All right, we're about halfway through today. Just a reminder, you can find all of these videos over at Extra Crunch. And next up, we've talked a lot about the possibilities of micro mobility. And we've seen it in action in cities like San Francisco, soon to be New York, Paris and London. But how do we ensure mobility remains accessible and equitable? While making a profit? We're gonna bring three people together to have this hopefully spicy conversation, community organizer, transportation consultant and lawyer to Miguel Butler remix by via co founder and CEO Tiffany Chu. And finally, revel co founder and CEO Frank rag, just a reminder, you can ask questions, and you can find the q&a button on the right hand side of your screen. Alright, and our moderator today is Rebecca Belen. Rebecca, take it away.
Thank you, Kirsten. Hey, Tamika, Tiffany. Frank, nice to see you all again. So today, we're talking about whether or not mobility can be equitable and accessible while still remaining profitable. Our panelists cover a range of mobility sectors, but to jump right in, there's only one person that I can really ask about profitability. So Frank, rebels been around since 2018. Tell us are you profitable yet?
Rebecca, that's having me here I've What I can say is for you know, three months in the summer of 2020, we were a whole company profitable. So beyond just market profitability beyond just the economics, talking the whole company, including my salary, and everything else that's involved in running a company. So that's what I can say.
Now, is that including sees that all company profitable. So that's including different revenue lines that you have.
At that point, in 2020, you were strictly in electric moped platform. You know, I think some of the people may be locked into this webcast know that in 2021, we've also now launched a bike subscription service in New York City, our fast charging, actually the largest fast charging station for four wheelers in the Americas goes live this month, right here in New York City in downtown Brooklyn. We also have our own electrical employee rideshare service, watching your cities really, as well. So obviously, the platform has been extended in 2021.
I know, we've been talking about this a little more later. But I know you've talked to me about your access program, which allows what was 50% off rides for people on public assistance, as well as you had free rides, I think for healthcare workers, about how many full price customers do you need to maintain profitability?
That really depends on the market itself, how many vehicles you have in that market, how much demand you're seeing in that market, how seasonal that market is. What I can tell you about the Access Program, though, is that it's 50% off for anyone on any form of public assistance. And just to put in real world dollars, because I think some companies like to promote programs like this, but then how successful Are they really, we've actually saved users over half a million dollars since we put in the access program. So that's real money that we have essentially given back to users and not charging them by offering 50% discount? Yes, it does. So just going back, does that affect your profitability in a big way? Or I think you can set up programs where you're making sure you're not losing money by offering somebody a trip on your service. So I think that was key and sort of our percentage discount in markets like New York. But obviously, yeah, it is another input into sort of the entire system here, Rebecca, and you have to think about it holistically when you are offering a discount like that. What is the percentage of users that are going to use that discount? What is the percentage of rides? Because you have to do today you have to get to profitability?
Right? Yeah. And I mean, obviously, that's kind of the most important thing for startups to meet. You and I have talked before about how it's maybe not necessarily a startups problem to bring equity and accessibility to a city just because it's the right thing to do. But why do you think it makes sense for startups to build equity into their business model from the start?
I mean, I think it should be their problem. I think if you're, if you're doing the work, that theoretically is to serve people, then you should want to serve all people. But I also think that we need cities to step up. And we need to make sure that cities are, you know, setting up systems where it's not advantageous for providers to just check a box and deploy, but to actually do the concrete work I think for for companies, I would say that people like to say it takes too much time or cost too much money to do things equitably. But whether or not you're retrofitting a house or whether or not you're retrofitting your company, Whatever you retrofit something, it costs more money. And so if you think about equity is something you just build in from the beginning, it will actually save you money and take less time than if you try to do it later because someone tells you to do it or you've had some controversy or you all of a sudden feel bad, huh?
