Startup Wednesday: What makes Uber successful and their vision of future

On Wednesday, April 30, a Startup Wednesday with Davor Tremac, General Manager, and Filip Šturman, Marketing Manager at Uber for Croatia, was held at the CoreHUB. The lecture was held in the organization of the Croatian Business Angels Network (CRANE) and the Core Incubator, and after the formal part there was a networking party where the many participants had the chance to connect more and to exchange contacts.

Uber functions almost like a start-up in every country – a team of people is gathered, and they take care of the local operations. Uber’s team in Croatia has 3 employees, while the drivers themselves are not employees but partners who use the Uber app to find clients.

In order to further connect with the local community, the Uber employees constantly work on developing new offers and interesting services for their clients. In Croatia they have realized two of them so far – uberCHINKA, delivery of pancakes on Valentine’s Day, and uberTREES, donating and delivering Christmas trees. There are also many other offers on a global level, with the help of which Uber maintains a direct contact with the users, such as uberPuppies, pointing out to the problem of adopting animals by delivering puppies, uberIceCream for delivering ice cream, and many others.

When asked why Uber is important to Croatia, Davor Tremac, General Manager at Uber for Croatia, answered: “Uber makes instant entrepreneurship possible. Unemployed people have the possibility to open a company and start making money, and in a matter of two to three weeks even become profitable, because the money from the first rides is available within a week. Besides that, Uber secures transparency in its business because all the payment processes are done in an automated way, without cash and human intervention. This is extremely important for a country which, in a traditionally cashless industry, now has a complete overview of all income and an increased tax collection.

The guiding principle of Uber is ridesharing, i.e. the possibility of sharing a ride with complete strangers in order to accommodate as many people as possible in as few vehicles as possible. In nearly every city, over 30% of surfaces are taken up by parking spaces, and with ridesharing we could have some influence on the problems of congestion and pollution of cities and repurpose the parking spaces for parks, hospitals, schools or some other socially useful institutions. Uber Croatia is thinking of introducing extra services that already exist in other countries, and of expanding to other cities in Croatia.

The Uber idea was born in 2009 when, due to a problem with finding a taxi, its founders, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, decided to come up with a simple and acceptable solution that will ensure they have a ride at any time. After the app was developed, Uber was first used by its founders and around a hundred of their friends, but demand for the service was constantly growing which was a great indicator that Uber could develop into a profitable business.

Already in 2011 Uber is expanding internationally, starting with Paris, and until 2013 it was present in more than 250 cities. Today they operate in more than 400 cities. Especially interesting is the fact that at every moment there are 1 million rides being done through Uber around the world.

To all the interested parties that missed this lecture, the Croatian Business Angels Network has secured a video which will soon be put up on the official YouTube channel. The next Startup Wednesday will be held at the end of April, with more information to come for the new speakers.