Team Uber vs. Team Hailo
Moderated by Michael Arrington, General Partner, CrunchFund
Travis Kalanick, Co-Founder & CEO, Uber; Shervin Pishevar, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures; Adam Valkin, Partner, Accel Partners; Jay Bregman, Co-Founder & CEO, Hailo
LIVEBLOGGED (just notes, as not easily to transcribe)
Uber are in 13 cities, New York, San francisco and Washington are biggest. The idea came from LeWeb in 2008. They were after a cab, can they push a button to get one. They started in SanFran.
Hailo in London, starting in Dublin, more cities on the way. Launched in Nov 2011
It’s a multibillion dollar industry in London. Smartphones have made it easy to create something like this.
Hailo is meter rate, they make them more efficient so they get more fares. Uber adds a premium
Hailo focusing on growth, rather than profit..’purposely unprofitable’. Uber is profitably in some markets
Uber has been in London 5 days – will be interesting to see what happens how they do head to head. Uber seems to do better is there is no great taxi service; that was what it was, but in washington that has changed. THey have driven product from the experience
JAy thinks the market is big enough for the pair of them. Hailo is focusing on the driver experience as well…they want to create a platform for the drivers, to make it more social, to make their day more profitable. Get the drivers on board first, before paying customers. Done it well in London, using the same plan for other markets. Get drivers to localise it first.
Hailo will be in US by end of year. Looking at linking cabs efficiently…Hailo will have a problem in New York as you can’t despatch a taxi (so says Uber)
Uber have had issues in Washington, as they have had issues with the taxi commission
Hailo provide a virtual hailing service, solving the line of sight problem. The NY gov has asked for proposals about cabs…so Hailo has submitted one. But believe they can still launch
Uber is not tapping into an existing infrastructure, trying to make something different. So in NY, demand is outstripping supply, so get long waiting times. They are working on improving supply
Uber have brought on a COO….(who is European) USed to work with Priceline to help them go global. Will be working in EU
Both companies have a lot of growth to do, to roll out to cities.
MA asking if there could be both companies in one app…Uber will be adding the ability to choose what you get, cab or limo etc