Yeah. And I want to get to the city aspect in a bit. But um, and Tiffany, I do have a question for you. But just going back to that, Frank. Yeah, there's this idea that you know, best to get it over with or best to start with it. Right. So are you did you feel like I know that you don't have gig economy workers, but did when you were starting up rebel? The mission seemed to be like getting people on electric mopeds cleaning up transportation. Was it mostly about making the idea survive and become business first? Or did you feel that you were trying to actively build equity in
I could not agree more with what you just said in terms of from the start is going to be successful and have a profitable business and also have a good relationship with the community and the city that you're operating in? equity has to be a big piece of this. So the access code references was something from day one. That wasn't something we added in a year or two later after venture funding, let's say that was still when we were bootstraps, you know, company in North Brooklyn with 70 mopeds. From day one, I've never used the gig economy, customer service agent mechanic battery swapper, from day one, every single person on the team is a regular employee. And I think that's just a cultural ethos I've always wanted in the company, I don't really understand the game, not me, I don't get it. I just feel like it's just these big, you know, corporations is just stripping any safety net that's left for workers, and they just continue to chip away at it. Right? So there is no third way. There's employees, right? So we've always had, and even now that we're going into rideshare, the steam exactly those employees pay time off access to health care. You know, timika mentioned something about cities and sort of that relationship. I think something that cities are also learning as well is that companies like US companies like rebel, they no longer see us, maybe it's just $1 sign a way to get money or funding. Right. And a great example of that is maybe like Washington, DC, where our permit per moped in Washington DC is $0. That would not have been the case three or four years ago, they would have seen us as a way to just generate money, whereas now they see us as a partner to provide transportation in their city. But let's make sure this company is getting to profitability or if they will be here. So I think there's just there's change on all sides here that's happening.
Yeah, I think that's an important point. This idea that cities are starting to see mobility companies as you know, part of the utility. So, you know, Tiffany, I'm going to read you a stat. According to lymes, comprehensive transit equity report, subway stations, dock bike stations and bus stops are geographically biased towards communities of higher incomes. This is in New York. Even though 58% of low income New Yorkers rely on the subway and buses as their main form of transportation and tent and spend 10% of their income on it. So we know that micromobility might have a role to play in alleviating transit deserts by placing vehicles on those neighborhoods. And this is something that as spring says, cities are starting to realize, but is it actually happening according to your data? Oh, can't hear you, Tiffany.
Thanks for having me, Rebecca. And thanks for that question. I would say wholeheartedly. Yes, that micro mobility is adding basically optionality to a cities kit of tools when it comes to addressing mobility issues across the spectrum. I think transit is amazing, and will always be the backbone of our cities and communities. And there's many, many places that have not invested in transit and will take very long time, for example, you're probably not going to get a subway system in Arlington, Texas. However, there might be other opportunities such as medical mobility programs, car sharing programs on demand programs, like the ones via provides to basically knit together different type of transportation network that might work for its residents in place of nothing that might have existed prior.
And I know that you part of remixes Services provides, you know, help cities direct policy in this regard. So are you seeing a lot more cities kind of weave this into their policy and their funding structures?
Yeah, I would say one of the most exciting parts about having been an entrepreneur of the past seven years and watching mobility explode in this way, is that every single year cities are becoming more and more educated more and more embracing of newer things, approaching old problems with new ways with all the technology that's kind of come to the forefront and remixed what we have seen is that traditionally, if you think about how city staff are structured, there was historically like the transit agency And that department would basically be in charge of running the buses in the subway if it existed, and that was it. And then there was a separate city agency that dealt with the city streets. And that might be the Department of Public Works or department of transportation or what have you. And then there might have been like another like fancy department was like the Department of innovation, we've got to deal with all the cool bleeding edge tech that might have dealt with mobility. And what we're noticing and remix kind of in our back end is that all of these now, departments are becoming stakeholders are ushering in a new era of mobility. They're collaborating with each other, sending plans to each other commenting on them. You know, the agency is looking at not only transparency, but working with the city who's working with the Mayor's Office of Innovation on micro mobility and all that needs to really be thought holistically together, or else you're just gonna have a siloed resident community experience. Yeah.
To me, how do you think that as we go on this journey, and cities start, you know, really integrating micro mobility companies? How do you think that micro mobility companies or mobility companies in general can get cities to take them seriously as infrastructure to kind of push this along?
