20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date

Brad Bao is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Lime, the startup that provides distribution of shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles, with the aim to reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short distance transportation. To date they have raised over $775m in funding from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, GV, IVP, Uber, Fifth Wall, GGV, Atomico and Bain Capital Ventures just to name a few. As for Brad, prior to founding Lime he was Managing Partner @ Kinzon Capital for close to 6 years and before that spent an incredible 8 years at Tencent in numerous different roles including VP of Business Development for Tencent Games and General manager for Tencent's US branch where he was responsible for Tencent's US operations. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brad made his way into the world of technology with Tencent, how that led to the world of investing and then what was that a-ha moment for the founding of Lime? How did Brad's time with Tencent impact his operating mentality today with Lime? 2.) With significant levels of competition, how does Brad assess the competitive landscape today for micro mobility? Does Brad believe customer loyalty comes into play in the segment? Is capital itself a defensible moat in this market? Why is Brad adamant that it is important to spend $0 on marketing? What does this say about the product? 3.) How does Brad think about technological innovation within the space? Does it subscribe to Moore's law in the advancement of the core components? How does Brad think about inherent trade-offs that have to be made in product decisions? How does Brad think about prioritising for unit cost vs product superiority? Why can you not have it all? 4.) How does Brad think about launching new cities? What does it take to win in those geographies? What are all the necessary parts to setup when entering a new location? What is the biggest determinant of a location success? Density? Maturity? 5.) Brad has assembled a truly world-class exec team, what does Brad think it takes to attract truly A* talent? When should founders really start to think about building out their own exec team? What does Brad believe it is that makes his partnership with Toby Sun work so well? What have been his learnings from the development of that relationship? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Brad’s Fave Book: Good To Great by Jim Collins As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  Twenty Minute VC here with me, Harry Stebbings. I would love to see you behind the scenes on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. But diving straight into today's episode, I've been so looking forward to this one for a long time. You might remember a month or so ago, we had Sarah Smith at Bain on the show, and she discussed her thesis for the Series D investment in Lime. So that was the investor perspective, and I'm so thrilled today to be joined by the founder perspective with Brad Baugh, co-founder and CEO at Lime, joining me in the horse seat. For those that don't know, Lime is the startup transforming the world of micro mobility through their distribution of shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles, with the aim to reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short distance transportation. To date, they've raised over $775 million in funding

• 0:41Harry Stebbings?

  from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, GV, IVP, Uber, our friends at Fifth Wall, GGV, Atomico and Bain Capital Ventures, just to name a few. As for Brad, prior to founding Lime, he was managing partner at Kinzon Capital for close to six years, and before that spent an incredible eight years at Tencent in numerous different roles, including VP of Business Development for Tencent Games and General Manager for Tencent's US branch, where he was responsible for Tencent's US operations. I'd also want to say a few thank yous to both Sarah Smith and Brenda Mullis for some fantastic questions and suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into our episode today, it's time we spend less time managing our inboxes and more time getting work done with Front, the email platform that's helping teams respond faster to close more deals, delight more customers and grow their businesses.

• 1:26Harry Stebbings?

  Front's shared inbox and workflows route emails to the right people, right away, keeping everyone in the loop from start to finish. Internal comments keep teams focused so they can make faster decisions, and with 50-plus apps connected to your inbox, you'll save even more time getting your work done. That's why teams at Shopify, General Assembly, Y Combinator and 5,000 companies around the world are responding 54 minutes faster to emails using Front. So can you. And you can get Front now by going to frontapp.com/20vc to start your free trial. And if you use the coupon code 20vc, you'll get 20% off your first three months. And now we've nailed team collaboration and efficiency with Front, we should also talk about Culture Amp, the platform that turns your company culture into your competitive advantage. Are you looking for your first investor?

• 2:11Harry Stebbings?

