Bird Acquires Scoot

[aresant]

Handful of interesting points:

a) Scoot raised something like $47,000,000. This article reports a cash and stock deal of $25,000,000.

b) Scoot launched in 2012 and spent their first 6 years renting mopeds and electric bikes, only recently launching what we all think of as "scooters" in late 2018.

c) The founder illustrates what Scoot saw as a gigantic problem in the space - theft and vandalism (1). He then wrote a follow-up post a few months later illustrating their solution - a proprietary lock adapter from their bike sharing network (2). I wonder if we'll see this technology rolled out @ Bird?

(1) https://medium.com/@mbkeating/what-we-learned-from-our-first...

(2) https://medium.com/@mbkeating/one-of-our-kicks-was-stolen-la...

[ravenstine]

Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that the newest generation of Bird scooters are more difficult to hardwire. As far as I'm aware, nobody has done so yet, but most of them are still older generation and can be easily have their circuit boards replaced with ones for Xiaomi scooters(basically Bird scooters but without Bird's SIM card or GPS).

Vandalism is a far bigger problem for them, though, since most people don't have the skills(or rather the confidence) to hotwire a Bird scooter.

[dcolkitt]

> The founder illustrates what Scoot saw as a gigantic problem in the space - theft and vandalism

Is this actually a serious impediment to the scooter business model? Bulk electric scooters can be sourced from Chinese manufacturers for <$200. The ride sharing services charge $0.15/minute.

You breakeven in 24 hours of ride time. Assuming 30% utilization during peak hours and 10% off hours, the payback time is less than two weeks of deployment. You'd have to expect 5-10% of your fleet to be vandalized/stolen every day, before it breaks the margins.

[microdrum]

This low acquisition price might make you think: Bird got an awesome deal.

But it should also make you think: Bird isn't worth much.

Scooter and bike rental companies aren't worth much. They never have been.

[mjg59]

Bird has already started rolling out Bluetooth-based locks in some markets. They're kind of a hack - they're separate Bluetooth devices that are bolted onto the stem, and the unlock step is separate from the scooter unlock step.

[paxys]

"Bird acquires San Francisco scooter permit"

[baby]

freaking victory if you ask me, San Francisco has been completely backward on this scooter permit. There's never any scooters around, they are not available passed a certain hour in the evening, and above all they require you to have a US driver license. They are doing everything to incentivize people to learn how to drive and own a car...

I've never felt corruption before moving to San Francisco. There's money everywhere you walk, but there's the largest concentration of homeless people in the street (and they're not just homeless, they are junkies as well). Rent is completely absurd, and that's because no buildings can be built anywhere (if you look at the population of San Francisco 10 years ago, it hasn't moved). Public Transport is absolute shit, which makes it a hassle for a lot of people to live here because they need to commute every day to suburbs.

[spyspy]

That’s what I first thought as well. They’ve literally bought their way back into the SF market after being snubbed.

[blkhp19]

Maybe they'll finally have the resources to make a proper app. For context, they went web view -> react native, and both iterations were among the worst apps I've used on an Apple device. It's a shame that companies don't take pride in the UX they create, but I guess they were probably eng resource constrained.

[umeshunni]

You're right on the money here. Scoot was undoubtedly the worst app I've used in recent years. I liked their scooters but their app had a laggy webview and all the images were squashed and in the wrong aspect ratio. I assumed this was a problem only on Android and that they were just a hipster head-in-the-sand company like Snap, but guess it was just crappy developers.

[perfmode]

Apparently money can’t buy engineers.

[mrlambchop]

IIRC, there was a giant ruby backend and a web app that were both deployed in unison - made for a super janky app experience when it would require you to refresh the mobile app if a deploy occurred whilst you were in the middle of booking a moped (which BTW, I still love riding)

[bluntfang]

i had no issues with the scoot app other than QR codes not working.

[baby]

adding to the whishlist:

* allow people without US driver license to use them

* allow people to drive these in the evening

* have more of them (it's always hard to find one)

[bruceb]

They city of SF has said Bird can't layoff any Scoot employees if they want to take over Scoot's permit.

>Among the conditions SFMTA asked of Bird is one Scoot employees may be >celebrating: Reiskin told Bird it must maintain the “same or greater number of >employees that Scoot has employed during the pilot” to also operate at the “same >or higher” compensation, including benefits, and to maintain Scoot’s commitment >to labor harmony in San Francisco.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/the-city/formerly-ousted-e-scoote...

Not sure how enforceable this is.

[sulam]

This does not say you can't lay someone off. What it says is that you can't RIF the team. You can fire people and hire others, possibly much cheaper others.

IOW, this is a very weak requirement.

[arcticbull]

Enforcement action can be as simple as not issuing a permit renewal when this one expires.