Well, I think one of the ways you get cities to take you seriously is by serving more people, right? And so I think sometimes what happens is that these companies come in and they say, well, we're a viable solution to some of your transportation gaps. But then you go into the communities that are most isolated and need the most transportation, low income communities, communities of color communities that are geographically isolated and cut off from services, like the human Tiffany, we're just talking about, and those companies aren't seeing that micro mobility show up in their community, right. And so I think one of the first things that these companies have to do or figure out ways that they can really serve all the folks in a community. I also think, I think Frank said this, and I think Tiffany spoke to it a little bit. I think it's just growth, I think it's just a natural progression of like seeing folks as partners, and realizing that when partnership and collaboration happens, it's going to require talking to each other. And it's going to require figuring out how can we work together to achieve the thing we both want to achieve? And so I think, I think part of what happened was there was this disruption, with a lot of mobility tech companies coming in. And so everything was reactive. And it was hard to figure out where that partnership would fall. I think now you're seeing a lot of cities, especially cities that are able to use certain tools, whether it's tools like remix, I'm on the board of a company, look who and I'm on the advisory board of remix, I think you're seeing city saying, okay, we kind of know what's coming. How can we use something like remix to help us? How can we, you know, get that playing field where we're utilizing and harnessing technology in the same way. So I really think part of this is just partner partnership, not being so adversarial, and frankly, being able to be proactive and think through things and not always be reactive.
Yeah, I mean, you make a good point, how do you know, it's, it seems that cities are playing catch up a little bit. And now they're starting to think about how they can do this in a way that actually does help close the racial wealth gap by, you know, making the city more mobile for everyone. But how do we make scooters and E bikes into something that's empowering instead of just a toy for the elite, like cars once were?
I mean, first of all, I hate the term empowering and part of why I don't like the term empowering because I think it starts us from a framework of being colonial, right? Like certain folks have power, and we're going to go into communities and give them scooters or mopeds or whatever. And look, now they're empowered. Now they have power. And so I think the first thing folks have to do is realize that a lot of these communities already have power. If you talk to the grandmother who's looking out of her window, the teens hanging out on the corner, the mom sitting on the stoop watching their kids, they can tell you a lot about transportation in the community, they can tell you a lot about what's happening on the street where the gaps are. So I think part of it is just listening to people when Bike Share first launched, you know, people were unsure you took cities like la where some of our low income communities of color like these things just showed up. You heard about this in in New York, too. This is just showed up outside the projects. Are they even for us? We don't know. But then you went to a place like Philly, where from the beginning, they partnered with community based organizations, and every Bike Share station look different. But every Bike Share station also had kind of like an Oji in the community, who was like, No, no, I've been part of this. Let me tell you, these bikes are for us. You can tell they're for us based on you know, the art around here that so and so down the street, or whatever. And so I think it's really going to take How do you listen to people? And how do you involve people from the beginning so that it doesn't feel like there's just something landing on them. You're not just using technology to solve a problem they didn't even know they had, but you're actually listening to them articulate themselves, what their problems are, and how what you might be able to provide could be a solution and then you're looking at a cope. Our met model, not an empowerment model.
Yeah, I love that co powermat. Um, so, you know, Frank, you and I've talked a lot about how, how rebel has done this right they've been at in the community, they have taken the time to go to different talks and events. Now this kind of advocacy takes time, which is we, as we know, precious to a startup, so how does that engagement impact the way you think about profitability.
It's just something that has to get done. profitability inside everything else aside, you have to engage with communities. You know, for instance, in Brooklyn and Queens, which is probably the one area of any market we've been in, where I personally have been in front of most of those community boards. As we've grown as a company, my team has sort of taken that on in places like San Francisco and Miami, but in Brooklyn and Queens where we started in grew and 2018 2019. That was me at those community board meetings, listening, understanding what we're doing wrong. And I think one of the great things when you're in front of those community boards, is that you're not going to please everybody. But it's also interesting, where if you're just there to listen, and you're genuine, and you actually are trying to understand what is going wrong, and let me try and fix that folks in the sort of audience will stand up and support you say, Hey, I'm a rebel user. That's actually not true. You know, I really liked this service. This is how it helps me. Yeah. So it's just it's been a real education and just grassroots, you know, community's not going to please everybody, you definitely can listen and try to improve. And I think Deaf is at the heart of like, everything everyone wants done since 2018.
Right now, you know, when you talk about accessibility, I'm gonna ask you a few quick questions. So I know you and I've also talked about access programs, right, which we mentioned earlier, and which is great, since you're gonna be moving into the Bronx soon, I believe. And in the Bronx, over a quarter of residents fall below the poverty, poverty line. So I was wondering if I could ask you a few quick yes or no questions. We have none. A lot of time lightning round. Okay.
