey for purchasing owned micromobility. The platform is relatively new, but it hits on a very relevant need. Thanks to Reilly Brennan from Trucks VC for putting us onto them. Specifically we dig into: - Their backgrounds at Bird, Scoot and Lime and how that led them to starting this business. - The core customer needs that they’re trying to solve - The importance of trusted reviews and reliable servicing for customers - What matters to customers, and why brand is far further down the list than expected - What early traction they’re seeing - How COVID 19 has impacted the buyers guide - Their fundraising journey and what they’re seeing for Micromobility related startups in general.

This week, Horace joins Oliver for the podcasts 100th episode, and they run through what’s happened in the last 2 and a half years, and wonder aloud what will happen in the next two. Specifically they dig into: - Horace’s early theses - The emergence of scooters and why they proved to be so challenging to Horace’s ideas about what vehicles would be most popular - The biggest mistake that Horace thinks he made in his early theories - What Oliver considers the biggest barriers, and where he over and underestimated progress over the last 2 years - Where they expect to see development - The pace of adoption, and why patience is needed.

This week Oliver interviews Richard Burger, co-founder of Swapfiets, the largest bike subscription service in Europe. With more than 220,000 subscriptions and growing rapidly, it’s a great discussion on solving the job-to-be-done for biking/micromobility, as well as the challenges and opportunities of operating large service business at scale across 6 (soon to be 7) countries. Specifically, they cover: - The context of the existing bike ownership experience in the Netherlands that gave rise to paying 16 euros a month to rent a bike. - The origins of Swapfiets, and the genius marketing decision to use a blue-front wheel to make the bike’s identifiable - The operational challenges and economics of the subscription business - Who their customers are, and how that’s evolved over time - The launch of their new electric bike, and how that’s performing

This week Oliver interviews Dmitri Pivovarov from Bolt Mobility, which is one of the largest ride hailing players in Europe, and has been quietly building a micromobility business which recently announced it was expanding to challenge Tier as the largest micromobility operator in Europe in 2021. Oliver uses this episode to dig into the interplay between ride hailing and micromobility, how Bolt has built the business, and get an update on the overall shared micrombobility market in Europe. It’s a great interview. Specifically, they dig into: - The history of Bolt Mobility, and it’s origins as Taxify - Clarify that they are indeed, not endorsed by Usain Bolt - Talk about the nature of mobility markets, and servicing this demand with either ride hailing or micromobility - How the Bolt team sought to approach building the micromobility business, and how they’ve built a very cost-effective operations engine for scaling - The unique design points from their new custom hardware - The state

Today Oliver interviews Horace for a fun review of the parallels between the smartphone revolution and what we’re seeing play out with the growth of lightweight electric vehicles trips. It’s also a hilarious chance to hear Horace talk about how we think about fostering children as a species and ask why the same thinking isn’t applied to how we run organisations and products. Specifically they dig into: - The history of the smartphone industry, and why business model rather than competence dictated the fall of Nokia. - Discuss the importance of understanding the framing of job-to-be-done and why that matters for micromobility. - Horace points out how the fostering and growth of children is so natural to humans, and asks why it is yet so challenging for companies to foster comparable innovation. - Talk about how incumbent car manufacturers will be treating micromobility internally, and how the immune systems of the organisations will struggle to accept such a wide departure from their standard business mo

This week Oliver interviews a fellow kiwi, Timothy Allan, CEO of Ubco, about their heavy duty electric motorbikes. While the firm is small - they’ve sold a bit more than a thousand units across NZ, Europe and the US - it ticks a few interesting disruptive innovation boxes, mainly by meeting the customers core needs in very specific ways through improved reliability and then  creating new jobs to be done in the form of silent transport and portable power packs that change the basis of competition against other ICE options.  Specifically, they dig into:  - The history of the Ubco brand/motorbikes in 2014/15 - Why farming environments in New Zealand are the perfect place to test heavy duty micromobility vehicles - The value of getting bikes into the hands of customers for real world feedback - The importance of quality in componentry in a heavy duty setting - The challenges incumbent manufacturers will face transitioning across to electric powertrains - How they think about distribution and servicing, and