  Or are you working your way through the alphabet from series A to B to C and beyond? Whatever your goals are here, you'll need your team to be at peak performance to get you there. So how do you develop your employees at their fullest potential? Performance reviews are the cornerstone of high performance work cultures. But now, ninety five percent of leaders agree, traditional performance reviews simply aren't working. And Culture Amp's new guide to performance review shows you how you can create a process that actually makes an impact. So your employees can improve constantly and help your business achieve its goals. Get your free guide today at cultureamp.com/20vc. That's cultureamp.com/20vc. And now we have everything at work sewn up. We should talk about the home and Hippo is modernizing home insurance by refocusing on the customer.

• 2:55Harry Stebbings?

  Why is Hippo so awesome? Well, did you know that sixty percent of US homes are underinsured? Well, Hippo comes with all the standard, but on top of that provides enhanced coverage for things like computers and appliances. Then by using technology to automate many of the processes and rebuilding policies from the ground up. They've unlocked just a ton of efficiencies, which they pass on to you and me, the customer, in the form of savings of up to twenty five percent. And if that wasn't good enough, they also just fundamentally provide a better customer experience, helping you switch from your current provider and providing you a single point of contact to guide you through the process. But don't just trust me, today Hippo has a total insured value of over fifty billion dollars and a backed by the biggest underwriting partners in the industry with over two hundred billion dollars worth of assets.

• 3:37Harry Stebbings?

  So get a quote today from Hippo in just sixty seconds at myhippo.com. But that's enough of me, and so now I'm very, very excited to hand over to Brad Bowe, co-founder and CEO at Lime.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 3:56Harry Stebbings?

  Brad, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I've heard so many great things, both from Brendan at Fithall and from Sarah at Bain. So thank you so much for joining me today, Brad. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Not at all, but I'd love to kick off today with a little bit about you. So tell me, how did you make your way from the world of VC and Tencent to founding one of the hottest companies today in the form of Lime? And what was that aha moment? Yeah, I sicked throughout my life.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  That I found my biggest passion is to build things, build companies, build team, build culture and build things that matters and make an impact. So at Tencent, that kind of I was an entrepreneur to start with. I was the first employee for Tencent outside of China and build all the international strategy, practice and team. I was there for over eight years. And then I built the VC fund that I was working at. I will co-found it with my partner back in like late two thousand thirteen. And Lime is not a surprise then, you know, and I built it. The aha moment was we were questioned quite a bit as a technology or internet company in particular, whether it's making a positive impact

• 5:02Speaker 02

  or it's taking away our time from engaging with the real world as well as our friends, our families, communities and neighborhoods. And that triggers the passion for me to think about how we can leverage technology to make positive impact in a real world we live in. Until the moment that we all live in the cloud, meaning not cloud, cloud, but be virtualized, we still live in this beautiful world. And technology should do more positive things. And Lime is a brainchild out of that, right? When we look around that how we can leverage technology to make that impact. And mobility is one of the thing that came to our mind first. When we tested with the product,

• 5:44Speaker 02

  that aha moment really is that not only we've seen users save time and money, but also the smiles that we generated when they're taking a bike ride or scooter ride. The broad range of age and gender groups that really make us say, hey, we're really on to something that could be big, it could be so positive that gonna change our way of living in urban environment going forward.

• 6:08Harry Stebbings?

  I do have to ask, I am too interested. You mentioned there the eight years with Tencent. How do you think that time impacted? You're maybe operating mentality today with Lime.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, quite a bit, a lot. So Tencent is still one of the most respectful technology company in the world, in my mind. There are many companies in the world, there are not many that have achieved so. Far and as well as building a really positive culture and impact. So I'll give you a few example, tangible examples. At Tencent, that we focus so much on user experience and that's all it's about, right? We're here to serve the users and the value of what we created need to be perceived by the user. And we don't do markings, as you could imagine, you know, as Lime, that we don't spend a penny on user acquisitions.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  And that's a reflection of learning and also culture that are inherited from the Tencent days. That we believe the best product is the best marketing itself to acquire users and have the user engage with the service versus the paid marketing. And same applies to a, what we call is emotional touch. In addition to any utilities that a product should produce, that we also emphasize on what kind of positive emotion that we can generate. You can use a mobility option to get from A to B, but also it's equally important our users enjoying that journey, right?

