Mina Nada On Raising $100 Million To Transition Every Urban Mile To Electric Vehicles

Mina Nada ditched his law degree to find something more impactful in the real world. He’s turned his once side hustle into a fast-growing global business that has already attracted $100M in financing. His company, Zoomo has raised funding from top-tier investors like Collaborative Fund, WIND Ventures, Akuna Capital, and MUFG Innovation Partners.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to hire well, even when recruiting remotely
• The future of mobility and out cities
• Mina Nada’s top advice when about to launch a business of your own

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Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Mina Nada:

Australian Mina Nada graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws Degree. After his first job as a waiter at a seafood restaurant, he has worked as a consultant at management consultants Bain & Co, as general manager at Deliveroo, and as regional general manager at Mobike.

Mina Nada is the CEO and Co-founder of Zoomo e-bikes (formerly Bolt bikes). Mina is responsible for overall strategy (growth into new markets, and investor relations), operations (procurement, sales, and servicing), and management of Zoomo globally across all our locations. Previously, Mina Nada led the SE Asian and ANZ business of China’s dockless bike-share leader, Mobike.

At Deliveroo he launched and led Australia’s east coast operation helping take it to market leadership. Prior to that, Mina was a management consultant at Bain & Co focusing on Private Equity takeovers.

Connect with Mina Nada:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

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Alejandro: Already hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a really cool founder I think that we’re gonna be finding his story quite inspiring I mean now he’s built a rocket ship but you know back in the day he was working out of vans out of offices that had cockroaches rats I mean you name it. So if. Definitely full of adventure. So I guess without further ado. Let’s welcome our guests today Mina Nada: Nala welcome to the show. So originally you know from there from Australia your parents say immigrants from Egypt they went there in the 80 s but

Mina Nada: Thank you for having me alandro.

Alejandro: Give us a little of a walk through memory lane. How was how was life growing up there.

Mina Nada: Yeah, sure. Ah yeah, my my parents were were migrants to Australia in the 80 s I was born over here. Ah growing up ah was was you know I didn’t have a lot of family because you know the user is pretty far away from from Egypt. So. Ah, you learn to ah make friends and and and also just kind of ah and entertain yourself. So I spend a lot of time reading a lot of spend a lot of time. Ah, you know making new friends and I suppose I found kind of some passions for myself in. Ah, in language and history and and I was pretty academic growing up. Um, didn’t necessarily think I would get into business I thought I’d get into law I loved watching kind of you know all all those shows on tv whether it was suits or law and order. Um I studied law once I got to university. Ah, but I quickly realized that in Australia. The system is is quite different. You can’t be both an advocate in court as well as a a traditional lawyer in Australia either a barrister um and you kind of appear in court. But you can only be a sole trader you you cannot work in a team or a company. Um, or you can work in a team in a company but you can’t speak in in court which ah, which is probably one one of the one of the funnest things that I I was looking forward to so I I kind of realized that during the course of my studies and and found found a way to get out.

Alejandro: Now in your case I mean once you got out of law and and you went out there to the to the employment Market I Mean you you went into consulting and I think that consulting to certain degree gives you a really good perspective when it comes to tackling Problem. So How do you think you know it has helped you as you are thinking about problems now being in the consulting world and.

Mina Nada: Yeah, it definitely gives you a lens I think my initial driver for being in consulting was that um you know when I was working in the law I found a lot of the time I was executing a deal that I didn’t think was a good deal I think there was like 1 particular deal I was on for a particular m and a transaction. It was like an indian. Car parts manufacturer that was buying like a mine in western Australia or Western New South Wales one of the states in Australia and and you know naive young Mina Nada: you know said to the partner like this this seems like a dumb deal. You know we’re going to advise them not to do it and and they said no, that’s not our job as lawyers. Our job is to kind of execute the. Paperwork basically and and so I I joined consulting with the ideal of um ah helping companies have the right strategies and do the right sort of m and a and and and you know pursue the the right the right objectives um and again I think naive Mina Nada: um. Thought that I would be you know, whiteboarding with Ceos and and the reality as a Ka Junior entry levelve analyst at these consulting firms is that you actually do a lot of number crunching and that was very eye-opening for me because I studied humanities obviously and and you know I studied languages and I studied law. Um I didn’t really have a very strong financial toolkit and. I think what consulting taught me was just a very analytical approach to ah to business and that actually you know the the whiteboard is good for for some things but there’s a lot that you can achieve with numbers and that’s been really valuable for me I think it brought out a part of me I guess I’m very logical. Um, but it kind of teaches you how to. Ah, you know, apply that logic in a numerical way. A quansitative way an analytical way to real-world problems and and to come up with you know, useful, um, ah ways to come up with like what you know it might not be objectively the right answer. But at least you know help give you a reason a set of a rationale for Something might be more right than than another reason than another path you know under a certain certain set of assumptions or conditions and I think that is a really powerful toolkit to to take into business.

