5.1 Million Emotions
This morning we announced that Scoop has raised $5.1M in funding. Funding is not a business milestone any more than the size of your team is a measure of your company’s success. But funding enables a vision to become a reality, and that’s important.
At Scoop, we envision a world without gridlock. A world where traffic is not your morning greeting or your final frustration before you get to see your family. A world where commuters don’t have to drive alone due to a lack of public transit. A world where physical mobility is not a barrier to economic mobility.
Today, we get to take another step toward making that vision a reality. With this investment, we can more aggressively grow and support a vibrant Scoop community. That means the world to me.
As CEO of Scoop, the past one and half years have been marked with a whirlwind of emotions. With today’s announcement, I wanted to take a shot at writing down a few of the things I feel today.
Proud.
This morning’s announcement is a small step in a long journey, but it is one of the proudest moments I’ve experienced in my career. Today’s announcement is built on a foundation of hard work, compassion, and collaboration. I’m incredibly proud of the way our team has come together to reach this milestone.
Nostalgic.
My brother Jon and I founded Scoop 18 months ago with the dream that endless gridlock and deteriorating quality of life do not have to be our daily reality. But in truth, Scoop really began 15 years ago in suburban Atlanta where we grew up. Our high school was 25 miles away from home. We commuted 250 miles a week to get there and back. I drove — Jon rode in the front seat. Today, Scoop is creating the app Jon and I wish we had when we were younger.
Appreciative.
We were incredibly fortunate to grow up in a family that could spend on a car and commute. Sadly, that isn’t the story for many in this country. With Scoop, we want to eliminate the mobility barriers that keep people from reaching their economic potential. It is our responsibility to solve this problem and make the American Dream attainable in every community.
Lucky.
We first piloted Scoop (called PiggyBack at the time!) with 25 amazing commuters at Workday in October 2014. We were lucky to find an amazing partner (thank you Sonia!) who believed in what we were doing. With a little bit of elbow grease, we parlayed our initial luck into a list of 50+ corporate partners that work with Scoop today.
Humbled.
I am blessed to work with an incredibly talented team and to see my brother every day. In the media, building a company is glamorous. In reality, building a company is a tremendous amount of hard work. At Scoop, we only hire people that believe deeply in the mission — that this problem must be solved. I’m humbled to work besides passionate people who are experts in their fields.
Reflective.
We launched Scoop in August 2015 in Pleasanton, CA. A few weeks after launch, the team went out to celebrate with frozen yogurt when we managed to get ten people into carpools in a day. Today, our community has saved more than 500,000 miles by carpooling. We probably know more about what it means to enable co-workers and neighbors to carpool to work than any company in the world. Taking a second to pause and reflect is hard at the pace at which we work — but it’s in these moments that I realize how far we’ve already come.
Inspired.
The Scoop community never ceases to amaze me. Best friends that met through Scoop. Groups of former strangers who now have lunch together at work. Commuters that decide they don’t need to move out of their neighborhoods because getting to work is now more affordable. Our ambassadors who help extend our community through their employers and personal networks. To see commuters embrace our mission as their own is inspiring and gives me energy every day.
Thankful.
We have an incredible set of investors who share our vision. Thank you to the teams at Signia, Index, Workday, and BMW for your support. Thank you to our amazing individual investors who provide guidance and a healthy dose of much needed sanity from time to time.
Determined.
We have so much further to go and we have one statistic in our crosshairs: 80% of Americans drive alone to work. It’s a big problem, but we know we can crack it. On a day like today, it’s imperative we take a minute to enjoy the journey so far and plan for our next chapter.
Thank you to all those that empower us to keep moving forward and build a better world. Here’s to the next chapter in the #FightAgainstTraffic.
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Rob Sadow is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Scoop, the fully-automated carpooling solution for your daily commute. Prior to founding Scoop, Rob spent more than 6 years at Bain and Company. Rob is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives in San Francisco.