The end of shared mobilty?

In recent months there has been a lot of bad press for the shared E-scooter market, but I still believe that sharing is the future.?

Bird valuation is now less than their seed round, Superpedestrian closing operations in the US and looking for a buyer of their European segment, Helbiz literally being a Hell Biz.?

I have seen a lot of negativity around the industry, including a huge amount of false claims that make people get the wrong idea. It is true that most of these startups raised way too much capital at the beginning and have made mistakes, however, it is still crucial that we work on more shared mobility options to make our cities cleaner and safer for everyone.?

Back in 2017 when this industry was just getting started there was massive optimism that this was going to be a crazy profitable business. The traction was insane and it made sense that companies needed to gain market share to be a part of the future of urban transportation. This attracted a lot of investment and a lot of people started building towards this dream. Most companies got lost in the idea that this is a really “sexy” tech industry, however, the reality is that it is an operational business that needs to be run super efficiently and very lean. Many operators entered cities with bad tenders that made them unprofitable in the hope that the regulation would change in their favor. A lot invested heavily in R&D to develop their own vehicles and unnecessary extra technologies. This all needs to change.?

What companies need to do from here on out:?

• Cut down costs to the bare minimum
• Tech costs to 7-10% of the revenues
• G&A to ~20% of rev.?
• Stop all fancy pilots
• Break all fancy HQ leases

Now the industry is going through a bit of a reset. Unfortunately there will be a lot of layoffs and changes in all shared mobility companies. Which is tough but important. These companies can be profitable, and will be after they make this shift. There is still a real need for shared mobility in cities and we are still in the early stage but entering a new era. We still have too many cars in cities and the current infrastructure needs to adapt to micro vehicles. Shared will play a part in the city of the future because most people don’t need to own their own vehicle and we can use them much more efficiently.

Some companies have already achieved profitability, SWING and LIME are good examples, and this is solely because they have focused on these points. The recent Dott and TIER merger will hopefully also have the same outcome in the near future.?

It’s best not to get distracted by all the negativity and false claims. A lot of articles and comments are misleading, but the truth is shared mobility is here to stay, and the companies that get through this shift will come out stronger and play a big role in urban mobility around the world.

So, to reflect on the name of this article, it's not the end of shared mobility, but more of a rebirth, aka Renaissance in some sorts. Curious to see upcoming Michelangelos, so keep an eye on the industry to see amazing things happening!

-Max out~

P.S. I can highly recommend this podcast from Prabin and James going into depth on the topic https://open.spotify.com/show/1G2fPNzUw5mo5asaCoH7O0