Alejandro: So how do you How do you land in liberal. What? what was that the transition there because obviously you know being there in Australia and you know your parents there you know I’m sure that they you know they were they were feeling great about having a son that studied law having a son that was at Bain you know, very. Repeatable firm and then here comes deliberate knocking as an opportunity is a company with a hundred employees I mean not the company now that is today with like over 8000 employees. So I’m sure that your parents were like son what what are you doing.

Mina Nada: Yeah, yeah, my my parents are doctors. So my my mom still wants me to become a doctor so it’s that’s too late in her. Ah um, you know it wasn’t just my parents I guess even the people at Bain kind of thought it was a bit of a crazy idea I think a common path you know for for people in in the firm that I was at was to get into.

Alejandro: Ah.

Mina Nada: Sort of private equity and and um, you know all go do their Mba and and so I was looking at both partss I actually I applied for a job. Um, ah so I had a job offer from ah from ah a private equity fund that I was weighing up against ah the the job offer from deliveroo. But I think that the the reason. That I I kind of ultimately went with delivery route was I I loved the idea of being with people of of managing people of you know, just being in the real world. Um whereas I felt that finance was a bit more of sort of. Financial engineering or a bit further away from from the frontline of of everyday people and and um, you know making things happen. You know again in the real world and I think you know if you look at zoomo today. It’s it’s you know it’s not crypto. It’s not even you know pure software. It’s software. Enabled. There’s tech in there. There’s a lot of kind of crazy engineering that goes into what we do. But also I think a lot of people who join zoomo join because they love they can see their work out there on the streets and and in the real world and and yeah, so so’s it’s quite a complex business There’s hardware. There’s software. There’s finance. There’s operations. Um. And you know our job is to bring that all together and to provide ah a solution to customers and and I think that that was ultimately um, the the challenge that I was seeking it was you know a really holistic um approach to to business bottom-up and I think that the opportunity for deliveroo was very entrepreneurial. It was you know. Be the first tire in Australia build your own business hire your own team. Ah, and you know the good thing about doing it in that sort of environment is that you don’t have the financial risk. It’s not your money that you’re putting to work but you can back yourself and and if you make good decisions and good investments then the results come out. Um, and so I kind of ah it felt very natural for me. Not to mention you know when I was doing consulting I was doing a lot of late nights getting a lot of you know food delivery. It was always coming late and it was never very good. So the concept of actually having 30 minute delivery of of great food was was novel and and attractive for me when I joined I didn’t think it would really be. Big outside of say corporate markets and you know very quickly. We discovered that you know actually the market for this is predoMina Nada:ntly you know consumers and and and um, you know we initially again also thought of it in in ah in ah sort of suburbs but you know very quickly. We realized that it’s also really big out in the in the outer suburbs as well. So. You know I think a lot of the people when they join a startup they they don’t see how big you know it. It can be and and it keeps on growing and and picking up momentum as you go along.

Alejandro: So now in your case around 2017 the company for sumo actually came to mind but rather than executing on it. You went and and and you moved to Singapore to to join mobike so why did you do that rather than just going at it with with sumo.

Mina Nada: Yeah, so so actually so Zoomo it used to be called Bolt bikes. Um, and we changed that name partly because it was like you know as we decided to overtime go international. We came up against like Bolt The the East European ridesharing company and there’s like anothers goodo company in the Us called Bolt So we.

Alejandro: But was holding you back.

