
Little Guy Sidecar Is Still Kicking, Raises $15M More for Ride-Sharing - t23
http://recode.net/2014/09/15/little-guy-sidecar-is-still-kicking-raises-15m-more-for-ride-sharing/
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alttab
This is a long fight and $15M will be burned fairly quickly. What they have
over Uber is essentially nothing. The "hard" problems of driver and consumer
mobile app and infrastructure/coverage have already been laid out. Investors
would have to throw lots of money at a business and at legislation to out-pace
what Uber and Lyft are doing.

I guess my point is anything Sidecar can/is doing, Uber and Lyft can do
overnight with the same infrastructure and workforce for a fraction of the
cost. What am I missing?

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jval
What are the "hard" problems of driver and consumer mobile app and
infrastructure/coverage?

All the software in this business is commodity.

The only real defensibility at work here are the network effects, which are
totally asymmetrical due to the city-focussed nature of ride-sharing.

The legislation is generally not company-specific, which makes the problem
much better for followers rather than leaders. Uber enters a new city and gets
hit with the upfront cost of having to fight to have legislation changed. No
such problem for the followers who can wait until the battle is over and then
claim the same status under the new legislation.

Uber and Lyft could do the same thing Sidecar is doing, but then they wouldn't
be Uber and Lyft. They would be Sidecar. You have to choose one thesis and go
for it. Sidecar is going for the variable price model and Uber & Lyft are
going for the fixed price model.

Nobody is going to run the table over the other guy, investors know that and
are betting that the different model will attract a subset of customers
perhaps not as large as Uber/Lyft but large enough to be a big business in a
huge market, maybe even IPO. Seems pretty logical to me.

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baddox
Good for them. Sidecar has always been my goto in San Francisco, although I
have been using Lyft Line more because the prices are ludicrously low.

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derwiki
Didn't legislation rule Lyft Line illegal? Is it still operating?

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baddox
Line is still an option on the app in SF.

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onion2k
$15m is enough to work out a small but noticeable product on a differentiated
offering (based on something you can patent?).

I'd wager that they have no intention of competing in the long term. Their
exit strategy is to do something interesting enough to get bought.