• 7:39Speaker 02

  You can jump on a really dirty and sometimes scary bus, get to get from A to B, or they can be on a scooter or bike that are smiling all the way and feel the freedom of it.

• 7:51Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, absolutely. I love that in terms of kind of the good product sales itself. I do want to dive into kind of the products and the landscape that the product sits in state there. It's as we've seen from the headlines over the past 12 months, it's been a crowded landscape. I am interested to hear, just from a meta perspective, how do you view the landscape state from your mindset?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the for any industry that the, given how fast Lime grows, right? As the global leader in the scooter share and bike share business, that we are a company that's two year and five month old, but we're already operating in 25 plus countries and over 100 markets across the world. And the revenue and trips that we're generating, probably one of the fastest ever in terms of like a company. Plus on top of that, as I mentioned, that we don't spend marketing dollars. It's all okay. Growth and we also be very proud of that the product iterations we've done, the users positive reaction to it. And the pollutions and traffic congestions that we reduce.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  So given the growth that we have, and I think it's very easy to see there are many folks wanted to be part of it as well, right? To to rush into the market and also large, you know, school the shares everywhere in the world. Which to me is a really positive thing for two reasons. First, that is really simple. It's a further validation of the sector that we're we're working on as well as the innovations we're doing. And the second part that I think this is the most important part, the market is so huge. That it's not about competition at all. It's really about how we're making the pie bigger. If we're taking some metrics into perspective, that even with the growth of lime and with all the other, you know, peers

• 9:37Speaker 02

  that are pushing for more greener and healthier, uh, and more energy efficient ways to travel in the city. We're talking about less than one percent or even much less than one percent of the total traffic are on this type of alternative transportations. Well, as about fifty percent of all the trips in urban environment are less than two miles, which means that we're not even close to penetration the market. And if we turn our eyes to cities like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, we know that the other traffic pattern there is fifty percent of the traffics are on bikes and alternatives.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  So instead of like consider too much, we're fighting for what percentage I got out of that one percent today. I think it's very critical for us to think more broadly and also long term is how we push that one percent to fifty percent. In the journey of doing that, a lot of education need to be done, a lot of innovation needs to be done in order to enable that, right? So the more, the better that we are together push for better regulations, better innovations and better infrastructures. We're together educate the user, you know, to about like the. New options for them and the benefit of it. That's the way I see it, but I know that when it comes to a lot of competition, there are folks who will be exclusively focusing on competition.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  But I think that's the wrong thing to do and we at Lime, we just never do that.

• 11:05Harry Stebbings?

  No, we are going to discuss the innovation that expands that market to beyond one percent. In terms of the one percent, I am fascinated in terms of this market. Do you see it as a market where there is inherent customer loyalty between provider? Or do you see it more as a kind of transactional usage, which is use multiple providers?

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there are two aspects to it. First is there's always customer loyalty on a large broader view of things, right? That user has loyalty to water. And that's probably the most non-defensive product, right? That when you reach out a role of like different water brands, you will reach out a brand that you like. I think loyalty is always there, but the loyalty should be based on quality of the product and service. And the safety and everything that a brand presents. So I think that's that and we've seen some of the metrics supporting that. There are many markets that we are half of the fleet that will have way more than half of the market share that representing it.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Meanwhile, I think the overall, as I mentioned, that the penetration rate of vehicles in the city is still very, very low. And that means at any given point, there are chances that a user wanted to use a scooter, but Lime is not available. So, you know, the idea, I'm glad there are some other peers is providing service when we are not available. And I'm glad that there are services to the user at a time. And it's again, that's good for the industry overall.

• 12:32Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely it is, but you mentioned the multiple markets there and I am super interested because Lime's now a global business. But there are also global competitors in Europe and Latin America with HQs in those locations. One that fascinates me is how do you think about launching new cities and what does it take to win, Brad?

