New mobile app designs, telematics testing, RAV4 photoshoot, Upshift in the media, growth and more!
We've been so busy on so many things at Upshift that we haven't had time for a proper update! Here's what we're up to!
Photoshoot to highlight our new Toyota RAV4 hybrid SUVs
We did a photoshoot for our new RAV4 hybrid SUVs and got some really great shots for our website. It was tricky with restrictions due to COVID, for instance we couldn't have more than one person in the car so we weren't able to get any "driving" shots from the backseat, but we made it work. These are now up on our website under the RAV4 section on the homepage. We're going to make the grocery store run photo the hero image at the top of the main homepage shortly. The other shot is now on our Twitter and Facebook pages and we are also using one photo on a new COVID response page. We'll also be using photos from the shoot for marketing materials. Our model from the shoot is actually the wife of one of our investors at Urban Us and they are also both members. Another member loaned us his rock climbing bouldering pad to showcase the cargo space in our new RAV4 hybrid SUVs.
Working with a behavioral psychologist to optimize our pricing and website
We've been working with a MIT/UCLA trained ex-Facebook behavioral psychologist on our business model. She's been helping us make changes to how we present our plans on our website, how we communicate our value, and how we set our pricing to optimize our growth and conversion in a post-COVID landscape. Changes so far have been subtle but meaningful like
- ensuring the $750 activation fee is clearly seen near the pricing so there's no surprises at the end of checkout
- putting cost savings near the plan prices
- simplifying our comparison chart to alternatives like leasing
- "aggregating losses and segregating benefits" in how we show costs and benefits
- adding buttons to make it easier to find where to click how to join a plan!
- developing ways to personalize the service like a new "concierge" checkout, where we help people understand which plan makes sense for them - or even offer them "custom" plans - based on their particular needs
Rolled out more member app screens
We're launching more functionality on our member web app. Members can now see upcoming and past trips, and cancel bookings in addition to making car requests, entering payment and driver's license info, and save their favorite delivery addresses to speed up the booking process.
Expanding our fleet
We added 2 more identical white Priuses just before the 4th of July holiday (and we did not run out of cars, for those concerned about availability). These are the latest 2020 models loaded with semi-autonomous vehicle technologies like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assistance, pre-collision avoidance, parallel parking assistance, and more. New this year is they also now have Apple CarPlay so you can get navigation via Google Maps or Waze, make phone calls or write SMS using Siri, listen to podcasts or news on Spotify or Pandora, or use our new mobile app - all using the 6" touchscreen display as if it were a big, car-safe iPhone. We also have some more RAV4s with our names on them coming into port later next week. We had been running up on availability constraints during a few peak times so we are growing our fleet to ensure members can always get a car when they need one.
Testing vehicle telematics hardware integration
Two of our cars now have new hardware in them which we have been testing out. We can now lock and unlock them via a test app and we can get a ton of data like their current location, historic trip tracking, and current vehicle state like whether the doors are locked, battery condition, fuel level, odometer reading and more. We can also remotely lock and unlock these cars via a web admin panel. This will enable members to locate and unlock their car via the new member app we're launching so we can streamline and improve the member experience (contactless delivery - ideal for COVID!). We'll also be able to automate our data collection around fuel consumption and mileage tracking to scale our billing and insurance reporting. And we'll be able to better aggregate, automate, and analyze all the data from bookings. For instance, now we can see on a trip level that someone who took the car out for a weekend went to a grocery store on Saturday and went golfing on Sunday. This information can be anonymized and aggregated to better target and market to potential new members and to personalize our service for existing members.
New member mobile app
We've done the v1.0 designs for our new member mobile app which we will start to build shortly. Similar to our web app, this will enable our members to book a car, see upcoming bookings, extend or modify their trip. However, the mobile app will be more targeted to the trip related experience. Most importantly it will enable members to locate and unlock their vehicle via telematics embedded in our vehicles. In later versions, we will also enable all the same functionality as the web app, plus condition reporting and parking restriction reporting to end their trip. Also, our new cars now all have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so our members will be able to interact with our mobile app via the touchscreen display in the car. We're still working on what we can build here but trip modifications, roadside assistance, and in-car support on how to use all the new autonomous tech in our cars top the list. You can see all the screens and provide feedback here. We haven't finalized the copy yet.
New press (3 podcasts and an article)
We got a bunch of media attention recently including interviews on 3 podcasts: Super Producer (with connected Instagram post), Converse with Anyone Anywhere, Life Self Mastery, and an article for Design Wanted. We got to discuss how we came up with the idea, our vision for the future of transportation, and even how our service even helped one member deliver a baby. Some of these opportunities came from people who had invested in Upshift and wanted to get the word out. More on its way soon! Do you have a media platform we can leverage? We'd love to do an interview for your podcast, blog, website, journal, etc. Hit us up!
New members
And, of course, we are growing! We had members worth over $33,000 in new expected lifetime value join Upshift organically just in the past month. We're now working on our strategy for paid growth including direct mail to condo towers, Facebook ads, and promotional partnerships with other startups who have users that would be interested in our service.
There's still time to invest in Upshift!
And we simply love this comment from a recent investor in our campaign "Why did I invest? That’s easy to answer - Upshift is a great idea. Better question why hasn’t everybody else invested yet??????" Have you not invested yet? There's still time! Invest or increase your investment at republic.co/upshift