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Lime and its financial sponsors had every intention of launching an initial public offering this year. But as the market for new inventory cratered, the e-scooter maker had no choice but to shelve those plans and focus on finally achieving profitability and fine-tuning its business.
Since then, that mission has been accomplished, seeing a profit every month this year — at least by one measure (adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) — says Lime CEO Wayne Ting. Time will tell what annual profits will show, given that usage drops in cold months like November and December.
Meanwhile, Lime has been busy lining up more cities, in addition to the 150 it already has, such as Seattle, Washington, Paris and London.
Ting, who joined Lime in 2018 as global head of operations and strategy and became CEO in May 2020, has taken a more grown-up approach to running the scooter and bike joint venture. The company is cultivating relationships with elected officials in the cities it relies on for growth, rather than antagonizing them as it did before Ting’s arrival. Gone are the days when e-bike companies set up shop like mercenaries without getting legislative permission or even buy-in from residents. Ting’s key selling point to win over officials is how micromobility, a buzzword to describe a single-person mode of transportation, can help cities tackle the vexing problems of congestion and pollution caused by cars.
That’s crucial given how skeptical city officials and residents are about scooters, repulsed by the sight of strewn bikes and riders terrorizing pedestrians as they hurtle down sidewalks. While Ting, a former White House staffer and private equity executive, acknowledges those concerns, he is quick to say that cars are a bigger problem. “What clutters our streets is not an abundance of bicycles and scooters, but an abundance of cars,” he says. Some cities differ. Earlier this month, Paris officials proposed a ban on e-scooters.
But Ting takes a conciliatory tone toward rivals like Byrd, whose shares have fallen 94 percent this year amid fears the e-scooter revolution has peaked. Ting figures that the more companies push for bike and scooter infrastructure in the so-called micro-mobility gold rush, the more infrastructure will be available to help Lyme capitalize on what the company believes is a permanent shift in attitude toward scooters.
“People are moving again and they want to be more environmentally conscious,” he says.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Fortune: How to allow Lime to work in additional cities?
Ting: The need for green transportation is universal. The number one cause of carbon pollution in the US is transportation, most of which comes from personal cars and trucks. It is the same in Europe. Unless these countries substantially reduce their reliance on cars, they have no way to meet climate goals. What creates congestion? Cars, cars, cars. That’s why we go to cities where we ask for permission and say: ‘We can be a major part of the solution.’
That contrasts with Lime’s approach a few years ago before you became CEO. Why the change?
That approach doesn’t work. You can’t just go to town and dump scooters and bikes on the street without the consent and support of the community. Today, we do not operate anywhere without the consent of the communities. The early strategy only made people angry, and cities started enforcing their own rules. It was the wrong strategy.
What is your response to the criticism that scooters scattered on the sidewalks are a nuisance and an eyesore?
We use positive reinforcement to get people to put them back in the right place. We have operations teams that retrieve the scooters and move them to another location if they are left behind. But I dispute the idea that bikes and scooters are a big source of clutter. I still get tagged on social media where people say, “Please pick up this e-bike now. It’s in front of my house.’ There are 400,000 cars and 6,000 e-bikes or scooters in San Francisco. What litters our streets is not an abundance of bicycles and scooters; that’s an abundance of cars.
What about scooters going full speed on sidewalks, already teeming with e-bikes and scaring pedestrians?
We’re developing new pavement detection technology based on how the scooter bounces, and we’ll use GPS to increase and slow it down. But this is happening because we have weak cycling infrastructure. If you have places where there are good, protected bike lanes, people tend not to ride on sidewalks. City planning has failed modern society because we have built a transportation system that is centered around cars.
There are so many scooter sharing companies out there: Bird, Lime, Uber, to name a few. They seem interchangeable. What is the difference between you and how do you build brand loyalty?
The difference starts with the hardware because we invest in research and development. We have built our latest scooters and e-bikes in-house, and we have contract manufacturing for that in China. It’s important because we can design products. For example, we have bigger wheels and a wider stance for a better ride. Our competitors buy from the same two Chinese manufacturers, so they have the same scooters regardless of brand. That’s how it becomes a commodity. Our competitors have franchising and outsourcing models, but we have local employees in the field who perform quality control in every market in which we operate. If the scooter is parked incorrectly, we have someone who can pick it up and move it.
Speaking of competition, you say cars are your real rivals, not other scooter companies. Why?
How do we increase the 2% of people using micromobility to 3% or 10%? Our competition is not the others in the industry who have the same mission as us. Our competition is to get the family to give up that other car. Makes people think twice before driving two miles. We want to start creating competition with cars, so how do we get cities to make it possible?
What impact does working from home have on your business?
About one-third of our trips come from commuting, one-third from tourism, and one-third from intra-city travel before the pandemic. People may go to the office less often now, but they still travel a lot. We are seeing a shift from downtowns and business districts to neighborhoods.
You landed a $500 million funding round a year ago and seemed set for an IPO in 2022. That didn’t happen, and your rival Bird’s stock fell. What do you think about the IPO now?
The IPO market today is largely non-existent. We have plenty of runway and capital, so we will continue to drive the company towards self-sustainability and hopefully succeed in profitability for this year. Whenever the IPO market opens, we are ready to take advantage of it. IPO is not a destination; it’s just a stop. It is a funding mechanism. After that you have to live as a public company. What matters is whether you are building a great, profitable and sustainable business.
Meet Ting:
- Ting grew up in Taiwan, immigrated to Nebraska when he was nine, and came out at age 11.
- He served in the Obama White House as a senior policy advisor at the National Economic Council from 2012 to 2014.
- As a student at Columbia College in the early 2000s, he created a social site similar to what Mark Zuckerberg would create a few months later with Facebook. “But Facebook came along and kicked ass,” says Ting.
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