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think launching the new cities are a rather long process per se. That they are getting the regulation ready, getting the permit, logistic, imports, exports, warehouses.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Parts and this all kinds of things involved to launch a physical asset business into a city. So that part is not easy. But meanwhile, that I think when it comes to the local markets, I think there are always the benefit of, you know, being a global brand, right? That accessibility, the network effect, wherever you goes is one of the key thing for a mobility service. And the second part, I would say, when it comes to the data, the learn, the know hows that we generated from over hundred markets across the globe that really help us to be a better company to provide better services, products. At the end of the day, that's what it matters. It doesn't really matter about whether it's a small company or big company or where they're located.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  It matter to the user is the service level.

• 13:49Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, that is the core. I do have to ask, do you think we'll see consolidation amongst the smaller players? And is that a thought for you, do you think, moving forward?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  It's too early in the industry to say that what could happen. But I I wouldn't say though, some of the learning we have from the history that there might be some form of consolidation. But majority of them that it will be just smaller ones will be having a hard time to even survive. It's a very complex business.

• 14:15Harry Stebbings?

  No, it absolutely is. And hearing you discuss what it takes to launch a new city, I absolutely heard that just from the short sentence. I do have to ask, because the other area where maybe as I'm sure you know, there are some skeptics around is the unit economics of Lime's model. Can I ask, because you're an incredible team and you have an incredible set of investors. So can you paint a picture for me of how Lime gets to profitability?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  First of all, right, we already have dozens of markets are profitable. So it's not how we or whether it's already. So that I can give you the good picture will further enhance on the hardware, software as well as operations to further enhance the profitability side of things. But we're the, you know, partially there.

• 14:53Harry Stebbings?

  Klaus, what's the biggest determinant? Is it the maturity of the city? Is it the density of the city? What's the biggest determinant that you found?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  We actually found a really the contrary that we, what we found is there are all sorts of cities that could be profitable and many of them are. And you know, it's a Big range of like smaller city, big cities, densey or not, colder weather, warm weather. And it's just a combination of maturity of the cities, density of course, and as well as the layout of the city. There are cities has better infrastructures and better cultures towards alternative transportations. And they're also, you know, impacted by like tourists or not and just many other factors. But the the learning here is that if it's done right, it could be profitable in pretty much every city.

• 15:38Harry Stebbings?

  Mm hmm. Absolutely. Can I ask one that I'm too interested not to? What's the record time to get to profitability?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Two weeks.

• 15:45Harry Stebbings?

  Oh, okay. I wasn't expecting that fast. That's impressive to hear. The final element before we move into the incredible team that you've built there, Brad. I do want to touch on is we mentioned kind of innovations within hardware. How do you think about innovations within hardware? How you see the actual Moore's Law of hardware moving over the next three to five year or cycle for you in terms of the next chapter for the company?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. I think the one thing we are doing very different from our peers is that we started building our hardware team and doing the vertical integration started day one. And what it enable us to do is in the last twelve months also that we released four major versions of the vehicles and one generation after generation that we improve on the hardware itself based on the feedback we got, right? So four versions of hardware. Think about that. The typical hardware innovation cycle is two to five years. And we have changed the way, entire way of like how we, you know, using digital feedback loop and design and also manufacture and testing them.

• 16:47Speaker 02

  And that give us a really competitive edge and we'll be keep on doing that or however it takes, right? And it's really difficult on many different fronts in order to enable that. So we yet to see our peers to catch up. And in the next few years, I think we have a long list of things that's coming that it will take a really long time to develop all the product features that we really wanted to to provide to our users. If we use automobile industry as a predicate, that it take the whole industry literally.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  One hundred to two hundred years to perfect the car. I don't see a reason that, you know, the scooter, water bikes or e-bikes that will be much shorter than that.

• 17:29Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, when thinking about the innovations, what's the primary driver? Is it lowering the cost of the scooter itself? Or is it actually improving the efficiency and performance of the scooter? How do you think about that balance between the two?