This week Oliver interviews Amir Haleem, the CEO of Helium, about Peoples Network, which promises ubiquitous coverage and data costs of $1/year to connect a Micromobility vehicle. Oliver has been incredibly excited about what they’re up to for a while, and so welcomed the opportunity to sit down and unpack what they’re doing and why it’s transformational. Specifically, they dig into: - The history of Helium and the importance of permissionless innovation. - What is LoRaWan and why does it matter? - Why does Helium use blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to make their back end system function, and why is that largely irrelevant for customers? - How big the network now is, and how quickly it’s building out - Why this may well be the new model for how we build out telco networks in the future. - Why this is perfectly suited to Micromobility, and what possibilities it unlocks in terms of diagnostics, tracking and other value add services - How $1/year data costs are transformational, and how the costs f

This week Oliver interviews Derek Dorresteyn, COO of Damon Motorcycles. Derek previously worked at Boosted and was the CTO at Alta Motorbikes, one of the first electric motorbike manufacturers globally. They do a whistle stop tour of the electric motorbike space, including why it’s so hard, what we’ve collectively learnt and Dereks predictions on the space. Derek has been around the space for a long time and thinking about the challenges longer than most. Specifically they dig into: ⁃ Derek’s history in motorbike racing and eventually setting up a machine shop business. ⁃ His early forays into electric motorbike after reading the Tesla blog ⁃ The story of Alta Motors, including their raises, development, partnership with Harley Davidson and eventual closure ⁃ His work with Boosted on the products that would come after the Rev ⁃ His reflections on capital raising in the micromobility hardware space from 2010 onwards, and why now it’s easier than ever to raise ⁃ His work now at Damon Motorcycles, and th

Horace rejoins Oliver on the podcast to revisit the original reasons that Horace started looking at micromobility, and identified it as a disruptive innovation. It covers the context of the research that he was doing at the time, and why it meets the theoretical and anecdotal indicators that it’s going to change the way that we think about transport. Specifically we dig into: ⁃ Horace’s research into the auto market, and why he didn’t think that the shared, electric autonomy that was all hype in 2014-16 was going to deliver on it’s disruptive potential. ⁃ Why only when asking questions that no-one was asking about cars did he start to see the potential for micromobility ⁃ Why a lack of datasets is confirmatory that he was on to something, and why that’s been problematic ⁃ What he think he got right in the original thesis back in 2018, and what he thinks has changed since then ⁃ Horace reviews his own predictions, what he got wrong and what he didn’t see back then. This is another classic Horace episo

This week Oliver is joined by Horace for an update and discussion on heavy micromobility, including a recent video interview of Sandy Munro, the automotive engineering guru, and Mark Frohnmayer, CEO of Arcimoto talking about their three wheeled electric auto-cycle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC2Y6aA67Rk]. Mark has been a guest on the podcast in the past in episode 46 and Micromobility Industries are big fans of what they’re doing. Finally, they circle back on the age old question of whether Tesla is conforming to disruptive innovation theory. Specifically, they dig into: - How Arcimoto is conforming to the theory of disruptive innovation with the way that it’s approaching the market - underserving, lower end, modularised production, solving for the job to be done - and why it’s the first stock recommendation (other than Apple) that Oliver has ever heard Horace make. - The history of overserving the customers in the car market, and why there’s a space under them in the market for heavy micromobility -

Today Oliver interviews Paul Steely White, head of Policy at Link by Superpedestrian. We had Assaf Bidermaan, the CEO of Superpedestrian on last year to talk about their new scooter, but that was before they launched Link and recently won one of the Seattle scooter permits. The second mover advantage in this space continues to become clearer and it was great to dig into this. Paul has been around the micromobility/bike advocacy traps a long time first at Transportation Alternatives, then Bird and now Link, and like many others we’ve had on, is a bit of an OG of the space. We hope you enjoyed this as much as we did. * His background at Transportation Alternatives, Bird and now Superpedestrian * How and why Superpedestrian decided to start LINK, and the importance of the feedback cycle in product development * What LINK does differently in it’s vehicle including the importance of being able to do granular onboard vehicle maps and how their vehicle intelligence and operations allow them to be profitable with on

In one of his favourite interviews to date, Oliver interviews Cedrick Tandong, CEO of ThreeWheelsUnited, a electric rickshaw or tuktuk financing and operations company based in Bangalore, India. With over 3000 tuktuks on the road, partnerships with the largest local manufacturers, Uber partnership and more, Cedrick and the team have found the sweet spot for Micromobility in what is a fascinating local niche. Specifically they dig into: * What is ThreeWheelsUnited and the multiple sides of the business - vehicle supply, financing, tech platform for payments and operations. * Cedricks background and how he ended up going from Cameroon to France to India. * How the unit economics are playing out with new electric tuktuks vs. existing models. * How to build out a low-cost recharging infrastructure for these vehicles. * The challenges and joys of working in India as a foreigner * The story of fundraising for a vehicle financing and tech startup - how that's gone, what they’re looking for and how they managed

