E-scooters seemed to pop up out of nowhere and have been spreading around the US like wildfire – but what does it take to build a scooter company? Today we have a guest post from Asher Meyers on what it takes to start an electric scooter rental business that’s profitable and successful!

This article is sponsored by Spring, a new company that makes it super easy to start an electric scooter company. With Spring, you can get your software, hardware, and support at no upfront cost! Click here to learn more about Spring.

How to Start an Electric Scooter Rental Business

The scooter startups Lime and Bird have sunk hundreds of millions on building and deploying scooter fleets all over the world. Uber, Lyft, Skip and Spin have joined their ranks. How could the average Joe possibly run with the bulls, without tens of millions in funding?

These firms, particularly Bird and Lime, have had to spend on big fixed, upfront costs — things like:

• Vehicle hardware design
• Logistics software, to coordinate charging, deployment, repairs and legal compliance for scooters
• The app, which people use to unlock the scooters
• Lobbying local and state governments

All of these have classic ‘economies of scale’ — build it for one scooter or 10,000, and it costs a lot either way. They’re barriers to entry — hurdles that make it hard for new firms to form and compete.

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As scooters become more ubiquitous and noticeable in many cities, we wondered how “scooternomics” fit in with profitability for Uber and Lyft. Are Uber and Lyft making more with scooters? How do other scooter companies play a role? RSG contributor Sergio Avedian dug in to see how Uber/Lyft profit from short rides, how scooter rides have cut into that profitability and what that means for rideshare and scooter companies.

As per recent Uber and Lyft data, most Uber and Lyft rides are around 6 miles, but the most profitable are the short ones (2-3 miles). For drivers, those minimum fare rides can be rough and sometimes the distance driven to the pick-up location is longer than the actual ride itself.

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