20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brad Bao is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Lime, the startup that provides distribution of shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles, with the aim to reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short distance transportation. To date they have raised over $775m in funding from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, GV, IVP, Uber, Fifth Wall, GGV, Atomico and Bain Capital Ventures just to name a few. As for Brad, prior to founding Lime he was Managing Partner @ Kinzon Capital for close to 6 years and before that spent an incredible 8 years at Tencent in numerous different roles including VP of Business Development for Tencent Games and General manager for Tencent's US branch where he was responsible for Tencent's US operations.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Brad made his way into the world of technology with Tencent, how that led to the world of investing and then what was that a-ha moment for the founding of Lime? How did Brad's time with Tencent impact his operating mentality today with Lime?

2.) With significant levels of competition, how does Brad assess the competitive landscape today for micro mobility? Does Brad believe customer loyalty comes into play in the segment? Is capital itself a defensible moat in this market? Why is Brad adamant that it is important to spend $0 on marketing? What does this say about the product?

3.) How does Brad think about technological innovation within the space? Does it subscribe to Moore's law in the advancement of the core components? How does Brad think about inherent trade-offs that have to be made in product decisions? How does Brad think about prioritising for unit cost vs product superiority? Why can you not have it all?

4.) How does Brad think about launching new cities? What does it take to win in those geographies? What are all the necessary parts to setup when entering a new location? What is the biggest determinant of a location success? Density? Maturity?

5.) Brad has assembled a truly world-class exec team, what does Brad think it takes to attract truly A* talent? When should founders really start to think about building out their own exec team? What does Brad believe it is that makes his partnership with Toby Sun work so well? What have been his learnings from the development of that relationship?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Brad’s Fave Book: Good To Great by Jim Collins

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Transcript

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0:00.0	20 minute VC here with me, Harry Stebbings. I would love to see you behind the scenes on Instagram at H.
0:04.6	Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs. But diving straight into today's episode, I've been so looking forward to this one for a long time.
0:11.0	You might remember a month or so ago, we had Sarah Smith at Bain on the show, and she discussed her thesis for the series D investment in Lyme. So that was the investor perspective, and I'm so thrilled today to be joined by
0:21.2	the founder perspective with Brad Bow, co-found and CEO at Lyme, joining me in the horse seat. For those that
0:26.4	don't know, Lyme is the startup transforming the world of micro-imability through their distribution of
0:31.1	shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles, with the aim to reduce dependence on personal
0:35.7	automobiles for short- short distance transportation. To date,
0:38.6	they've raised over $775 million in funding from the life of Andresan Horowitz, GV, IVP, Uber,
0:45.5	our friends at Fifth Wall, GGV, Atomico, and Bain Capital Ventures, just to name a few. As for Brad,
0:51.1	prior to founding line, he was managing partner at Kinzen Capital for close to six years,
0:55.0	and before that, spent an incredible eight years at Tencent in numerous different roles, including
0:59.2	VP of Business Development for Tencent Games and General Manager for Tencent's US branch, where he was
1:04.2	responsible for Tencent's US operations. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to both Sarah
1:08.4	Smith and Brandon Mullis for some fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into our
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