The term 'venture studio' is pretty loosely defined, and could mean anything from a development shop to something that looks more like a venture fund.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.
Spin | http://spin.pm | Mobile (React Native) Engineer | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: euwyn@spin.pm]
Spin is the nation's leading stationless bikeshare company. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
I've always believed this. More bikers on the road creates more awareness from drivers, and also more investment by cities into bike infrastructure, including dedicated and protected bike lanes.
More bikes available also means more bikers, something we're working on at Spin for US cities. Get in touch (email in profile) if this seems like a problem space interesting to you :)
Spin | http://spin.pm | Software Engineers | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, INTERNS, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: euwyn@spin.pm]
Spin is the nation's largest stationless bikeshare operator. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
Hello HN, Euwyn here, president and co-founder of Spin. I'm 2x YC, our CEO Derrick was formerly at Lyft, and our CTO was at Disqus (YC 07). I helped to start this company in part because of my own personal annoyance with the design of "station-based" bike-share systems. Who thought that having to _find a station_, then think about whether your _destination_ had a station close-by was a good idea?
We just had a huge launch in Austin at SXSW, and just announced a deal with the City of Austin. See:
We're hiring for everything (city GMs, ops, engineers, GR, etc), and love hearing from people who are passionate about having this in their city. We're particularly interested in hearing from folks in SF, where we're based, where the City is considering a measure that would hamper station-less bike-share systems.
I'm wondering if you are going to reply to the comment that Heath Maddox, SFMTA, left.
My only agenda here is that I want more bikes around SF, so I like your proposal - but I would also like to know what's the truth behind both parties allegations.
My name is Mark Ballew, and I am the chair of the SFMTA Operations and Customer Service Committee (OCSC). I spoke to Heath Maddox at length at the last committee meeting [1]. No one from the public, Spin, or Bluegogo attended, but it is a public meeting.
I've been following the political battle as published in the SFexaminer for these "station-less" bike share programs to get their permits. I was originally skeptical about why the city is pushing back against these programs, because who doesn't like sharing bikes? It is a physically and environmentally healthy way to get around, not to mention very quick even with the hills in a 7x7 city. Why would the city be so bad about permitting? We have car shares in the public right away, and permitting is no problem. Is the city against these bike sharing hippies?
After talking to Heath, he convenience me that there are some serious regulatory problems with "station-less" systems like Spin.
1. In sample of similar programs around the world, the bicycles are very inexpensive. There is no clear standard for how these bicycles will be maintained in the interest of the public's safety.
2. There is no guarantee that the bikes won't be abandoned in the public right of way, as they do not need to be returned anywhere. These leaves public works to collect bikes that are left on trees, on parking meters, in the bay, on racks, or simply dumped in the middle of the sidewalk.
3. The reason why BABS is so cheap is it attempts to be equitable and non-discriminative. $88/yr is affordable for most users of the system. Will station-less systems, who use public resources, distribute hubs in poorer areas of the city?
Spin's blog leaves a bad taste in that they are bashing BABS, but what is worse is the blog fails to mention that the system is about to more than double in size. New docks and bikes are already on order, according to Heath, and the stations removed from the south bay will be used to expand existing stations in SF and San Jose.
I don't object to station-less bike sharing, I object to these companies not working with our city to create a safe, equitable, and sustainable program starting from day 1. I hope to see fewer puff blogs like this, and more work with public agencies.
> Will station-less systems, who use public resources, distribute hubs in poorer areas of the city?
This is a very very good point. A 'station-less system', in effect will gradually migrate bicycles towards higher-usage areas only, thus reducing access in poorer/lower-usage areas.
sounds like thats possible thru regulation and permits. but sounds like the city doesnt want to work with 'em given the exclusive with motivate? (that exclusivity is very bad taste imo)
I generally dislike stations (since they're never plentiful and rarely conveniently placed). But I think they're a good idea in high-traffic locations - e.g., next to Caltrain stations. They tamp down on the chaos of bikes piled up by the careless.
For a bike share program to be useful to me, it needs to do a few things:
1) The bike must be within a 3-minute walk of where I am right now.
2) I must be able to ditch the bike within a 3-minute walk of where I want to be.
3) The bike must actually be where I'm told it is. Or they must be so ubiquitous that I could trip over them if I'm not looking.
4) The bike must be in good working order and be obviously faster and more efficient than walking. For the Google campus bikes, for example, this is a problem. Most of them are slightly broken most of the time, such that it's usually faster to just run.
5) Be cost-and-time competitive against rideshare, personal bike ownership, mass-transit, and running shoes.
I wish you the best of luck - I think there's a lot of room for human-powered transportation to be super awesome in an area with such benign weather.
Hello HN! I'm Euwyn, one of the co-founders of Spin (also, 2x YC alum). We're excited about bringing the dock-less bikeshare model to our home city of SF.
I've lived in SOMA for years, and have always wanted to bike around, except: (a) it was always a hassle to deal with a bike after going around town, because I would inevitably end up Uber-ing somewhere after my first stop and (b) my bikes would get stolen :(
Would love to hear any questions you guys had about the business, and look forward to you guys riding our bikes soon.
ps. If you want to follow along or have any questions about Spin or startups in general, I'm 'euwyn' on Whale and Snapchat.
