You pass your cash up to the front. I’m based in New York, but we’re on the phone with each other certainly every day, often for hours on any given day talking through challenges, thinking about things together. That was definitely some feedback we got. Where do you see the on-demand transit heading? 2018, we really saw a massive growth. Together, we’re completing well over 2 million rides a month at this point and are seeing very rapid growth across all of these metrics. So that sharing, again, was happening between the driver and the passenger and was referred to as ridesharing. Daniel CHANTRENNE | Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, Deutschland | I worked as Consultant Facilities Services for a new Customer account in Europe. Then through some friends got introduced to D. E. Shaw Research. : Pretty cool. We didn’t have the first mover advantage on the whole idea of using an app to book a ride, for sure. It’s a business that’s very susceptible to intense swings in almost in your mood. I spent a lot of time—we figured if we were to launch the service initially, one area that was at the time poorly served by public transportation in New York was the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Where I think we were really innovative, and we were first was in this concept of dynamic on demand shared rides. I will do my best to answer, I promise. He could never get a seat, and he was thinking, “If I could just book a seat on my app, that would be fantastic.” From there, the jump to say, “If I’ve already booked a seat on my app, and the system knows where I am and where I’m going to, let’s make the system more dynamic and allow these vans to follow routes that aren’t fixed in advance. I think Oren has the benefit of being a bit of an outsider, looked at me and said, “What is that car? I think in that tradeoff, time is the most valuable resource you have when you’re starting, and you should move very quickly. We started out quite soon. You guys did a really, really great job on that. This would really appeal to folks who are very cost-conscious.” But it turned out that actually, we were a popular service with everyone. The way that the regulations were written, it was clear that you could do that. So, coming from the background that I had which was in engineering and computer science, and then some biology training that I got in grad school, being able to bring that all together into, sort of going back to engineering to building these machines, these supercomputers was just a really great challenge. One might say it’s a very prudent approach because, at the end of those months, we had a really clear indication and case that this was viable. Daniel Ramot: Yeah, that’s a good question. The data was a crucial piece, and I’m not sure we fully appreciated in the beginning because that feeds back into the algorithm and has really driven the system to be dramatically improved versus the original version that we built. I see the logo of Via; I don’t know how many times a day. So, going from the engineering side to the business side, I’m sure that was also a shift for you. What were some of your biggest takeaways from this experience? Just over 100 people. This was a viable idea. In you guys’ case, you had the people that were looking for the rides, and then also, the people offering the rides. As I head towards the end of my time with founders during these interviews, I always typically ask the same question towards the end, and that is if you could go to the past and give yourself advice before launching your first business, in this case, let’s say Via, what would that advice be and why? The way we got there was we were walking around. That’s kind of dangerous, but anyhow, Daniel, it’s been a pleasure. But as we collected the data over the years, we were able to build something that we felt really worked very well, and achieved the high level of efficiency, and started to really function as a mass transit system. I guess from studying how the brain works, what were your biggest lessons? But we knew intuitively it was a great idea, that we were passionate about it, that we wanted to do it. At the time, it was GetTaxi in Israel. We launched it in Manhattan and expanded it. They run the same routes often as the bus. Daniel Ramot: I’ll start with what I try to do going into neuroscience which was to try to take some of the math, the computer science, the physics that I had learned from the engineering principles and see if I can apply it to try to understanding the brain, which in the end is fundamentally an electric machine or electric chemical machine. We make all the big business decisions together. We also know that we work together very well because we worked together in the Air Force for four years, and we built complex technology very well and faced lots of challenges, and hopefully overcame them together. I think having that brand and having that success of cooperating initially in New York, then in Chicago, then Washington D.C. with the regulators, with the municipality, kind of created the foundation that we could then build on to—these days we have nearly 70 partners all over the