RideBee

Why did you found your start-up, what problem are you addressing and how are you solving it?

On our daily commute to work in Munich and Stuttgart, we have all experienced ever-increasing traffic jams. With our carpooling platform dedicated to commuting, we address this societal problem and enable our users to reduce their driving costs and emissions by more than 50% while creating productive time for them during their commute.

What is special about your business model, what do you do differently?

We offer our platform to companies and charge a monthly SaaS fee. Employees use RideBee without any commission and only reimburse each other for their travel costs. This - in combination with special convenience features such as group chats, live location sharing and integrated payment - is important to keep users on the platform even after they have found a suitable carpool.

What has been your biggest success so far?

In our last company project, we were able to attract over 350 users to RideBee and exceeded our own targets. It's important to reach a critical mass right from the start and we ensure this through various online and offline channels on site.

What would you recommend to other founders?

Firstly, don't listen to the pessimists! There will always be people who make the barriers too high or simply wouldn't use your product personally and therefore don't believe in the business model. Secondly, to get your business off the ground quickly, you should focus on two things - product development and sales! Don't underestimate how many hours other small tasks will pile up and how little time you will sometimes invest in these two areas.

Where did you get to know each other as a team?

Lukas and Tobias met while studying abroad in Melbourne in 2014. Fabian and Lukas got to know each other during another exchange semester at Carnegie Mellon University in 2017. As a team, we are based in Munich.

What was the toughest feedback you've ever received in a pitch?

How can you claim to reduce car traffic when in reality you are cheaper than Uber and thus make car use more attractive than public transportation or cycling? - It is true that some forms of shared mobility actually create more kilometers than they save. However, since most of our customers live in rural areas where alternatives such as public transport are less attractive, we don't cannibalize on other sustainable modes of transport.

Where do you see yourselves in 3 years?

In 2022, we will be operating on a solid B2B customer base within Europe using our enhanced mobility solutions for businesses. We will also have expanded our reach with a B2C carpooling application serving points of interest such as airports, soccer stadiums, festivals and fairgrounds.

Do you still have a social life despite founding a startup?

We started by working 7 days a week, 12-16 hours a day at critical times. But we realized that we were cutting back on sleep, sports, meeting friends and other leisure activities. In the long run, that doesn't keep you happy or productive. We have since learned that we can plan outside of working hours and still achieve our milestones.

If an investor gave you €500,000, what would you do with the money?

We are actually currently looking for an investment. About half of the money will be allocated to product development to further improve the user experience on all devices (we are available on iOS, Android and web) and thus user retention. The other half would go to sales and marketing to capitalize on the good momentum of corporate social responsibility initiatives we are currently facing.

Let's say you were the governing mayor of Munich for a day, what would you change?

I'm not sure it would be within our power: If possible, we would introduce higher parking fees and a congestion charge, allocate funds to build new and improve existing bicycle infrastructure and initiate pilot projects such as dedicated carpool lanes (in the suburbs). And since we are only in office for one day, we would make sure that the decisions are irreversible.