Like many other entrepreneurs, I am extremely inspired by Tesla and legendary founder Elon Musk. Telsa is no more a a car company than it is a tech startup:
1. They push software updates to their cars, just like Apple does for their iPhones or Google for Android.
2. They collect data from their car computers, analyzing what goes wrong, make improvements and offer better service.
Although Tesla is getting the most press for these innovations, they aren’t alone; almost every major automotive brand is heading in this direction, figuring out how to better connect the cars with the drivers.
Our point? With data, a car becomes more than just “a car”. Automakers are moving towards delivering experiences for their car owners, from music to communication to intelligent assistants. Amazing.
At Passion Bicycle, you can say we sell bikes. That we are a bicycle startup.
And in many ways, that’s true.
But where we want to be different, is delivering more than “just a bicycle”, just like automobile companies like Tesla go beyond delivering “just a car”.
Right now, almost every online bicycle company we’ve seen focuses on the transaction. Find a bicycle you like, buy it, and have it shipped to you. Done.
You might get a cheaper price, but where’s the heart? Where’s the feeling you might get from visiting a local store? Where’s that down-to-earth, concierge experience you get when someone offers to “take care of you” and walk you through the products?
What inspires us at Passion Bicycle, is figuring out HOW to deliver that experience for our customers, even though we are only online. What that experience will be is something we are truly ecstatic to explore. From mobile, personal mechanics to your door, better return policies and hand-holding guidance when you build your bike.
But how can we go further? How can we become more like a tech startup ala Tesla, and less a “bicycle shop”?
My thoughts? What if bikes become more like cars? What if we can start to collect data from our bikes to offer our customers better service.
Exploring Kickstarter, I’ve seen numerous attempts to build intelligent bikes and bike components. And boy, it’s amazing the innovation that we’ve seen!
Look at the smart bike project from Baidu (Chinese Google), DeBike: They basically build every component a smart bike needs to have, while opening their technology as an open software platform, just like an Android did for smart phones. What happens there, remains to be seen, though I can say the Passion Bicycle Team will be following closely.
The concept of a smart bike continues to intrigue, especially with more and more people moving to cities, and bike safety more important than ever. When you think of data, censors, and the interesting use cases around bikes, your imagination can go wild. I love all the possibilities.
