SC

Strategy Canon

Sidecar: sourced choices

30 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 2011Product · Concepts rejected before launch In late 2011 the founders dropped a fixed-route smartphone bus copying the 38 Express (lawyers judged it illegal), a routed shuttle for groups of friends and coordinated shared black-car or taxi rides (too complicated). SC7
  2. 2011Product · Donation pricing Rides were priced as suggested donations the rider could change, modeled on carpooling and a volunteer car service, with "not making a profit" measured annually rather than per mile. SC7
  3. 2012Product · Driver vetting and insurance Drivers passed electronic background checks matching San Francisco taxi standards, and the company provided liability cover up to $1 million on top of personal policies. SC7
  4. 2012Product · Payment, navigation and ratings The app took card payment electronically and offered GPS navigation, turn-by-turn directions for drivers and ratings. SC7
  5. 2012Go_To_Market · First customers The first hundred customers came through the founders' networks, including University of Michigan connections on the founding team. SC9
  6. 2012Go_To_Market · Category name Paul coined "ridesharing" for the service, chosen to describe a future of strangers sharing rides and to align with the sharing economy. SC7
  7. 2012-02Product · Single-rider first version The original plan for multi-passenger, multi-stop rides was cut: the first version carried one passenger to one destination. A test site was live by February 7, 2012. SC7
  8. 2012-06Go_To_Market · San Francisco launch The public service launched in San Francisco in June 2012; by October it had hundreds of drivers and more than 50,000 completed rides. SC10
  9. 2012-10Product · Insurance status In October 2012 Sidecar was still working to put supplemental insurance for drivers on duty in place. SC10
  10. 2012-10-10Go_To_Market · Series A for a city-by-city rollout Sidecar raised $10 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Google Ventures to roll out city by city in dense areas with constrained taxi supply. SC10
  11. 2012-11-14Go_To_Market · Operating through enforcement The state regulator fined Sidecar $20,000 for unlicensed charter-party service; Sidecar kept operating. SC11
  12. 2013-02-14Product · Heyride acquisition Sidecar acquired Heyride, an Austin ride-sharing startup, to improve its app design and user experience; four Heyride staff joined. SC13
  13. 2013-02-14Go_To_Market · Seven markets announced Sidecar launched Philadelphia, Austin and Los Angeles at once and named New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington as next. SC13
  14. 2013-03Go_To_Market · Free festival rides In Austin during South by Southwest the company gave free rides, drawing more than 20,000 requests, and sued the city over its ruling that the service was illegal. SC14
  15. 2013-03-15Go_To_Market · Weekend-night launch hours Boston, Brooklyn and Chicago opened from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. on weekend nights until each reached critical mass. SC14
  16. 2014-02Product · Driver-set prices and rider choice Drivers set their own prices and riders chose among nearby drivers by price, rating and distance, instead of being assigned the nearest driver. SC20
  17. 2014-02Product · Driver profiles Drivers could describe themselves in the app with a picture and a short profile, and riders could see drivers before choosing. SC21
  18. 2014-02Go_To_Market · Personal positioning Union Square Ventures invested on the thesis that "Uber is efficient and Sidecar is personal", comparing the two to Amazon and Etsy. SC21
  19. 2014-05Product · Shared Rides test Sidecar tested shared rides for people traveling in the same direction and counted 13,000 requests during the test. SC24
  20. 2014-08-18Product · Upfront price, no surge The price was known before every trip and there was no surge pricing. SC9
  21. 2014-08-18Go_To_Market · Acquisition channels Riders came mainly by word of mouth, a $5 referral coupon, digital advertising and email. SC9
  22. 2014-08-28Go_To_Market · Drivers from UberX Paul said many Sidecar drivers had switched from UberX for the flexibility and control over rates. SC16
  23. 2014-09-15Go_To_Market · Follow-on round and footprint Sidecar raised $15 million from Union Square Ventures, Avalon Ventures and Richard Branson, for $35 million in total, while serving eight metro areas. SC15
  24. 2015-02-09Product · Packages with passengers Same-day deliveries were routed in the same cars as passengers, after a six-month Bay Area test. SC17
  25. 2015-02-09Go_To_Market · Delivery partners Eat24 was the pilot partner for Sidecar Deliveries; deliveries were already 10% of San Francisco volume and were meant to be half the business by the end of 2015. SC17
  26. 2015-03-05Product · Destination entry Every user had to enter a destination, which let the system match trips going the same way. SC2
  27. 2015-03-18Go_To_Market · Driver hourly guarantees Sidecar offered hourly guarantees to drivers who booked blocks of at least three hours, completed a ride an hour, kept a 90% response rate and drove within designated areas. SC23
  28. 2015-08Go_To_Market · Delivery-only focus In August 2015 Sidecar redirected most of its resources from rides to delivery. SC18
  29. 2015-12-29Product · Features claimed as firsts The co-founders list Destination, turn-by-turn directions, Shared ETA, Shared Rides, Back-to-Back rides and the driver-set price marketplace as Sidecar firsts. SC4
  30. 2015-12-31Go_To_Market · Shutdown Ride and delivery service ended at 2 p.m. Pacific on December 31, 2015. SC4