But just to be clear, we went to the Bronx before anybody told us to we were there in spring of 2020, the middle of COVID.
Alright, so does your service require a smartphone to use? Yes. Now, 19% of Bronx residents are unbanked or underbanked. Is there an option of paying for your service in cash?
There isn't right now. And I think just to talk, like what is wrong with sort of maybe the macro system, this is not a bike or scooter is the motor vehicle. So our insurance carrier doesn't allow us anyone that doesn't have a debit or credit card. You also allow debit cards, most rental car companies don't even allow that. So it's a motor vehicle, we have to talk differently than bikes and scooters. And there's a structural issue there with insurance. So that's something to keep in mind.
Is your service available in Spanish? Yes. Okay. Um, so, yeah, I also, you know, realize that when you think about equity, you have to prioritize what has the highest impact for the most amount of people. So how quickly do you think through those decisions? How quickly do we think through those decisions? Well, if you think through those decisions, and I'm giving you a caveat to be quick, because we're running out of time.
Oh, sure. Great example is that decision was made about two months ago, when we just expanded further into Brooklyn, and to East New York and Brownsville. Again, nobody told us to go to those communities. We were just thinking, looking at about where can we continue to bring rubble. That's where
now we are going to go to q&a. And I'm seeing quite a few come in.
Well, we go to q&a. I just I just want to offer something you said Rebecca was when you're thinking about equity, you have to do what will help the greatest number of people or something to that extent. And I would actually offer that is not how you should think about equity. And one of the reasons I really enjoy working with remix is because I think in a lot of their product development. It's not just how is this going to help them a certain amount of people? Sure, they're asking that, but they also ask a lot. Who isn't this helping? And it doesn't matter if that's a small amount of people, right? So you might say something like, people with disabilities might be proportionately a smaller number of people, black people might be proportionally a smaller number of people. But if you make things better for folks with a disability, say adding curb cuts into sidewalks, that actually makes things better for a ton of people. And so you may be thinking of it is it's only helping a small group of people. And I think we really have to shift the way we think about equity. It's not just numbers, who is this going to help the most, it's who's in the most leave and who is often intentionally neglected or pushed aside because their numbers aren't big enough. And I think that's something that Tiffany could speak to really well, because I think that's something that remix just has as a core value.
Yeah, I love that. That's a really helpful way to think about it. So while we're on the on the idea of how do we think about equity. We have a question from Jennifer Love plant. How can companies get potential funders to understand the value of equity some seed as a barrier? Or slows things down? Tiffany?
Yes, I can take this one, I would say it is definitely illuminating about the funder, if you're asking questions like that. I think for folks who are trying to support civic tech, or urban tech, or just technology in communities in general, if you don't understand the value of equity, as somebody who's pushing capital into the ecosystem, I think that person kind of needs to reevaluate who they are and what they care about. If it's not the first thing that they you know, raise is like the number one priority, it should be one of them. I do think that there's a really deep argument to be made around longevity and the amount of trustworthiness that you as a brand are building within the community with regards to the public sector. gov tech is one of those communities, if you're working with the government, in some sort of fashion, it's not going to be a customer that comes and goes, they're going to want to partner with you for a long time because cities don't go out of business cities are going to be around. And if you're trying to work with New York, New York is still going to be around in 20 years, and they're going to remember who you were, you know, 20 years ago when you submitted that not great RFP response. So I think my response to funders is, if you don't care about equity, you're probably in the wrong business.
Yeah. Another question for timika. Huh? Do you find that cities are more interested in dealing with equity when it is considered an issue with micro mobility options instead of one with mass mobility options?
