Bounce – How The Bike Rental Startup Is Changing The Way We Commute

Indian metropolitan cities see a huge influx of graduates and working individuals due to India’s IT and startup boom.  As more and more people keep coming, traffic congestion is becoming a major cause for concern, giving endless nightmares to commuters trying to go to their offices and get back home.  All this makes owning a four wheeler a hassle, owing to endless traffic snarls. Bounce, a startup based out of Bengaluru, Karnataka, is slowly trying to change how we commute every day.  Bounce offers bike rentals with the aim of cutting down commute time.

The beginning

Bounce was founded by Vivekananda HR, Varun Agni and Anil G., who initially founded Wicked Ride, a premium bike rental service.  The idea took seed when Anil placed an order for a Royal Enfield bike and found out there was a waiting time of 12 months for the bike to be delivered.  This got him thinking and a realization dawned upon him—renting a bike is cheaper and more hassle free compared to the waiting time for all high end or luxury rides.  This slowly led to the establishment of the company Bounce we know today.

Growth of Bounce

With the advent of the Metro Rail infrastructure, the founders realised first and last mile connectivity was going to be a problem and they set out to address this.  They brainstormed various modes like cars, cycles and two wheelers and eventually finalised two wheelers. Using the revenue generated from Wicked Ride, they assembled a fleet of twenty scooters and began operating from the Baiyappanahalli Metro Station in Bengaluru.  The initial operating model was they used to hand over the keys of the bike and obtain proper signed documents from the customers. They had a team at another location to collect the bikes and their keys.

However, after realising they need to scale up and it could be achieved by integrating technology with the operating model, they decided to develop an app which worked using the Internet of Things (IoT.)  This was when Varun developed software and hardware which could be integrated in the vehicles, making them capable of being operated without keys. This meant users could unlock the bike with just their mobile, using the Bluetooth and data on their devices.

To take the ease of use even further, they started offering two  options of renting bikes from which the customers could choose one.  The first is the dockless model, which lets the user pick up the bike closest to them and use it.  This can be used for first and last mile connectivity or short trips. The user can later leave the bike at the point of their destination for the next user to use.  The other option is hourly rentals, which lets the user rent bikes when they have longer trips.

The founders are looking into electric vehicles to further bring down the cost per kilometer for users.  Bounce is rapidly gaining a user base in the metro cities, thanks to the nature of its simple and easy to use system.  Regular commuters are now slowly beginning to accept the use of Bounce bikes to bring down their commute time, especially during peak hours when the roads are congested due to the massive presence of four wheelers.