Page 85 - INC Magazine-November 2018

p

e­scooter wars have been raging
from Atlanta to Nashville to Salt Lake
City, ever since Bird, Lime, and Spin
released their fleets onto the side­
walks of San Francisco last March—
unannounced. That got noticed. And
led to some light chaos that ticked
off local authorities.
So meet Skip, the San Francisco
e­scooter startup that seeks to
revolutionize personal transit by
trying something new and daring:
following the rules. Skip’s approach—
move deliberately and ask for per­
mission—is working. The company
was one of two startups to earn a
one­year operating permit from the
city of San Francisco in August. In
other cities, like Washington, D.C.,
and Portland, Oregon, it’s operating
fleets of several hundred scooters in
conjunction with city boards. “We
said, from the start, we would resist
the temptation to just go ahead and
launch—though there are a lot of
good reasons to do so from a busi­
ness perspective,” says co­founder
and CEO Sanjay Dastoor. Like those
of its many competitors, Skip’s UP
scooters are dockless, so they’re
often left clogging the sidewalks— next/
but soon the company will roll out MoBIlIty
handlebars with retractable cable
locks, allowing the scooters to be GlIdInG
fastened to poles or bike racks. “You
don’t want to design a service that Into the
makes most people angry and they fUtURe—
just eventually accept,” Dastoor says.
“Your business is stronger in the long By PlayInG
run if you’ve got broad support.” Well WIth
otheRS
—KEVIN J. RYAN

$1.02
billion
estimated total $22 billion
$31 combined U.S. e­scooter
million funding raised rides, as of Projected size
october
of the e­scooter
by competitors
Bird, lime, and e­motorcycle
total funding and Spin 20 million market in 2022
raised by Skip
Sources: Crunchbase, Axios Source: Axios, Inc. Source: Global Market Insight
8 4 ● I n c . ● n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 8 ● ● ● P h o t o g r a P h b y h a n n a h W h I ta K e r