world, different cities, public transit authorities, and so forth who we work with very closely to run public transportation. Daniel Ramot, Via co-founder and chief executive officer, discusses the company's on-demand transit service with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu on … You need the supply. Those vehicles, we allow you to book a seat. I think we talked to a few hundred people to do a bit of a market survey. : That’s a great question. Now Uber was extending through the app, and we would like to do the same, but we would like to do something completely new. In 2012 and 2013, unfortunately, no one wanted to talk to us. Generally, we were too similar, and that wasn’t the right founding team in some sense. : Amazing. Before this, what was life like in Israel and especially with Start-up Nation? : Got it. Uber and Lift have their shared services, and so forth. In particular, my co-founder, Oren Shoval at Via and I had been friends since the early days in the military in Israel and the Air Force. We came up with a system that’s right in the middle, one might say, where we’re using these mid-sized vehicles. We hit an inflection point, and we finished the year with nearly 50 different partners. The founder, David Shaw started another company about 15 years ago or so, called D. E. Shaw Research, which is the company I joined. They’re a little bit more flexible than the bus that you can get on and off anywhere. That has created a lot of regulatory, I would say conflict because this idea of using citizen drivers. If you think about it as almost a marketplace for seats, we connect to you as a passenger with a seat. ViaVan was founded in 2017 as a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz Vans and Via. The other piece is our marketplace, the product we launched, fortunately for us had just a tremendous response from riders, from passengers. Alejandro: And the business, you guys started in 2012. Then Oren did his Ph.D. Oren spent a couple of years at McKenzie. Oren was visiting one day. So, I think we had a challenge when it came to the term, but actually, what we were doing, which was providing these dynamic shared rides, which we launched in New York in 2013, we were very much the very first to do that. You need the demand, and if you have too much or too little of either, you can really get stuck. Targeting the gap between outdated public transit and expensive luxury car services, the Via platform operates in New York City and Chicago, has provided more than two million rides, and is growing rapidly. I think that’s the best validation. I think what’s much more important in a sense between founders is that you have a common understanding and that you get along really well, and that you work together well, and that you are just compatible in that way that you’re going to be successful together solving really hard problems because you’re going to run into a lot of really hard problems. Oren was just finishing up his Ph.D. at the Wiseman Institute in Israel in systems biology. : You have very limited resources, obviously. When we were first thinking about Via, we went and talked to several dozen experts in the transportation business and tried to understand how they structured their business and what the costs were. I applied to schools in the U.S. and ended up getting accepted into Stanford and went there for school. So, he’s running the tech team and the algorithms. I think there are a lot of techniques that we use in science and computer science that we can—obviously, many people have done this and are doing this where you can try to understand how the brain works. You were talking about Oren, your co-founder. So, I took some responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day of the service and the operations, but it’s really a partnership. D. E. Shaw, some folks may be familiar with is a very large hedge fund. Launching a two-sided marketplace, as you described, there’s this chicken and the egg. If you travel in South America, whether they’re [13:16] in Africa, [13:18] in Russia, and of course, all throughout Asia, there are these van-based systems that are very prevalent, and we had them in Israel as well. Why Now Is The Time To Send Investors Your Pitch Deck, Difference between corporate VCs and traditional VCs, Making the competitors‘ weakness your strengths, Learnings from the supply and demand in market places. I would say that’s what really characterizes a lot of my work is always to really think about the product and the system. If you think about it as almost a marketplace for seats, we connect to you as a passenger with a seat. Alejandro: Absolutely. It wasn’t easy to make that transition, so one thing that I remember trying to do pretty consciously with myself, it’s funny, I started telling all of my friends that I was going to do this so that I would create an environment for myself that it would be very difficult to back out because it was a difficult thing to do. It was not a very big company. It became famous for being one of the first hedge funds to trade using computers, using computational algorithms, and was really one of the leaders in the field of quantitative