Mina Nada: We changed the name. Um, but we started it in 2017 me and my cofounder um as a side hustle so we bought so so so we we saw that there was a need for more electric bikes in food delivery fleets. We saw that this vehicle was really what we believed the future form factor that that made sense for last mile logistics. Um, ah, but we also saw there were a lot of challenges. The vehicles were not fit for purpose. They were not affordable. Ah, they needed needed a lot of maintenance and and nobody was really able to provide on-demand servicing for for the people that that required them and so what me and my cofounder did in 172 was like test a dozen or so bikes pick a couple that we thought were were the best for commercial use. And by initially it was just 10 you know and and it was you know a scary you know investment for both of us. Um, the first really meaningful investment I guess we had made ah and you know we watched closely for the next few months as you know we we started to rent them out to couriers and we and we um started to watch how profitable or not profitable. This was and. Quickly realized that it was profitable. We we made back the money on the on the first batch of bikes. We decided to go buy more bikes. Um, and so that kind of continued very much as a side hustle because back then we didn’t really know how big it could be um. And and I think you know between at some point 2017 we had the first 10 bikes and by the end of 2018. We had a couple of hundred bikes that was all kind of self-funded. Um, and so it was just it. It was just a side hustle I I moved with deliveroo to Singapore at the end of twenty seventeen or the middle of 2017 and then while I was there I transitioned to another company called mobike all the while you know me and my co-founder were were just doing this on on um on the side and and I think the reason we didn’t go full-time back then was well I guess we weren’t very experienced at fundraising we we weren’t sure that you know we we could necessarily do it. Um, we we weren’t necessarily sure and in the the business model and and we had a lot to learn. Um, and we obviously you know were comfortable in the security of of paid jobs and least each felt that we had stuff to to do in in the meantime and I think that um you know my exposure to mobike which was a dockless bikesharing company out of China which which I guess similar today to.

Mina Nada: Bird and lime and tier and dot and and voy and those sorts of companies but really an earlier version of them that that came out of China um was really eye-opening because I saw really what it was to manage a fleet of electric bikes or in in those days regular bikes at scale. Um. And and also I saw the mobility industry and and and what it was like to raise money in in that industry and um I think that a lot of the experience that came out of mobilebike also helped inform how we could do. You know what came to be zoomo at scale and so I think there’s there’s also kind of a. Ah, sense of you know, building up experience and and and and knowing when the right is when when is the right time to go all in on something you know sometimes you choose it and sometimes it it doesn’t so so you don’t you don’t choose the timing perfectly or kind of you’re forced to make a decision. So.

Alejandro: So where was the right time to go all in on Truman.

Mina Nada: Mobark actually was acquired by Maitwan which is like chinese food delivery equivalent of like doordash or um or deliveroo in in China and they wanted to focus on the chinese market. So basically all the international markets got put up for sale and and and transitioned and so by the end of 18 I was looking for for for anx gig and so you know I remember I did some consulting I did some some soul searcharching and I just kept coming back to to bolt as it was known back then and thinking there’s just a lot more in this business and maybe not in the exact you know way that it is today. But this concept that we’re that we’re on which is micromobility for commercial use has ah has tremendous potential and I can see that the future of of last-m mile logistics should increasingly be. You know a smaller form factor electric vehicles and I can see all the reasons why it’s not there today technological challenges on the hardware. You know service network challenges on the servicing. The supply chain is challenging the financing. You know you can’t it’s not easy to get a loan. You know as a business to cover an electric bike the the banks don’t treat it the same way they treat a car or or a motorbike or or a truck. Um, so there were a whole lot of reasons why the industry was not mature enough to support that. That sort of business model and so that broad concept is is what encouraged us to to kind of go all in on on bolt and expand the concept decide to build our own vehicles to build our own software to expand internationally and fortunately in 19 I was at a. Conference in san francisco a micromobility conference and I was introduced to a vc fund called meneve who are early stage mobility investors and you know they were kind of they split between the us and israel and they were happy to invest. Um, yeah, know over $2000000 into kind of ah a seed round for us without actually ever coming to australia meeting my cofounder in real life seeing any of our bikes in real life. They kind of had a thesis I guess that’s the good thing about sector-specific investors is that they kind of had a similar thesis to us. And and our business they they lacked our foundation story and they likeed our vision and they gave us money to just go out and do it and and I guess those guys took ah took a risk on us and and yeah I think it’s it’s it’s definitely paying off.

Alejandro: So for the people that are listening before we get into the into the fundraising because I think that this that’s going to be very interesting. What is the business model of the company and how do you guys make money to to for them to understand. So.

