56: Building the Largest Micromobility Player in the World, with Joe Kraus, President of Lime

This week, Oliver interviews Joe Kraus, President of Lime. Lime are the largest players in the shared micromobility space globally, and this episode has been a long time coming. It was awesome to get Joe on to talk about their history and plans, the state of the industry and business model, regulation, the challenge of climate change and where micromobility can assist. Joe is an awesome guest, and in a world of hype, keeps a very level head about the potential of this space. This episode is well suited to investors, operators and regulators interested in hearing about why the opportunity Lime/the wider industry offers is far more than just a few scooters on the street.  Specifically we dig into:  - Lime’s history coming out of 2016 Chinese bikeshare bubble, the move into scooters and rapid growth of that business. - Google Ventures investment and how Joe came to be involved. - Joe’s thoughts on business model evolution and how the market will shake out in the short/medium term, especially around a global player vs local competitors. - We dig into regulation, and whether there are parallels to other global/local companies and traditional public transport funding/operation models. - We discuss Lime's policy/operations challenges, using the example of Auckland, New Zealand, where wheel locking issue/death on a scooter lost them the licence in the following round. - We talk about how the binary nature of the businesses ability to operate impacts the structure they have for operations/policy teams to ensure they have sufficient local agency to be responsive. - We talk about the missing gap of a micromobility industry association in terms of advocacy, research and lobbying and what needs to happen to make this a reality. - We talk about how Lime is working to avoid the mistakes that Mobike and Ofo made in the Chinese bikeshare bubble, and Joe’s plans to ensure that Lime stays afloat and relevant for the long term. - We discuss the Call to the Industry that Joe made in Berlin regarding safety, climate and equity of access, and dig in on climate change, and what Lime can/is doing to help push that conversation forward. - We talk about Lime’s plans to reach the next few billion riders, especially in the developing world, and what is needed to make that a reality. It’s one of our best interviews to date - highly recommend checking it out.  Joe will also be speaking at the upcoming the Micromobility America summit coming up April 22-23 in Richmond in the Bay Area. It’ll be an amazing event - we will have industry leaders from all over the world there speaking about the best new ideas in this burgeoning industry. Check out the website (micromobility.io) to get tickets.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit micromobility.substack.com/subscribe