trading and still is. Uber and Get. For you guys, how was the incubation process of Via? He could never get a seat, and he was thinking, “If I could just book a seat on my app, that would be fantastic.” From there, the jump to say, “If I’ve already booked a seat on my app, and the system knows where I am and where I’m going to, let’s make the system more dynamic and allow these vans to follow routes that aren’t fixed in advance. You have Daimler. We were following quite a number of other players, but when it came to shared rides, I think we had this first-mover advantage that was very important in fundraising and in building the brand. How much capital have you guys raised to date? Daniel Ramot: Initially, and I think maybe throughout this time, you’re most likely to be successful with investors who you either know personally or have a warm introduction to. We thought, “Our service is very low-cost. How did this come about? After I graduated from my Ph.D., I realized I didn’t want to stay in academia. What was that experience for you guys? I studied physics and math as part of the program that the Israeli Defense Forces have called [1:15]. So, I spent a lot of time in the Upper East Side of Manhattan accosting random strangers, asking them if they would—running through a survey trying to understand if they would be interested in using a system like this and what features they would expect or would like it to provide. The funny thing is that if you look at what some of the other players have raised, whether it’s Didi in China, Grab, Uber, and so forth, it feels like a tiny amount of money, which is frankly ridiculous. Then working as an engineer and a product manager for several years. Being able to apply concepts that you have learned from your time doing something else to a completely different industry. If you go peer-to-peer drivers, folks were bringing their own car and then picking up passengers. Alejandro: Got it. We wanted to start a company. Working closely with cities and public transit operators, ViaVan … Then, obviously, throughout Manhattan where there are a lot of investors. : Great. The company has raised so far over $450 million from investors such as Pitango Venture Capital, Daimler, Kapor Capital, Hearst Ventures, or RiverPark Ventures. Lihat profil Ramot Manurung di LinkedIn, komunitas profesional terbesar di dunia. We worked together in the Air Force for about four years. Right? Maybe if I were to think about what is the key skill that a founding team needs? Thank you, so much. I had some fantastic colleagues. So, we did quite a bit of market surveys. We assumed that only about half of them would actually give us the money. Those first six months were really challenging because I essentially had two jobs. I’m sure that most of the people that are listening are wondering, what is neuroscience? There are 60+ professionals named "Daniel Im", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. : Got it. This wasn’t an easy problem because we were trying to take essentially drivers of high-end luxury limousines. So, we were using algorithms, computational techniques, and computers to try to discover new pharmaceutical drugs. Along the route, you just flag them down. The advantage we had was that they had essentially created an opportunity or way to run a service using an app, and this class of four higher vehicles in New York. Also, you seem to have been the one that took the reigns on the business side. And you got your Ph.D., so not bad at all. We tried to raise a little money. 2018, we really saw a massive growth. I did my Ph.D., and I had some experience at D. E. Shaw. What’s this Start-up Nation that everyone is talking about? SUBSCRIBE. But the project itself was just super interesting. Lihat profil lengkapnya di LinkedIn dan temukan koneksi dan pekerjaan Ramot di perusahaan yang serupa. It was just remarkable that growth hack strategy. The funny thing is that if you look at what some of the other players have raised, whether it’s Didi in China, Grab, Uber, and so forth, it feels like a tiny amount of money, which is frankly ridiculous. More than 170 prominent business leaders signed a letter urging Congress to accept the Electoral College results that declared Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. We love it. I think when you think about the problem Via is trying to solve which inherently has a lot to do with traffic, and traffic systems, and interactions between people, and road systems, and traffic, thinking about that in a structured, analytical way, thinking about how to distill a complex system like that into some simple equations much like you could think about how do I take the brain and behavior and try to instill that into a set of simple equations and use data to do that? So, let’s talk about fundraising because for a marketplace, to follow-up on that, to get the net worth effects to turn in the right direction, you need liquidity in the marketplace. We’re providing these rides at $5, sometimes less throughout Manhattan. Those vehicles, we allow you to book a seat. On the one hand, you’re absolutely right. I’m actually very, very excited. That was a great