I love my local bikeshare and dock-less would be a huge improvement.
I've never noticed theft, and while there was some initial vandalism it never impacted our experience.
My local program allows us to check out 4 bikes at a time, per account. Last summer, my partner and I would check out 8 bikes and go out on the town with friends. The ability to share my bikeshare with my friends allows me to ride a lot more - it sucks to be in the mood to go for a ride and be hanging out with people who don't have bikes.
What are you using for for networking/on board computing? The article mentions 2G is used in China - however here in the US such services are being depricated [1].
Hey stevenrace, I'm Derrick, one of the co-founders of Spin. Given our roots in the US, we're building our bikes for the local market, and use different tech than the Chinese companies, for example, FCC-compliant devices or networks that are available in the US (3G and newer).
Since you are one of the co-founders you should be able to spend at least some effort on answering the actual question or explain why you would chose not to do so.
This is key, otherwise a bike being available at the right time just becomes too rare.
Also, getting sign-off & GPS to work reliably in urban environments - it is super frustrating paying by the minute and being unable to stop the clock - or being directed to a bike location and finding nothing there.
Say a bike does get stolen, then you'd need to contact the police, but maybe the police are busy and don't actually care, that's the pain point that I see, maybe its a baseless concern.
As far as I know, it's far from a baseless concern. Paris, for example, lost 9000 bikes just in a year. Relying on the police seems folly, they probably just have to make a good estimate and price-in the replacements into their business model.
This is why I don't ride a bike in Philadelphia. I don't know anyone here who rides a bike and hasn't had it stolen at least once.
The only way to guarantee your bike isn't stolen is to bring it inside, which isn't an option at most workplaces. And even if it was an option it's a huge hassle.
Alternatively, buy a cheaper bike. Most folks in Belgium and the Netherlands use bikes that are 50-100 euro, so if your bike gets stolen every couple of years it's not that big of a deal.
When I was working in London, I was always worried about having my bike stolen if I rode to work. Just before I moved back to Japan I started doing the math. My train fare was 18 GBP per day to go a grand total of 30 km each way (22 km as the crow flies). 18 GBP * 5 = 90 GBP per week. As long as I got my bike stolen less than once a month, I could have had a reasonably decent commuter bike and still come out ahead :-P By the time I realised it, I wasn't in good enough shape to ride 60 km a day and I was just about to leave anyway.
Yeah, 60km per day is about 3 hours. But the same commute by train was 1.5 - 2 hours depending on the day. So if you like cycling, then it means you get 60km of cycling in for an investment of 1 - 1.5 hours. Definitely worth it in my book. I think the more reasonable problem with the plan was the poor weather and lack of sunlight in London. I'm now working remotely, so I can cycle all I want.
It really does depend on the route you take. I don't take the shortest route as that involves lots more junctions, more lights and more conflict; my route algorithm is mostly about minimising stress.
7 mile commute in London and analysis of my GPS tracklogs show that, on average, I am stopped at 5 out of the 23 traffic lights there are on my commute with only 3-4 minutes of stopped time on a 30 minute commute.
It's helped by long sections of nice wide road with few junctions where good progress can be made. The best example of this is Battersea Bridge to Lambeth Bridge (North side of the river) so going along Chelsea Embankment, Grosvenor Road and Millbank, with Cycle Superhighway 8 between Chelsea Bridge and Lambeth Bridge.
[ Sure this is only 14mph (compared to the ~20mph I'd do on the open road) but I'm also on a much heavier bike hauling plenty of clothes/lunch/stuff to and from work. It's still a good workout. The few times I've done it very early or very late I've come a lot closer to 20mph as I'm not slowed up by traffic.
The OPs journey might also be 2/3 rural-ish roads where you can make good progress, say closer to 25mph, and then the last 1/3 of the journey where maintaining that speed without interruption isn't so easy. ]
I live in Philadelphia. I've been riding a bike around town for a decade. I've never had a bike stolen. What's my secret? Lock it up properly, and don't leave it out overnight. Pretty simple, really. During the day -- at least in center city -- it's fine as long as it's locked up properly.
Hi HN, I'm one of the co-founders (also 2x YC alum). I'm building this with my good friends Derrick and Zhuang, who have also previously worked at YC startups. As the TC article mentions, we're rolling out a "dock-less" on-demand bikeshare in SF, to provide a convenient and cheap last-mile transportation option. I live in SOMA and have owned a couple of bicycles, both of which proved very useful but were (a) a bit of a hassle to retrieve after moving around the city via Uber etc (b) stolen.
p.s "euwyn" on Snapchat or Whale, if anyone has questions. Or here too, I'll be checking the comments today.
There's an element of "not missing out", but for many investors (especially angels, who do not invest professionally), there's also elements of: (a) wanting to co-invest with friends and (b) trusting the judgment of people they know well.
Discussing files "in-line" is a pretty natural way to collaborate. This should have existed a long time ago, and is a natural evolution of workplace collaboration tools. Bravo, Amium team.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.