[Stryder]

Would be great to see if this one sticks, but I have a sneaking suspicion that managers will just find novel ways to get people to leave.

[rhizome]

"Unenforceable" under what principle or flaw?

[minimaxir]

The purchase price was apparently about $25M, which I'm assuming is not a 10x exit (the exact amount they raised is unclear).

https://twitter.com/Katie_Roof/status/1138913835606089729

[freewilly1040]

As per the linked article they raised $47M

[smaili]

Pro tip: if you want to get acquired by your competitor just have SF grant you a permit they can't have :)

[joewadcan]

Funny, but doubtful that's it even the majority of the reason for this acquisition. Do you really think there's $25M in profit by operating one of many scooter rental services in San Francisco?

I'm sure the permit was a nice to have, but Bird's got a bunch of reasons to acquire Scoot. Experience with motorized scooters (which Bird just announced their own variant), an existing software team, a "kleenex"-level trademark, not to mention keeping it away from their competitors.

[dawhizkid]

I hardly see anyone in SF using scooters anymore. When I do, I usually see people riding the Skip ones and not so much the Scoot ones.

[Ramiro]

$25 million sounds pretty low. Guess they just bought the existing stock scooters and the SF permit? It would extremely funny if the city didn't allow for the permit to be transferred :P

[kibibyte]

Permit transferred already, but with some strings attached https://mobile.twitter.com/fitzthereporter/status/1138904732...

[microdrum]

They won’t.

[eridius]

Please tell me they'll keep the Scoot branding. Scoot's brand is much better than Bird's, and in particular the red Scoot mopeds are quite distinctive and fun whereas black Bird ones wouldn't be.

[mjn]

It's the wrong number of letters, though. Here in Washington, DC, we currently have six licensed scooter companies: Bird, Jump, Lime, Lyft, Skip, and Spin. Through advanced statistical analysis, I've therefore determined that four letters is the correct number of letters in a scooter company name. "Scoot" needs to lose one somehow!

[knur]

They will. In fact, they will most likely operate under Bird's Platform product, which basically mean they will be more or less independent except they will use Bird's backend, firmware, client, etc.

[ibash]

What are the different ways this could play out for scoot's service?

[nikodunk]

I'd assume Scoot can now grow faster, while being less constrained by capital when expanding to new locations like Spain and Chile (buying more scooters every time).

At the same time Bird can benefit from Scoot's operational experience, which at this point must be iterated and relatively efficient.

From what I've heard from regular users though, Scoot's service is already pretty good. I even know two super-users who promote it to everyone they know all the time, and use it every day to commute from Richmond <> Downtown.

[rasz]

one less bankruptcy

[asdfman123]

Can we talk about just how patently ridiculous this headline sounds? Lots of adults involved, lots of smart people, lots of big money, seven figure contracts.

Bird acquires scoot: https://gfycat.com/genuineseverefruitfly

[escoz]

I guess this explains the Bird scooters parked around SF downtown over the last few days.. :)

[knur]

Not really. That's just Bird Rentals, which is a different strategy Bird was trying in SF to penetrate that market

[haldean]

I love Scoot but I'm still peeved at the way Bird handled rolling their scooters out in SF. I trusted Scoot to do the right thing when it came to engaging the city and making sure they use public infrastructure responsibly, but I have none of that trust for Bird. I guess we'll see how it goes, but maybe it's just time to buy my own GenZe :(

[asveikau]

> maybe it's just time to buy my own GenZe

I used scoot for a bit before deciding to buy a Vespa in SF. It was a good preview of what the scooter commute would look like. (Obviously the 150cc scooter is more powerful.)

I know I am not the only one who went this route. I would hear from strangers on scooters in SF who said something similar.

[jdreyfuss]

Yeah Bird's rollout in SF put them in a very negative light for a lot people (myself included). Perhaps there's more acceptance for scooters this time around, so it'll go better for them.

[freewilly1040]

I don't understand how Scoot's permits to operate dockless scooters / bikes / whatever relates to the Lyft lawsuit over their exclusive right to operate in SF. Not a lawyer but the wording I saw seems like Lyft is likely to prevail there.

[eridius]

Scoot doesn't operate bikes. They operate electric mopeds and kick scooters. Lyft is suing over bikeshare. AFAICT Scoot is not related to the lawsuit.

[DeonPenny]

Thank god, scoot had the worst scooters. The best locks though. Their scooters at most went 12mph while others go 15+. Hopefully, they bring those bird scoots back to sf.

[throw03172019]

Fire sale? $47M injected into Scoot.

[gyrgtyn]

they have the scoots

[s1mon]

Well, now SF will no longer be infested with so many scooters with branding saying coot or cool after "modification".

[lucasmullens]

Instead we'll get Turd scooters (apparently someone's doing this all over LA): https://www.reddit.com/r/birdcharger/comments/9hs068/has_any...