Bird Admits Their Xiaomi/Ninebot Segway eScooters Were Shit

I said I would stop with posts about eScoters, but this one ties up a loose end — which also vindicates me.

People were surprised when I couldn’t recommend a single eScooter months ago (Don’t Buy An eScooter For Christmas). Well, if you’d asked the CEO of Bird, you’d have gotten the same damn answer!

Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality

On unit economics: When Bird bursted onto the scene in 2017, VanderZanden knew he had to move quickly to beat copycats, he explained. Operating under Reid Hoffman’s ‘Blitzscaling’ philosophy, he dispersed hundreds of Alibaba-imported electric scooters that were, well, pretty shitty.

“Those things were fragile,” VanderZanden told Suster. “Clearly the unit economics didn’t work on those scooters but that was a test anyway … Once we knew people liked riding them, we quickly scrambled and started creating our own scooters. Bird Zero is the first iteration of that. What we see on the unit economics of those, it’s like night and day.”

This, I hope, will be my final final eScooter post.

Next!

Previously here:

Chronological List Of Electric Scooter Posts