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Actually, it's more than that. In the hardware business, there's always a saying, right? That you can have all the advanced features and better user experience. Or you can have the longest durability, right? In terms of like, you know, how long it lasts, or you can have lowest cost. But you cannot have three at a time. You can have two, so make your pick. You pick two, you combine them together and that's the product you will be aiming at, right? So we're trying to solve three things at the same time. And that's a very challenging product management, as well as the supply chain management issue that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

• 18:19Harry Stebbings?

  I'm sure it is. But as I said before the show, I spoke to many of your investors. And one real commonality in what we discussed was the incredible team that you've assembled from Joe Kraus, Lindsay Haswell, Lee Fan. I have to ask then, considering this phenomenal group of people that you have together at Lime, how did you convince such an incredible cohort of individuals to join you over, you know, the many other options that they would have had in place?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Vision and value, that is the key thing. When we look at the world-class players, that they have a lot of options, right? They have achieved a lot in their career and life. They have been accumulated experience and personal networks and trust and reputations, everything. So for all of my executive team members, that pretty much none of them, the, you know, really is like work for money type of person anymore, right? So for them, it's really about sharing the similar values as we do and also seeing the same vision and passion about the impact it will make. So Lime, as a company, we're a mission-driven, for-profit company. So these two actually can work out, you know, really well together, hand in hand.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  And I think the executive team, they are attracted by the vision to. Making our world, you know, cleaner, greener, healthier and much more lovable in the future of cities. And they are then retained by the common values we share. So I think that is incredibly powerful. And using the Maslow's, what is called hierarchy of needs, right, that they're on a higher hierarchy of the need. And I think they, at this point, it's not just about making some quick bucks. It's about how we as humans can make a positive impact in the societies and in the world we live in.

• 20:00Harry Stebbings?

  No, I mean, absolutely. I do have one subsequent question, though. And a lot of founders ask me. Harry, when is the right time to really assemble an exec team of incredible individuals? What would you advise young founders and founders in the earlier stages on when the right time is to start assembling that exec team?

• 20:15Speaker 02

  I think, you know, from two sides of the story, right? For the company is the earlier the better. So you bring in the very unique set of experience as well as opinions. That's very valuable. Meanwhile, the question more than often for a startup is different from a mature market. The question is when I am ready to attract great talents. They need a good platform, they need the clear ownership and they need a scope. So if we're not ready to attract that, that will be really not the right time. But if we attract them or bring them on too late, that we're not benefiting the most from their experiences.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  So for us, the way I look at it is that just imagine that a talent or a executor that imagine the team he or she will be managing twelve months from now. So therefore that you bring them on twelve months earlier and give them the opportunity to build that team over the course of twelve months and keep on running it. I think that's a healthy balance.

• 21:18Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree in that balance. And speaking of kind of balance, one I do want to touch on, and moving down from the exec team is obviously the team at Lime scaled incredibly over the last year or so. In terms of challenges that come with scaling, where have been some of the breaking points that you found in kind of cultural organizational scaling? Where you've maybe had to make adjustments? Have there been certain inflection points?

• 21:40Speaker 02

  I think there's a lot along the way. We're human that we have to respect the humility of everyone. Humility means good and bad. They all come together, right? And also, the more experience one person has, the stronger the preference and egos and, you know, opinions it comes with it. So I think for us, it's really not about breaking point that we're talking about. It's more about alignment, right? We have the executive team as well as the rest of team coming from different backgrounds and have different set of opinions and ways of doing things. So how we align them together was the biggest challenge and also for me that I spent, you know, quite a bit of time on that.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  And the analogy I use with my team is that you could have a team of really strong players, right? That just like a basketball player, you can have all the best players on the court together. But if they're not playing as a team, they may not even beat a second tier team. To have the strongest player to play together cohesively and collaboratively is the harder part. Instead of like, you know, there's a breaking point or not, right? So that part is we constantly look out for things to see whether there's not enough alignment.

