Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan Green took the stage at Disrupt NY to update everyone on the company’s current focus. Lyft has been iterating quickly for the past few months, and our own Ryan Lawler gave him the opportunity to explain what makes Lyft different from its competitors, and in particular Uber.
“Now, we are really focused on going deep rather than going broad,” Green said. “We launched a new service called Lyft Line. With Lyft Line, we are matching two or more passengers who are heading the same way. That’s how we’re going deeper and are able to provide transportation for different kinds of trips.”
The company is pretty clear about its goal: It wants to provide cheap rides in addition to more traditional Lyft rides in order to make the service more useful. Many people only use Lyft when they need to go to the airport after all.
In addition to providing a better alternative to public transportation, Lyft wants to make you ditch your car. According to Green, bike lanes, Zipcar and Lyft are all important alternatives and you will take advantage of these services and infrastructure once you give up your car.
That’s also the reason HotSpots could become a key feature in the coming months. In San Francisco, you’re usually about two blocks from a HotSpot — a designated spot to wait for your ride with other potential Line riders.
Green also talked about what it’s like to work for Lyft, drive for Lyft and ride with Lyft. “The company culture is about being human, being good to other people,” he said. “We recently did a survey with our drivers. 48 out of 50 said that they preferred driving with Lyft because they said that passengers were friendlier.”
And the company is releasing features to make sure that it stays this way. “We rolled out profiles, and you can optionally fill out information about yourself. You can fill out a small “about me,” and if you want you can use Facebook Connect to see your mutual friends,” he said. “It takes people a while to figure out their one thing they have in common.”
But it doesn’t mean that the company isn’t aggressively optimizing for growth, as well — this is a company. Lyft is now available in 65 markets, and 400 people work for the company. When Lawler asked whether nice people don’t always end up last, Green’s answer was straight to the point. “We are nice but we are also ferocious competitors,” he said.
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