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Nowadays, when you think "Taxi", you think "Uber". Uber's success story is such that everyone is "Ubering" it to work, home, the club, the coffee shop and even trips out of town. Tap your phone, and your ride arrives at your doorstep. This ride-sharing business case study has changed public transport and has never been easier or cooler.
However, even after having disrupted an entire industry, ride-sharing companies have not had it easy.
Uber vs Sidecar
One such ride-sharing business case study is Sidecar. A name that fell out of the market. Founded by Sunil Paul (CEO), Jahan Khanna (CTO) and Adrian Fortino, the ride-sharing and delivery service app started off strong in late 2011 by establishing itself in San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Philadelphia, and later expanding to Boston, NYC, Washington DC, and more, along with a blue chip investor and even managing to raise $10 million in Series-A funding from Google Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2012.
But, with all this going for them, Why did Sidecar fail?
One reason why Sidecar failed was its lack of marketing and complicated user experience.
Even though Sidecar was one of the pioneers in ride-sharing and delivery, it failed to grasp the importance of marketing. In such a competitive market, the need to stand out from competitors like Uber was essential. Unlike their giant competitors like Uber or Ola, they didn't invest enough to market their products and gain customers.
The Uber success story, on the other hand, involved losing almost a million in its first six months because it mainly focused on getting new customers. Sidecar, however, did not have the backup funding to do that on a similar scale.
The other biggest reason for their downfall was the complicated user experience.
For Uber, passengers were able to hail a ride with one click, but Sidecar users had to enter their destination and filter through a bunch of different drivers with different prices, which was too much work for them. In this Uber vs Sidecar scenario, Sidecar prioritized process over ease, while Uber prioritized their customers and ease.
Summary:
This blog examines how Uber's innovative marketing, superior user experience, and aggressive scaling strategies led to its dominance over Sidecar in the ride-sharing industry.
Further reading:
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