Thread by @firstround

1/ Today marks a big milestone for @Uber. After completing +10 billion trips and expanding to +700 cities, it's now started trading on the NYSE—3,251 days after we first heard about a company called UberCab. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how our partnership began:

2/ The story actually starts back in March 2006, when we invested in StumbleUpon. After eBay acquired the company, founder @gc started exploring new ideas, eventually landing on something he called UberCab. In the spring of 2010 he started tweeting about what he was up to:

3/ A few days later, @robhayes sent a six-word email that is clearly the most valuable outreach email in @firstround’s history:

4/ After meeting with the team and learning more about how the initial beta was going, @robhayes tried UberCab for himself. There were only a handful of black cars operating on the roads of San Francisco, but he was already impressed by the product experience.

5/ Clicking a button on your phone and getting a car to show up IRL seemed almost magical in 2010. It also tackled the pain point of getting around cities like SF.

See more on this initial value prop in UberCab's first pitch deck (shared by @gc in 2017) medium.com/@gc/the-beginn…

6/ The rest of our partners “digitally hailed” rides after our summer party and everyone was hooked. The founding team came into our July 1 partner meeting and we unanimously decided to invest. Here’s the actual voting record (1-2 means “Don't invest" and 4-5 means “Must invest”)

7/ The 4s were given out of concerns that the market wasn’t large enough. It’s easy to forget, but it was actually a rather small wedge: Black cars were high-end luxury, and even a slice of the taxi market seemed small. But the product was so compelling that we voted to invest.

8/ After leading the seed round, we gave them space to work in our SF office and they grew rapidly (taking up more and more desk space). The hard work of the Uber team in the early days and all the years that followed is what turned a magical product into the company it is today.

9/ Last one, for all the company builders and future founders out there. Got a wild idea that might take 10 years to play out? We’d love to be your first call—and maybe even your first office space. firstround.com