Why Mobile First?

On November 2nd 2009, Luke Wroblewski — a Silicon Valley insider — wrote a blog article that invented the concept of Mobile First. Luke’s point: in the coming age it is best to design technology first for the mobile phone (remaining components should be fit around that initial mobile design). He based this principle on three observations: (1) mobile had exploded, (2) developing for mobile forces technologists to focus on only the most important actions, (3) mobile affords new capabilities such as location based applications.

Luke was definitely someone technologists listened to. He was affiliated with the esteemed Venture Fund Benchmark Capital and has been a lead User Experience (UX) expert at Yahoo, Google, eBay, and even the birthplace of the web browser: NCSA Mosaic. Perhaps that is why three months after his post, CEO Eric Schmidt followed Luke’s lead and said Google was putting “Mobile First”. “[Mobile apps] are more specific, more human, more location-aware, more satisfying”, said Schmidt in his keynote address to the Mobile World Congress. It may also be why Uber — founded at nearly the same time as Luke’s post — stuck so closely to his principles. Uber designed only for mobile (no operators) and had excruciating focus on only a few important mobile enabled actions (request a ride now in 2 single car classes).

This newsletter is not just about Mobile. But the Mobile First story is a perfect example of the void in the ground transportation industry this newsletter tries to fill. Fast forward five years after Luke’s post — November 2014 — and there is not a single ground transportation solution (outside of Whisk) that is mobile first. There are hundreds of mobile apps from iRide to Limosys to Ground Widgets and Aleph. But all of them tack on mobile to a legacy dispatching system or other technology. This “Mobile Afterthought” approach has clear compromises and unsurprisingly none of these apps have any material traction.

Somehow after even 5 years, the Mobile First message that was so clearly shared in Silicon Valley, hasn’t made it to the Ground Transportation industry. Imagine instead, if in November 2009, Ground Transportation “got it”. With the car power of the industry, hordes of drivers, and an understanding of Mobile First — Uber would never have had a chance. Rather, the ground transportation incumbents would have re-invented themselves, delighted their customers, and have grown in scale large enough that multi-billion dollar IPOs would be in the works for several companies.

Unfortunately, ground transportation had no resource to keep them apprised of Mobile First and other business and technology trends that would be disrupting their world. And that is the gap this newsletter aims to fill. With relationships all over Silicon Valley, a heritage of business and technology from outside this industry, and the loyalty of a team that have tied their fortunes to the success of this industry — we will pen this newsletter to ensure that you can learn about the latest trends and practices before they impact you. Never again an “Afterthought” — we aim for nothing less than making the Ground Transportation industry capitalize on all these trends first.