Uber is the Master of Aggressive Expansion George August 24, 2014 ecommerce, Uber There’s really no doubt that Uber is killing it in terms of expansion. Check out the graphic below which illustrates the massive amount they achieved during the summer of 2014. Most companies would be struggling to that in a multiple of the time its taken Uber … Specifically, consider the following timeline: June 2014: Uber raises over $1 billion, valuing the company at over $18 billion. August 5, 2014: Uber announces UberPool, empowering riders to share rides based on proximity and destination similarity. (Worth noting many observers feel Uber scooped Lyft’s plans to launch Lyft Line, but now it’s moot as both are up and running.) August 19, 2014: Uber announces the appointment of David Plouffe to run the company’s public policy and strategy. You may have heard of Plouffe, who in the past simply engineered one of the most famous and successful political campaigns of all time with Barack Obama in 2008. August 20, 2014: Uber announces a “test” for Corner Store in Washington, DC, a service within the Uber app which allows consumers to order basic sundry items, putting the company on a path to be squarely in competition with initiatives from the likes of Amazon and Google, and many startups like Postmates, Instacart, DoorDash, and others. August 20, 2014: Uber, on the same day as Corner Store, opens its API and announces 11 partner integrations with companies like United Airlines and OpenTable, among others. It’s going to take a pretty savvy operational competitor to get anywhere near that speed of expansion. Read the rest of the article here.