Micromobility data standards are the rails new micromobility juggernauts will be built on. In this episode, Oliver interviews Sam Herr, Executive Director of North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA), and Heidi Gennin, Shared Mobility Product Manager at Mobility Data, about the Generalized Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) data format. Admittedly, it sounds dry, and yet, it’s a fascinating episode, with Heidi and Sam doing a great job explaining both what it is and why something as simple as a data format can supercharge the development of non-car transportation in our cities. Specifically they dig into: - What is a Data format and why does it matter? - What is the GBFS and how does it connect to NABSA, Rocky Mountain Institute, and the GTFS. - How does the GBFS relate to the Mobility Data Specification? - Which countries around the world use the data standards for their bike shares, and why this is a rapidly growing space - What challenges they face in developing a global data standard - How they

Exciting episode today with Oliver interviewing Raoul Stöckle, CEO of Bond. Horace and Oliver originally interviewed Corinne Vogel, their COO on as one of the first interviews in 2018 when the company was Smide, but with the recent announcement of a partnership with FreeNow and launches in a number of new cities in Europe, it was time to have them on again to discuss how their approach of high end shared Micromobility is going and why it’s different. Specifically: - The Bond model of high end Micromobility and why they chose that strategy - How and why they decided to go for custom vehicles, and what that has entailed - The operational efficiencies they’ve been able to unlock with smart incentives, swappable batteries and faster vehicles - Why how far a customer is willing to walk determines a huge amount in terms of capital costs, and why that’s tied to a vehicles speed. - What the impact of COVID has been on the business - The high percentage of users who have integrated the servi

This week Oliver interviews David Hyman, CEO of Unagi Scooters about their new subscription service, Unagi All Access, as well as a wider discussion about the state of owned micromobility and the vehicles therein. It’s a great conversation - David’s got a great perspective on the industry, backed up with studies commissioned from the Haas Business School about the opportunity for scooters beyond just renting them via shared schemes like Lime and Bird. Hope you enjoy! Specifically, they dig into: - A quick review of Unagi scooters and their history as a premium ‘iPhone of scooters’ brand - Why Unagi has chosen to pursue a subscription model and who that will open them up to - What an end-to-end subscription needs to include - Why subscriptions may offer one of the cheapest daily transport options for most people - Why they have so many musicians and celebrities riding their scooters, and why Andrew Yang is a fan - Why David can’t wait to give Annie Hildago, mayor of Paris, a scooter (anyone know her and want

This week Horace returns with Oliver for a great discussion about why what we measure in micromobility, and transport in general, matters so much. They also dig into the recent announcement of the T50 supercar from Gordon Murray, and explain why they, two micromobiltiy nerds, got so excited about a preposterously expensive car. Specifically they dig into: - The history of the rise and fall of infrastructures - Why what we measure about transport - be it track length, unit sales, passenger kilometres or trips - determine how we think about planning, infrastructure spending, and all of these second order effects. - The open question about Micromobility measurement, and what is up for consideration - The origins of the Micromobility podcast, and it’s connections to Gordon Murray - Why Oliver and Horace have both bought cars that Gordon Murray has recommended. - The intangibility of maniacal focus on user experience, and why that matters as much in micromobility as it does in cars. Check out the launch of t

This week Oliver interviews Henri Moissinac and Maxim Romain, co-founders of Dott. Dott are interesting - they’ve done things differently since they launched, kept their head down and stayed relatively unknown in wider micromobility circles. That is until they won the tender for Paris and Lyon recently, and asserted themselves as a player to really be taken seriously in the Pan-European micromobility landscape. In this interview they talk about: - The origins of Dott, and Roman and Henri’s history together at Ofo - The landscape to date for both funding and city tenders, and why Dott’s slow and steady approach has really helped them develop into a profitable business. - Their plans for an Ebike, and how they’re thinking about hardware in general - The importance of operational excellence, having internal employees and systems for learning. - Why they have pursued a largely large-city-only approach - What factors contribute to successful city permits - Henri makes an impassioned argument for why Micromobilit