[longerthoughts]

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one.

Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case where I'd prefer to rent for weeks at a time vs. single-use or buying my own scooter.

[Cenk]

This one stood out to me (next to the Bento box thing that’s a catering company dressed up as a startup) as the strangest. If you’re renting a $350 scooter for $50 a month does that really make sense?

[sonnyblarney]

It's an angle into the scooter craze.

If scooters really do become a thing, then this is basically a kind of financing plan for them. They might tweak and pivot to the point wherein the price makes sense.

It's also an option on the 'right' financing model for scooters, as maybe the 'daily/hourly' thing actually doesn't make sense at all, i.e. scooters left all around.

It's possible the daily/hourly scooter businesses may be losing money and so will fall flat.

It's risky but it's a finger in the pie of a big craze, and new trends tend to be where the money is.

So it's not entirely irrational. If scooters become a thing, it will be a big market, room for all sorts of players.

[kevinlou]

There are a lot of exciting YC companies this batch, but wouldn't a product like Omni be better positioned for tackling a slightly longer-term scooter rental?

[phowat]

The only use case I can think of is if I'm traveling and staying some time in the same city.

[longerthoughts]

Yeah, that settles the Unicorn vs. buy comparison but is Unicorn better than Bird/Lime in that case?