• 22:56Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. I mean, speaking of alignment, it's an interesting word because I spoke to Sarah before the show and she told me about your incredible relationship with Toby. And so I can't not address this as the final question before the quick fire. What do you think makes you successful as co-founders that might be unique?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there are two things make it very unique. The first of all is long history of trust relationship. The trust relationship we build over the course of like eight, nine years before we start a company that really, really helps. And the trust relationship is built upon the common values, right? That if we don't share the same value, we'll never be trusting each other. And there is a saying that I like a lot. If you don't want to partner with someone for the life, you'd better not to partner with him or her for even a single day. And that's the principle that I hold as well, that if there's no trust in between, there's always second agenda. Guests, holdbacks and all that. You'd better just better off not to partner at all.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  So I had a series of partners in in the past of my career, right? Partner was Toby on working on this. He used to work in my venture fund for about four years before that. And we know each other as alumni and I was his mentor when he was in the business school. That helps significantly. And then, you know, when I co-founded my venture fund, that me and my partner who is in China, we also have the similar level of trust, right? We're so far away, we're six thousand miles away from each other. And we yet to need to rely on each other to make decisions that will put tens of millions into a company. So I think the trust builds, the trust based on common value. And also the meaningful connections via other aspects is very, very important.

• 24:39Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, absolutely it is. I do wanna move into my favorite element of the interview, Brad, being the quick fire rounds. I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts. Are you ready to rock and roll?

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, bring it on.

• 24:50Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, so your favorite book and why? What must I read?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Good to Great, really lay out the fundamental principles, how and why a great company will be built.

• 25:00Harry Stebbings?

  What is the most challenging element about your role today?

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Is to align the interest and kind of like drive and also goals for different teams in the company.

• 25:10Harry Stebbings?

  What does a day in the life of yours look like? I'm sure it's incredibly hectic, but what does it look like?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  I would say that first off, all right, that we've got a bunch of meetings. So my day started roughly about eight. Normally I will check the emails in the morning to make sure that any important topics got covered. And I will have a series of meetings, I would say sixty, seventy percent internally. And then twenty, thirty percent are externally for investors, media, all that. And internal meeting is more about setting the goals and align the team. And then the meeting goes all the way through five, six P M. And I will have thirty minutes for a quick dinner. And then goes on with my team in China and some A P A C regions. And that goes on to roughly about eleven P M. Then I start to check the email and I'll go to sleep at two.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  I've been doing this for fifteen, twenty years now, so it's not like new to me.

• 26:02Harry Stebbings?

  And I've seen the pictures of you, Brad. You look incredibly young. I don't know how you do it. Tell me, what do you know now that you wish you'd known at the beginning of Lime?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Uh, I wish I could have known how complex and hard the business is. Everyone look at it, just say, hey, put a scooter on the street, you got a business. Well, you you're wrong, and I was wrong too. It's so hard.

• 26:24Harry Stebbings?

  That is very funny. Tell me, the Lyft and the Uber IPOs, is that a positive or a negative for Lime?

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Positive, absolutely positive.

• 26:33Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, no, absolutely. What advice do you most commonly hear, given that you disagree with?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Uh, there are a lot. I'll give two. You know, one of that, when we started company, that the fulfillment formula, which is a uncommon common practice that they had to get into city, well, you know, Uber established, right? Just go to the city, you launch a service and talk about it with the city after that. And we just deliberately didn't do that. That was the advice we got at the time. And the second thing that I would say, I always hear that advice is to be focused. But then, you know, first of all, I a hundred percent completely agree with the the advice of focus. But I think there are more than often that we have to make a very independent judgment that what does focus mean or what do we focus on, right?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  That if the focus is that we as a young company, we should we go global in less than two years, which we did, right? That that's a, you know, should we just focus on the US market? So we went global, right? That you know, it seems like it's not focused, yeah.

• 27:33Harry Stebbings?