Mina Nada: Yeah, so Zooma has 2 revenue streams one is direct to courier and the other one is enterprise and so the direct to-courier business is basically focused on providing vehicles for gig workers. PredoMina Nada:ntly in the food delivery space. So your uber eats delivery door dash type type careeriers. Um, and and so it’s it’s kind of similar to to a b to c business. But it’s more prosumer rather than consumer. It’s it’s it’s similar to the tradey who wants a pickup truck. Um. You know in the way that that they are using the vehicle for business purposes. But you know you need to you need to advertise to them and and and reach out to them as as you would a consumer having said that they they’re very focused on on like the ah roi of the spend in a way that’s different from somebody who wants to go buy a porsche. Um, so That’s one part of our business and that’s where we started and I think that’s very important because you know the customer ultimately that we were dealing with was the courier and so we had to be very courier-centric highly customer-centric to make sure that we had a product that they liked and then the other part of our business is what we call enterprise and those enterprises tend to um. Employ their workers rather than engaging them as gig workers and they provide them the vehicles and so you know we’ll have deals for thousands of bikes with one company or another company and and provide those vehicles typically and like a long-term lease. Um. And so you know the proposition for those companies is you know here’s the best vehicle for last mile delivery here’s the software stack to enable. Um, you know your efficient usage of those vehicles and the integration of that data into your systems. Um, and also we will provide you the servicing network that will maintain the uptime of those vehicles because. We have customers that are doing over fifty Thousand kilometers per annum on the bikes and yeah, that’s that’s to give you a feel the average australian is doing fifteen thousand one five Thousand kilometers per annum on a car. So the the usage is is extremely intense for like what’s a light commercial vehicle and and so no matter what you need to have. Safety checks. You need to have just consistent maintenance of um, those vehicles no matter how you know robust the vehicles are and so you know we’ve basically developed a a one-stop stop shop solution for customers to be able to move to this new form factor that they know is superior to using a truck or a van. Um, ah, but you know solving all those problems that I saw in my cofounder saw back in 17 were stopping individual gig workers from from using the bike which is kind of like the bike is not fit for purpose it breaks down all the time. Nobody knows how to fix it. Nobody’s going to fix it quickly and I can’t even afford it because nobody will finance. It.

Mina Nada: And then you know there’s a whole bunch of value added stuff that I could do if this was a connected vehicle and there was some software systems in place and so we bring all of that together and and provide that to to our customers whether it’s on that kind of direct to courier or and or on the enterprise side.

Alejandro: And on the going back to the fundraising talk. Um, how much capital have you guys raised today.

Mina Nada: Um, cumulatively to date. We’ve raised around a hundred million dollars between equity and debt.

Alejandro: So how do you go on your business about the equity of the debt.

Mina Nada: Um, I think that the way that we think about it is we have a lot of money tied up in inventory which is the bikes themselves. Um and that is better to be funded out of debt. Um, rather than equity. The the reason for that is we know that the buy wants to put in a customer’s hands it pays itself off in you know x months and then it generates profit after that and rather than diluting our ownership in the business by using equity to to fund that we should be funding it as much as possible with with debt finance and. Historically that was the majority of our capital requirement was just getting these bikes to the hands of customers and then because almost everybody is paying for these on some sort of um, financing arrangement or you know, leasing arrangement or rental arrangement you you don’t get your money back straight away in the same way like you know compared to ah someone who’s doing drop shipping and they buy. Ah, you know a thousand dollars worth of widgets they sell them for $1200 and they kind of make their money back straight away. They have a very short sort of cash cycle on the other hand zoomo’s cash cycle is much longer and so because the assets themselves are quite expensive. You need quite a lot of capital to to fund that and and then you add to that. Long lead times with supply chain and you’re having to pay deposits quite a quite a fair bit out and then you know add add to that that you don’t get the the money paid back on the bike for for a while until after it’s been deployed. You know you actually need a lot of money for that. But it’s better to fund that out of debt than out of equity and and so um. That’s how we think about funding that part of the business and then what we try to focus the equity capital raising on is investing into a technology stack. So um, that’s investing into hardware development investing into software development. But also investing into you know, expansion of our physical footprint and our marketing and and our teams that ah that are growing the the business. Um, yeah, and and that stuff can be cash burning until you get to scale and so broadly. That’s how we think about allocating capital in the business and you know. Wanting to raise equity for one set of purposes and and debt for another set of purposes.

Alejandro: And for the fundraising journey I mean being in Australia how was you know, raisingcing money from people all the way here in the us I mean it’s obviously very far away and I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that are listening now that are outside of the us that are wondering hey how the hell do I also get you know investors from. From New York like you guys did you know being so far away I mean how do you go about that and what was that experience. Okay.

