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Is Uber a fastlane business?

Is Uber a fastlane business?

  • Yes

    Votes: 20 87.0%
  • No

    Votes: 3 13.0%

  • Total voters
    23

Mido

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Need: There is a need for better taxi service.
Entry: It has low entry.
Control: Does Uber really have control? Uber registers taxi drivers and connects them to the customers. Uber has limited control over the taxi drivers I believe.
Scale: Huge scale.
Time independent: It is time independent.

What about entry and control?
 
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Supa

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Entry: It has low entry.

Does it really?

I mean, could you just start an app/website and get people to actively use it, in both ways: as drivers and customers?

Sure, you could do the app and website with the right knowledge or people.
But that goes for most apps and websites. The service itself is not that easy to get going, so there's definitely a barrier to entry imo.

Control: Does Uber really have control? Uber registers taxi drivers and connects them to the customers. Uber has limited control over the taxi drivers I believe.

You never really have control over other people working for you. The thing is, imo, that doesn't take away Uber's control over their business.
As long as the demand is high, there's probably an infinite supply of drivers, so why should they care if they have to get rid of some?
As long as the majority of drivers are good, I see no problem for Uber itself, and therefore no lack of control.

To me, they are a Fastlane business.
 

AgainstAllOdds

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Entry: It has low entry.
Control: Does Uber really have control? Uber registers taxi drivers and connects them to the customers. Uber has limited control over the taxi drivers I believe.

Entry:

How is it low entry? Can you make an Uber app by this time next month that will get at least 5 users?

Uber was built by spending BILLIONS of dollars on marketing and customer acquisition. BILLIONS more on driver acquisition. And likely hundreds of millions at a minimum on PR, politics, etc.

That's an insane barrier to entry. Anyone that didn't have Uber's capital died because they simply couldn't compete.


Control:


Uber has the drivers. Uber has the users. They have the control.

You can fire their entire executive team (which is exactly what happened), and absolutely nothing would change with the business because they already have the best infrastructure of drivers and users. It's the whole chicken and egg problem and why companies like Amazon thrive even though anyone can create an ecommerce site.

And if you're scared about the drivers, then you shouldn't be, because a simple few hundred million given to Anthony Levandowski and you'll be able to steal all of Google's self-driving car knowhow.
 
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RedKiteKid

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It looks like we've debunked the original thesis, but as a broader question; can a business as successful(?) as large(?) as highly valued(?) as Uber ever NOT be fastlane?

Are there examples of huge companies that fail CENTS?
 

G-Man

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We have a thread questioning the fastlane-ness of a company that grew to 6.5B in revenue in 8 years?
 
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Andy Black

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Curious because I don't know: Are they profitable? If not, when do they plan on being profitable?
 

RedKiteKid

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" In the last three months of 2016 alone, the company lost $991 million. "

Uber can’t stop losing money

I take it back, maybe the questions should be - can a company losing a billion dollars a quarter ever be considered fastlane?


Curious because I don't know: Are they profitable? If not, when do they plan on being profitable?
 

mike24601

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I drove for the Uber, UberEats and Lyft platform for a while, so I have some perspective on this. Uber is hemorrhaging money because their current business model is unsustainable. It works like this: You market to an endless stream of motivated people with a little time on their hands and a desire to make side cash, and offer them incentives to get out on the road and drive. It takes about a week or two to get on the road as a passenger driver, and as little as 48 hours as an UberEats driver. In many cases, Uber will guarantee you $1000 a week if you meet a certain ride quota, even if the actual profit you bring in is vastly less than $1000.

This is the problem, because once drivers realize how little profit they are making after gas, car maintenance, taxes and Uber's cut, they stop driving. Surveys and reports indicate only about 4% of drivers remain active after 1 year, so to keep up with the high demand for drivers and make sure someone can get an Uber immediately, they throw out money incentives every week. They advertise heavily on radio and Craigslist. When I went to the mandatory information session for Lyft, there were 20 other people in the class signing up their cars, and classes were held every hour on the hour from 9-5. One weekend, I made $30 an hour all evening and only brought in $10/hr in ride revenue, simply because I stationed myself in a high demand area. This is why Uber is losing money so quickly.

In just a few years, the word Uber has entered our collective psyche as an entirely new term. Just as you would "Google" something, you can now "Uber" to the bar...even if you are riding with Lyft. At the same time, I have serious doubts about the long term viability of the company. In the end, they will probably need to change the relationship they have with their drivers and increase fare prices to stay solvent, or, as former CEO Travis Kalanick alluded, they will have to keep purging money and wait until driverless technology becomes viable so they can eliminate human drivers altogether. In the same way you can use computers to your advantage with a home business, driverless cars do not require piss breaks, they don't complain when someone vomits in the back seat, they don't have hungry mouths at home to feed, and they don't need to be paid.
 
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Last edited:

PureA

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I'm pretty sure I read that Uber will be losing tonnes of cash until driverless cars. And at that point, shit, if everything goes to plan, they rule the world, profits will be insane.

A big bet. But if they can pull it off, wow.

Good luck to em'
 

Azure

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I stopped reading at low entry.

I dont think you understand how difficult to create an app like that is in terms of cost and gaining markwt traction.

A few bad reviews and a driver is essentially black balled from the service. How do they not uave control.
 
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Azure

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I honestly think they foresaw the future of transportation(driverless) and they had the initiative to convince people to bleed cash(if theyre unprofitable, not sure?) Until the real blood vein got tapped.

Or maybe not, what the F*ck do i know.
 

tpjay

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The future of Uber is bright. Think of this as the beginning and Uber is collecting data on riding consumers. If Uber is a forward thinking company, and I hope they are and have proven to be with the self driving 18 wheeler, they will completely remove their Human Resource and be a completely automated ride sharing service. Many people will be out of jobs or be paid a lot less. Automation is a major trend for the future and removing people from the workforce.

Create something with plans to automate and you will have a million or even billion dollar company.

So yes. They are "fastlane".
 

tpjay

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Lots of room in the public transportation space with the hyperloop being built right now where the entry is extremely high
 
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Thoelt53

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I honestly think they foresaw the future of transportation(driverless) and they had the initiative to convince people to bleed cash(if theyre unprofitable, not sure?) Until the real blood vein got tapped.

Or maybe not, what the F*ck do i know.
Yes. I believe their goal was to achieve total market recognition, build a brand, and become insanely profitable with the advent of autonomous vehicles.

You don't build a billion dollar company by being a fool. These guys thought all of this out decades ahead of the game.
 

tpjay

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