  Was that an incredibly tough decision to make, going global, or was it very obvious?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  To me, it's very obvious, but the too many that we as a young company, here's what we did, right? We launched the bikes and we didn't focus on that. Well, you know, focus with a quotation mark. We didn't focus on that. We then launched the e-bikes and we didn't focus on that. We then launched the scooters, right? And the market expansion, we started with US, you know, rapidly expanding into global market and consider as maybe to some that is not focused. That's what I disagreed. I agree with the focus, but I disagree that the focus. Should be on a certain geo or certain, you know, product. What we focus on is user is what user need, we will focus on that. They want a bike, we will give them bike, they want scooter, we'll give them scooters. We focus on the user where they are.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  If they are distributed globally, as we all know, that's true, then we will go global. We'll, we'll meet them there. There's no way I can ask a UK user or Australian user, hey, come to the US and use our service. Well, that's just not a right way to approach it.

• 28:37Harry Stebbings?

  I do want to finish this day, Brad, on a final question being, what's the next five years for you and for Lime? Just how big could this get?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the, in terms of big, that we, the way I think about it is by how many users will be benefiting from it. So measurement for me is how much time we save for the user, how much money we save for the user, how much pollutions we reduce there, how much traffic congestion that we cut. So that is the goal we have. And for five years, that what I really hope is for the cities that we're operating in, that we may not be able to cut the traffic by 50% yet, but at least that we can lift it from 1% to 2% today to, you know, 20, 30% of that, the, of the car traffic in the city are on alternative transportations. So that's the way I would measure it.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And on top of that, of course, that we hope that, you know, with better services and product we offer, that will be keep as the leading company globally for the urban mobility. And the brand will be recognized very well in terms of the values, safeties and product experience that we represent. But the first and foremost, the thing I wanted to see in five years is there is a movement, the movement of the awareness and the proactiveness of the users that they, either they use our service or not, they, they will support it, they will support and be part of the movement that we all contribute, make our cities, you know, healthy, make our cities less congested,

• 30:08Speaker 02

  and I'll make our cities that are more livable and they push for that common goal going forward.

• 30:14Harry Stebbings?

  Brad, as I said, I had so many great things from, from so many of your investors. I've so enjoyed today, so thank you so much for joining me and I cannot wait to see that vision achieved too.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Pleasure is all mine. Thank you for having me here, Hi.

• 30:27Harry Stebbings?

  I have to say, it was so much fun having Brad on the show and I cannot get over that daily routine. What can I say, I thought I worked hard. And if you'd like to see more from us behind the scenes, you can on Instagram at HStubbings1996 with two Bs. However, before we leave you today... It's time we spend less time managing our inboxes and more time getting work done with Front, the email platform that's helping teams respond faster to close more deals, delight more customers and grow their businesses. Front's shared inbox and workflows route emails to the right people right away, keeping everyone in the loop from start to finish. Internal comments keep teams focused so they can make faster decisions. And with 50-plus apps connected to your inbox, you'll save even more time getting your work done. That's

• 31:08Harry Stebbings?

  why teams at Shopify, General Assembly, Y Combinator and 5,000 companies around the world are responding 54 minutes faster to emails using Front. So can you. And you can get Front now by going to frontapp.com/20vc to start your free trial. And if you use the coupon code 20vc, you'll get 20% off your first three months. And now we've nailed team collaboration and efficiency with Front, we should also talk about Culture Amp, the platform that turns your company culture into your competitive advantage. Are you looking for your first investor, or are you working your way through the alphabet from Series A to B to C and beyond? Whatever your goals are here, you'll need your team to be at peak performance to get you there. So how do you develop your employees at their fullest potential? Performance reviews are the cornerstone of high-performance work cultures. But now,

• 31:53Harry Stebbings?

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• 32:36Harry Stebbings?

  From the ground up, they've unlocked just a ton of efficiencies which they pass on to you and me, the customer, in the form of savings of up to 25%. And if that wasn't good enough, they also just fundamentally provide a better customer experience, helping you switch from your current provider and providing you a single point of contact to guide you through the process. But don't just trust me, today Hippo has a total insured value of over $50 billion and a backed by the biggest underwriting partners in the industry with over $200 billion worth of assets. So get a quote today from Hippo in just 60 seconds at myhippo.com. As always, I cannot thank you enough for the support and I'm very excited to bring you another set of exceptional episodes next week.