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Carson Brown, co-founder and head of product at electrical scooter startup Taur, spent 4 years driving a self-balancing electrical unicycle to work. Immediately, he rides a scooter a number of occasions per week.
As a micromobility consumer, Brown has thought rather a lot concerning the design of sunshine electrical autos. What parts do they should should make folks see them as legitimate types of transportation, fairly than toys? How may the design of a scooter incentivize a rider to interchange public transit rides or automobile rides with the car, as an alternative of simply utilizing it for enjoyable within the park?
Brown has a deep background in product improvement, which is to say, he’s obsessive about how a buyer will use his product. He thinks this mentality will assist Taur be the corporate that separates owned scooters from shared scooters, that exhibits folks easy methods to combine scooters into their each day lives, that makes scooters cool.
“All scooters ought to have actually good bike lights, ought to deal with very well and have wheels large enough to experience over the terrain that you just’re going to get within the metropolis. However these are simply the beginning factors.” Carson Brown
Taur has stood out within the oversaturated however largely meh scooter market by daring to design a car that’s front-facing. The corporate is at present gearing up for its first launch in Los Angeles, which can check the mettle of this daring concept.
The startup continues to be very new — Taur was based in 2019 when it launched a preorder marketing campaign for its modern white flagship car. It’s raised about $5.2 million to this point, together with its latest $3.3 million seed spherical from Vans VC.
We sat down with Brown to debate why scooters must be designed to deal with roads that exist at this time, how good design may also help folks adapt to make use of scooters of their each day lives and why Taur might be the model ambassador that the scooter market must flourish.
Editor’s notice: The next interview, a part of an ongoing collection with founders who’re constructing transportation corporations, has been edited for size and readability.
You labored at Uniwheel for 4 years. What did you be taught there that you just’ve dropped at Taur?
Carson Brown: My time at Uniwheel was very early within the electrical unicycle area. Our crew got here from throughout — some automotive, some Method One. I had a product background. We had been all designing one thing from the bottom up that we hadn’t actually seen earlier than. In constructing that product fully from scratch, you realized a great deal of stuff concerning the fundamentals of electrical autos, batteries, motors, drivetrains. However you additionally be taught what it’s prefer to be a consumer. Essentially the most priceless factor I realized was what it’s prefer to commute on a micromobility car on daily basis for 4 years. That was how I started working, how I did errands. It was very a lot an all-in try at understanding what the product wanted to be and the way the advantages of it had been fully completely different from something that you might expertise.
After I was at Uniwheel, electrical scooters barely even existed, so we had been constructing that for primarily a distinct segment viewers. Electrical scooters at this time characterize one thing that each my co-founder and I’ve actually excessive confidence folks may be taught instantly and will ship all the advantages of any small micromobility car. You get the portability features, the benefit of use, the actually low value of operation. They’re a a lot better match for a mass viewers.
What has stood out to you as a micromobility commuter that you just’ve dropped at Taur?
The primary factor was making riders really feel assured on the highway. It’s getting higher in a number of cities with bike lanes, however there’s sometimes this terrible expertise of feeling considerably like a second-class citizen, whereby you’re occupying part of the highway the place you’re not anticipated to be, and it may be fairly intimidating when you’re not ready. So from a design standpoint, there are issues you are able to do about that. Clearly, there’s the lighting of the car. There’s the way it handles each by way of stability and management. The visibility of it to different highway customers, which is why we designed a white scooter. All of this stuff can enhance your confidence to experience frequently. What we don’t need is for individuals who like it, however don’t really feel secure driving it within the again streets or for leisure on the weekend at a park however not utilizing it on daily basis. On the forefront of our minds was, how can we construct one thing that folks would really feel assured to make use of on daily basis?
Additionally, the Uniwheel delivered extraordinarily nicely on portability. So the entire idea of having the ability to take a product inside as an alternative of the default of locking it up exterior. That reduces the prospect of theft and opens up that additional mobility. Like if I’m at residence, it’s with me. If I’m at work, it’s with me. I simply have to resolve to need to go someplace, and that accessibility is a sport changer.
Taur continues to be in the beginning of its journey. What’s the long-term imaginative and prescient? Are you sticking with scooters?
We’re fairly centered on two-wheeled transportation. I don’t know the way broad we’ll get, however there may be a number of scope for innovation. The newest nationwide numbers we’ve checked out present scooters have outdone e-bikes each by way of unit gross sales and development. So we see a number of dry powder on this area.
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