That's what the guy who wrote out his prostitution business plan said.
The plan was intended to get his game to the next level—"from the concrete streets, to executive suites."*
Compared to the C-suite at Uber—well there currently isn't a C-suite at Uber, what with the unfilled CEO, CFO, COO,
Which is, of course, a Pimpin' ho's Degree.
From TechCrunch, June 23:
Uber has seen a sharp drop in retention rates for new drivers in the U.S., according to analysis of the Uber driver app provided to TechCrunch by app analytics firm Apptopia.In an analysis of app downloads and usage, Apptopia estimates that 30-day user retention for the Uber driver app in the U.S. has dropped 47 percent from January through May.
This measure looks at the proportion of users opening the app each day after the initial day of download — continuing until the 30th day… the idea being to measure engagement meaningfully versus looking at app deletions (as lots of people just stop using an app versus actively deleting it).
Apptopia’s analysis also indicates a 20 percent bump in downloads of the driver app over the same period.
So — if the data crunching is correct — it appears that while Uber is successfully managing to drive initial interest from new drivers, it’s having serious trouble sustaining this interest.
From April, retention rates appear to fall especially dramatically.
Apptopia does not get any usage data direct from Uber but pulls data from a network of 250,000 apps to which it has developer account access. It then uses an algorithmic framework to generate estimates for individual apps, including by using public signals such as App Store reviews — and says its methods result in “strong trend data for major apps.”See also the Financial Times' Izabella Kaminska back in June 2016 (and earlier but this is the one I remember offhand):
For the two percentages it’s pulling here, it says it’s averaging its data from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store together — for, as it puts it, a “more holistic view” on interactions with the Uber driver app.
We asked Uber if it had any comment on the data, but at the time of writing it had not responded....MORE
Why Uber’s capital costs will creep ever higher*We first posted the business plan in 2010 but the link rotted. It is still accessible at VICE with a new link: "Keep it Pimpin'"
And although we have joked around with this, the underlying story is quite serious and is a focus of Oakland's Youth Radio.
The original source won both a Peabody and an Edward R. Murrow award for the reporting and the business plan is via the Alameda County District Attorney (CA). Courtesy of Youth Radio.
