From Zero to 10,000 Riders in 90 Days

Launching a new city for a ride-hailing product is mostly a supply problem before it’s a demand problem — riders don’t stay if wait times are bad, and wait times are bad without riders. We were brought in to break that loop for a second-tier city launch.

Subsidizing the wrong side of the loop

The initial plan leaned entirely on rider incentives. We proposed flipping most of the budget toward guaranteed minimum earnings for the first 500 drivers instead — enough supply density that wait times looked good from day one, which is what actually earns repeat riders.

Ten thousand weekly active riders by day 90, with average wait time under six minutes citywide — both ahead of the original plan, at a lower total incentive spend than the rider-first version would have cost.