If you don’t own a car, shopping for new furniture or taking a road trip to Tahoe is difficult. In 2017, Mark worked on solving those use cases. His team was the first at Uber to expand mobility options beyond ridesharing.
All around the world millions of people are taking an Uber to go out for dinner and drinks with friends, to catch up with their mom at a cafe, and come home from work. But what if you wanted to move your furniture or go on a road trip to Lake Tahoe for the weekend?
Customers wanted more ways to travel with Uber. Car rentals were the first step in expanding to new offerings beyond rideshare. While this was a new mobility option for Uber, it wasn’t for customers. Starting with research, Mark worked directly with customers to uncover their biggest challenges in renting by the hour, or by the day.
Mark led the product design and launch of Uber Rent within the ridesharing experience. The team was told repeatedly from multiple customers that the cost of the rental price, vehicle details and instruction are the biggest pain points when renting a car. These concerns became three key moments for Mark to design.
To help customers find a rental, Mark presented rental cars based on the three key considerations people make when choosing a car. Location, price and time.
Customers want to know details about the car before checking out. To ensure this is clearly communicated Mark separated rental details into cards to help customers find information quickly.
Mark designed a communication strategy to notify customers when their rental is starting or needs to be returned.
In 2017 Uber was ripe for disruption. The competition was heating up in many of the markets Uber operates in and needed service differentiation. Offering new mobility options to customers around the world was the team goal.
The objective was to determine if existing ridesharing customers were attracted to car rentals. Starting with a small portion of customers in San Francisco, the team launched a pilot program with a carsharing company called Getaround. With so many well-established mobility options San Francisco, the team’s challenge was to teach customers about this new service.
At the time, there was a limited budget for product launches. Mark successfully advocated for funds, directed, and produced the Uber Rent launch video. The marketing team used Mark’s video and communication designs the launch campaign.
“The obstacle is the way.” Mark shares his insight.
Mark draws inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”