Flint rideshare pioneers shift gears from electric scooters to charging hubs with KUHMUTE
Two recent Kettering University graduates, Petter Deppe and Scott Spitler were tired of studying for exams and were ready to start their own business in Downtown Flint. In November 2018, KUHMUTE officially became a company, and by finding a gap in the rideshare industry, they shifted their focus from e-scooters to their own universal charging hubs that are now getting international attention.
“We were meeting with some mentors and trying to figure out what kind of business we wanted to start,” says Deppe, KUHMUTE co-founder, and CEO. “One of the things that came up was — we wanted to take advantage of our unfair advantages. We’re from Michigan and what is Michigan known for? The automotive industry. So that helps with finding talent, finding suppliers for parts and kind of overall getting things done pretty easily.”
Deppe and Spitler met in Kettering University’s Entrepreneur Society and hit it off. Deppe’s background in mechanical and electrical engineering with Spitler specializing in computer science and computer engineering was the perfect yin and yang to launch a business. Their idea was to start their own rideshare company in Flint with scooters: but do it better.
“They’re always a mess, they’re always unsafe and they’re very expensive to charge. So we felt that, hey, if we launch our own ride-share with electric scooters and also charging hubs with it, that should solve a lot of the problems,” says Deppe. “As we went down this path of making this a reality we saw this gap in the market that there were pretty much no options for charging hubs. So even though we went through and bought our own fleet of e-scooters, what we do and our main business is providing this charging infrastructure to other rideshare operators.”
Following where the traction lead them, the duo continued to build their business in The Ferris Wheel and shift their big picture focus to the hubs themselves, while still providing Flint with their own rideshare options.
“The scooters will only be in Flint, Michigan. Think of it kind of as our testing ground,” says Spitler, co-founder, and CTO. “We’re able to test out all of our different hub configurations here, maybe different pricing models to see what works and what doesn’t work, just to get some user engagement. It’s also a really cool way to kind of augment our city and create a bit of a case study to see how turning a city into, like, a smart city really, you know, adds to the overall aesthetic, people getting around, and it’s a cool transformation.”
As the owners of KUHMUTE continue to invest in the rideshare industry, they know that it all spawned from the new movement of entrepreneurial incubation.
“I’m slightly biased because I worked at 100k Ideas, but I have a real appreciation of David Ollila and Phil Hagerman for putting it together and also Heather Kale who operates The Ferris Wheel and has helped us with the space that we’re in now,” says Deppe. “I mean, this whole building really helps people believe that they can actually do something. It’s awesome seeing people coming in — myself as a former project manager — helping them the best I can by using my experience from pitching in front of investors of trying to find resources when I was just a broke college student trying to figure out if I could afford groceries at the same time. Also people in the area like Phil Schaltz investing in The Eberson, Xolo and a bunch of other businesses around here. It’s just cool to see what’s happening now when you look back 10, 15 years and there was nobody here.”
Scott Spitler also highlights the beauty of innovation and resources that people may seem to take for granted in the Vehicle City.
“Factory Two is an amazing resource as well,” says Spitler. “The fact that it exists here at all is amazing. I went to school in Novi and then moved to Brighton and they’re nice areas, but neither had anything like that. We have an amazing resource like that right here in Flint. It’s extremely affordable and accessible.”
As their resources and connections continue to grow on a global level, KUHMUTE makes sure to invite their new hardware partners to Flint to experiment with their innovations.
“We’ll hopefully have some autonomous scooters here soon so you’d be able to hit “summon” in the app and the scooter will be able to just come find you,” says Spitler. “Then when you’re done, you get off and it goes to park itself in a hub. So it completely removes the human aspect of clutter from the situation and just makes it easier at that point. And it’s cool, Flint could be one of the only places in the world to have something like that.”
Deppe and Spitler have been refining their craft over the years and although they’ve won pitch competitions and scored major investments, it wasn’t without their fair share of setbacks.
“I would say the sooner you start, the better. Don’t worry about not knowing what you’re doing, because you’re gonna pivot anyway and your idea will change, so it’s better to start and get all of the mess-ups and pivots out of the way. Eventually, you’ll find that perfect idea and land on it. KUHMUTE was going to be this bike-share with a giant hub thing that had a micro-retail kiosk attached to it, but as you can see the hub is very minimal and we got rid of 99% of the features we thought we would have. So, my best advice would be to just start working on it now, build a prototype, test it, fix it, figure out what works, because most likely your fear of your product not working is you overreacting. Just get started.”
Just like the idea of shifting from the scooters to the hubs, the overarching theme seems to be choosing to evolve given your circumstances — redefining success, shifting focus and continuing to grow even if it wasn’t the original plan.
“Don’t be proud of an idea,” says Spitler. “What I mean is — you can believe in it and everything, but don’t be so attached that it is the ultimate solution to the problem and that you’ll turn down a better idea or a simpler idea. The simplest solution is usually the best solution. Whenever I design software I usually design two versions. If I could have the ideal version I do this one, but what do I need today? That’s version one. I highly encourage anyone to tinker, explore, experiment and don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is probably the greatest teacher. We’ve made quite a few mistakes along the way, but you get back up and keep on going. That’s what makes an entrepreneur.”
In addition to traveling the country for on-site installations, KUHMUTE is actively looking for new Flint businesses to install their hubs, promising increased foot traffic and sales. Look for their hubs in front of The Ferris Wheel, the Flat Lot, and soon all of the universities in the city.
Learn more at www.kuhmute.com
