1/ First – Justine Moore and Oliva Moore @venturetwins are flat out stars IMO. I remember talking to them when they were at Stanford and thinking “oh they are going to be phenomenally successful.” Congrats on getting them to @CRV .👍👍
2/ Second- I like this concept a lot. Believe strongly in the "Business in a Box" thesis. As an aside, I would think that part of @BirdRide is less susceptible to economic downturn. This model harder when US low unemployment. (Meaning that part of the story just gets stronger).
3/ I wonder- why sell instead of rent out the scooters? i.e. McDonald’s example – often owned the real estate (rent). Would be curious on how Bird thought about that decision. By renting out it flips from fixed cost to variable cost, and presumably brings more operators in?
4/ MLM is actually what I thought of here as well. Wonder if Bird considered MLM version. I assume no because of public stigma around model, but I could see that being explosive if done right.
[Hey Ryan- Bird is already seeing explosive growth , not sure that’s the core issue]
[Hey Ryan- Bird is already seeing explosive growth , not sure that’s the core issue]
5/ I’m not sure I would have called Instacart business in a box. i.e the shoppers don’t do much to promote usage of Instacart, unlike many of the other examples listed.
6/ I would have said they are just basically employees. Here ic an imagine the operators doing things to promote local usage. They have a P&L and perceived ownership over their outcome.
7/ That perceived ownership helps to encourage them to take pride in what they are building and invest into success. That’s genius here IMO. Uber drivers - not sure feel ownership in the same way. (To be clear I think Instacart and Uber are fantastic – just diff pt here)
8/ I liked section on what you (CRV) are looking for. in particular I agree with this pt:
Abstracts away operational and logistical complexities
Abstracts away operational and logistical complexities
9/ I see that as a core issue for entrepreneurs, small biz owners, and a reason why I've seen some other Biz in a Box models not work.
10/ This is also why I’m curious on the sell v. rent concept for Bird. I would think sell makes it harder to think about scaling (should I buy 3 scooters or 30 this month?), financing, operating if operators have to own the scooters.
11/ Some considerations I’m excited to see how they play out:
12/ Branding. Franchisee model historically has had some issues w/ controlling brand. Each franchisee might do things a little differently. There are solutions (Training, quality checks from parent co.). I can also imagine that is less of an issue here but something to consider.
13/ Does the Vermont Bird operator let people paint the bird to be fun? Does Vegas operator put scandalous billboards up to drive traffic?
14/ Quality Control -related but different than branding. Does NYC operator just put less into maintenance of the birds? How does that impact the customer’s experience (and eventual brand)?
15/ They are conquerable- as many billion dollar “business in a box” companies have shown. But will be fascinating to see how Bird fields the issues.
16/ I want to qualify I have no private info at all on the situation. I’m sure I’ve said something stupid. But that’s what makes Twitter fun.
17/ Thanks a lot for flagging @saarsaar. Loved the post.