experience trying to bring that together into biology. Daniel Ramot is the cofounder of Via which provides on-demand transit on a mass scale. : I think, on the one hand, we benefited from the fact that Uber had already launched their service in New York. The vans, their routes are determined in real time dynamically based on where people are requesting rides. We make all the big business decisions together. Maybe if I were to think about what is the key skill that a founding team needs? You can read a lot about. So, maybe, to be fair, those cities and transit agencies that didn’t really want to talk to us in 2013 were actually pretty smart, because I think the system we had then, it wasn’t really good enough. Where I think we were really innovative, and we were first was in this concept of dynamic on demand shared rides. It was a little bit of a semantic challenge. It wasn’t easy to make that transition, so one thing that I remember trying to do pretty consciously with myself, it’s funny, I started telling all of my friends that I was going to do this so that I would create an environment for myself that it would be very difficult to back out because it was a difficult thing to do. So, we were running these simulations called molecular dynamics that allowed us to visualize how proteins interact with drug molecules, how proteins fold, how they change their shape when they bind a drug molecule and try to use those simulations to discover new drugs. We went to talk to them and said, “Listen, we’re planning to use this regulative framework that limos have used in New York for decades, and limos, and black cars, and liveries. What kind of challenges did you guys encounter like not having that first move or type of advantage? We would actually like to dispatch shared rides, have multiple passengers in each vehicle. We hit an inflection point, and we finished the year with nearly 50 different partners. And you are reducing your risk in those dimensions, but what you don’t realize as a founder is that you are creating substantially other risks, which is substantially greater by delaying. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More. And there’s nothing against it. They’re just a slightly more convenient, more agile sort of bus that uses these smaller vehicles. It’s really challenging. You pass your cash up to the front. So, we had some McKenzie experience. We’ll talk about financing in just a bit, but Daniel, here marketplaces are quite a pain. Then we’re introduced to these later-stage investors through either existing investors or other folks that we knew. : Got it. : Right. At some point, the timing just became right for both him and for me, and it was an opportunity that we didn’t want to pass up. We would actually like to dispatch shared rides, have multiple passengers in each vehicle. It took a while to convince people. Obviously, there are a lot of regulation, and what the business challenges were. That was a regulatory innovation if you will. That approach of working together with cities, together with regulators, or partnering with them, has been very beneficial for us, and I think is what has allowed our business to evolve, to be honest, was the intention from the beginning to evolve also into and have a piece of the business. If you’d told me in 2012 that we would raise 450 million dollars, first of all, I wouldn’t have believed you. We can also use smaller vehicles all the way from regular sedans to minivans and vans. We’re providing these rides at $5, sometimes less throughout Manhattan. I think that that mode of transit, this on-demand shuttle service has the potential to become a major mode of transportation in every city in the world. No city was taking us particularly seriously, and certainly the MTA in New York, we couldn’t even get a meeting. As I head towards the end of my time with founders during these interviews, I always typically ask the same question towards the end, and that is if you could go to the past and give yourself advice before launching your first business, in this case, let’s say Via, what would that advice be and why? They were doing private rides. I think one of the bits of feedback we got early on is that as founders you want to find someone who really compliments your skills. We talk about the best ways to understand what the Air Force needs and how to sell it to them. What’s stopping you from launching tomorrow? That’s a very broad question. So, I wasn’t really in any direct way part of Start-up Nation while in Israeli, but very much involved in the technology industry. It’s really amazing to think about it. It’s something between a private car, the convenience, the flexibility, and the very personally-tailored service that you have when you’re driving your own car. Or has 4 jobs listed on their profile. : First of all, it’s intriguing. We are engineers—some really interesting complex mathematical problem. I’m in New York where we decided to launch the business initially, launch the service. Throughout that period, I developed a real interest in studying the brain and trying to understand how the brain works.
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