#64: From Unknown Brand to $1 Billion P&L in the Pacific Northwest? CEO of Vivian & Co and Lifelong Vagabond, Brooke Steger, Tells (Part 2)

didhedieyet

4 years ago

Missed part 1? Click here!

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Brooke Steger is the founder and CEO of Vivian & Co. But more importantly, Formerly she was Uber’s General Manager of the Pacific Northwest region, where she took it from 1 to 100 in a rapid speed. Seattle was the 3rd market for Uber, where Brooke took it from an unknown brand to a 10-figure business.

Before Uber, she was the Director @ Lockerz, and is currently on the board of several other startups that are trying to make a splash.

Back to Uber: over the course of 5 years Brooke took the PNW region from a 1 million to 1 billion dollar P&L, spoke @ State Congress to get ride-share bills passed, and built the team from the ground up.

This conversation was incredible. Brooke HUSTLES and pursues what she’s passionate about which is a constant thread through her life.

We dive deep into…inception days of Uber Seattle, fixing “supply” & growing an UberX solution, sacrifices of scaling, marketing to drivers & borrowing from different cultures, pop-ups & other experiments during early Uber, and life-after-Uber.

This episode is particularly valuable for a startup founder or marketer who’s curious of what the behind-the-scenes of an extremely successful marketplace looked like.

Learn from a leader who is confident in who they are, but didn’t know what she was getting into (really) when it was getting started.

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Show Notes

Did you borrow from digital marketplaces (to grow Uber Seattle)? [1:16]
What creative stuff did Uber Seattle do on the rider side? [3:13]
What was one thing for getting riders or drivers, that didn’t work? [5:52]
How spending money to get a driver, can be expensive but worthwhile [8:02]
In the early days, was it easy to get customers? [9:48]
Were there “chunks” of scale, like a scene 1, scene 2, and scene 3? [11:32]
How Jakub interviewed for a role and Uber talked about going big [15:01]
The hustle at Uber was real! Was that your experience? [16:56]
How have you used what you learned at Uber, at Vivian & Co helping startups? [19:24]
What are you looking for, that would have told you a startup can scale? [21:41]
Rapid mayhem questions! [23:26]
What do you think is the next big step change in marketplaces? [26:34]
Any asks of the audience? [32:11]

Links from Episode

What was your favorite ‘lesson learned’ from Brooke? Comment below!