I feel like people generally are more are more concerned with equity when it's an issue, right? I think we've seen in the last year or so people are just talking about equity more. And when I say people, I've really mean non people of color, non black folks, because I think a lot of folks have been talking about it for a long time. I do think, you know, we've seen the shift when you think about something like public transportation, the problems we have, and I think this is a transportation problem. I think it's also a tech problem. So I think one of the fears is when these two industries come together, it becomes a big problem. But they're both pretty white, right? So when you look at who's running transit agencies, when you look at who's in leadership positions at tech companies, when you look at the top of these industries, it's mainly white cisgendered, able bodied men, but that's not who's writing often. That's not who's using. And so I do think that people have started thinking this is more of an issue in the last year as it's, you know, captivated the nation. But I would ask people who are just turning to this work, I would say, Please keep doing it. And you need to spend resources and time on it. But also ask yourself why you weren't doing it before, who you were ignoring who you weren't listening to? And as you sit around your companies, and you look at the decision making tables, do you have diversity, because all the people at the lower levels, the mechanics, the folks who are out in the field, the folks who are doing your outreach? Are they diverse, but when you get further up, is there not inclusion, because none of the decision makers reflect the diversity of the folks you're hoping to serve. And so I would say that no one's done it better. Not one type of mobility is thinking about it better than others. I think everyone is slowly coming along, and we need to do a lot better.
Yeah, just off the back of that, I believe that you and I've talked about this a little bit, and how it's sometimes a bit difficult to always find, you know, once your company has started, how to just, you know, you don't want to just plant people at the top. what's what's a way that companies can start doing this practically?
Right. Yeah, I think, you know, we don't want tokenisation. So we don't want people to get on a scorecard and say, do we have you know, do we have an indigenous person? Do we have a black person? Do we have a person with a disability? I think true inclusion isn't just that everybody feels welcome. Here. It's that there's been a sharing of power. And so as you're building your company to often be focused on metrics, what's the deployment rate in certain communities with a certain income level? And too rarely do we focus on procedures and things behind the scenes? And so if you have a company that's predominantly white, and you just figure out like, you know, I think Frank's right, because Frank is right, outreach has to just be done. And so if you start thinking about so you just start sending people out to do outreach, but you don't have anybody who speaks Spanish, you don't have anybody that reflects the community, then you can actually do more harm than good. And so when people are thinking about how do we practically do equity, you have to ask yourself, are we doing the internal work as a company before we just start focusing on the external metrics? And I know we're focusing on the external metrics, because we're good people, we want to do the right thing. We really feel passionately that we want things to be equitable, but sometimes we have to understand that there are equitable outcomes, but there are also equitable procedures and policies and practices and organizations. And we have to do that internal work.
I have a question from Tony Yun from I think probably for Frank, how much impact will the insurer ability have some of them ability options? scooters have on the viability and acceptance.
I mean, insurance is a cost no matter what it is, whether it's a kick scooter, or whether it's a bike and a bike or a moped. One thing I will say is, you know, we've been getting insurance policies for mopeds and now ebikes, and now rideshare vehicles since 2018, most experience in the moped side of things, and it's just interesting how more and more insurance providers are coming to the table, to potentially work with us to put to bid on certain cities that we operate in. And that wasn't quite the case in 2018. So I think the insurance market itself is just evolving, and more folks are seeing this as a big opportunity. Tiffany,
this is a question from Erika Davis, in your opinion, what is the most crucial next step that needs to be taken to have the most valuable in impact and who can make that happen?
Who will that is rather far ranging? I would say one very important piece of the puzzle that I've been devoting a lot of my brain cell to recently is how to make it easier for cities to build safer infrastructure for all the new forms of mobility that are arriving, or have already arrived, and we're not ready for them. So what that means is things like, very simple things, not super high tech, a protected bike lane, maybe even a protected intersection, if you want to go that crazy. And everything from you know, shared spaces to mobility hubs, and what parking for mobility hubs looks like. All of those, I would say small Environmental Design pieces of urban planning are so crucial to nudging behavior change in a way that allows people to embrace the more the most possible multimodality options that they can possibly embrace. But if you look around today, in most places, especially in the US, multi modal is a foreign term, because it's basically just cars and walking. And if your infrastructure continues to be designed with those two modes in mind, you're never going to be able to get ourselves out of the climate crisis, we're never going to be able to embrace every single new form of mobility that we could possibly invent, to get ourselves out of the climate crisis and it becomes a downward spiral. Yeah.
I think that's about all the time we have. Thank you all for joining us and for your insights. It's been really interesting. And yeah, I hope that everyone else enjoyed this, and I look forward to speaking with you again. Thanks, Rebecca. Thanks to the whole game for having us. Thank you.