Mina Nada: Yeah I mean to be honest in in 2019 I probably spent more than 50% of the year traveling outside of Australia I think that was a mix of fundraising setting up operations going to Asia to set up our supply chain. Um, so so not all of it was necessarily fundraising but like I think at the time you know I was. Single so I didn’t have anybody kind of at home on my back saying like you know carf and come back. Where are you I guess that’s that’s you know, part of part of an enabler I suppose being able to make that make that leap. Um, and and I kind of spent I was in San Francisco for I don’t know 2 3 four weeks

Alejandro: Ah.

Mina Nada: Living on a friend’s couch. You know, literally? um you know while I was out there meeting meeting investors and and um and and raising capital. Um I think back in 2019 the Australian Vc environment was not as developed as it is today and so I think we were fortunate. We. We found the right. Investors in Mindeve Because you know they were global australia is similar to Israel in that you know it’s very hard to make a global you know it’s hard to make a very big business in your home country. You have to go global very early so you know swedish companies and and israeli companies and australian companies have this in common that they need to go international very very early in their lifespan too. Kind of prove the global kind of product market fit and the scale that they can achieve and so I think with israeli investors we found that you know they were open to that concept of going international very early and as kind of experts in the industry. They they backed us. We. Then kind of our next round was led by an australian fund actually ah our series a and series b were both led by australian funds. But I think now we’re starting to attract a lot more international attention and so I think it’s like we had the people who are the real experts in the sector you know seed us and then I think. Australian investors where we have good networks. You know have really come in thereafter and and I guess you know seen the good stuff that we’re doing and and and backed us. But we’ve also built up quite a strong um shareholder registry of of international investors. Whether it’s americans canadians europeans. Um, that are you know, really great for also opening up introductions as we kind of look to further capital raising and in the future and and you know actually the australian environment now is mature enough that we could theoretically keep on funding ourselves just from from australian investors. But I think that given that now the majority of our business is between the us and Europe um. It makes sense to bring on more overseas investors as well. Over time.

Alejandro: And in terms of building. You know the company and and also getting surrounded by the right people. What what have you learned about making the right hires because you know obviously you know I’m sure that you’ve gone through some experiences of of bad people.

Mina Nada: Yeah, certainly yeah, there’s there’s there’s There’s definitely some stories like that.

Alejandro: But apples. No.

Alejandro: So I mean what say what? what have you learned about people.

Mina Nada: You know I think 1 thing is definitely do very strong reference checks. Especially if there’s someone you know I think the best hires tend to be via referral because they’re from networks of people who you know and and they’re not going to recommend somebody crazy. You know if if they’re someone that you know and trust ah as well. Um, when someone comes out of the blue who on paper seems good. You know I think the the lesson for us has been You know you can’t just trust what you see? Um, you know, just maybe stepping back. Zoomumo grew very quickly through covid so a lot of our majority of our hiring was actually not majority but but a huge amount of our hiring was during lockdowns where australians couldn’t go overseas. We hired phenomenal leaders and we did that all remotely never meeting people in person so we got very good at at um, at recruiting entirely remote and and that’s very hard and even today we’ve gone back to like. You know, expecting at least 1 in-person you know meeting before we we do the majority of hires. Um, how you said that we make exceptions because we know that we can also do pretty good hiring remotely. But um, you know I think the learning is to just definitely do reference checks because I think when you meet somebody in person. It’s easy to kind of you can get a feel for. You know is there a little bit of extra kind of arrogance in there or is there. You know some sort of personality defect or some strange kind of behavior that you know could be an indicator of um, you know someone who’s not going to be a team player or kind of be someone who who behaves in a way that’s not not um, you know in line with the company’s values. Um, and so I think you know in the absence of of that then the really important thing is to just find people who dealt with this person historically don’t just go with the references that they provide and also if they provide references that are kind of just in writing to make sure to actually speak to direct managers um of them before and I think that that. Processes just is a pretty robust way of keeping out bad apples and but it’s hard to get it right? all the time because you know, especially in high-growth startups you’re moving so quickly and you might meet someone who you think is like a wow on paper I can’t believe this person is is you know interested to join us. Um. And then and then you know sometimes as people are interested to join a startup because they’ve they’ve kind of maybe got ah a dotted history.

Alejandro: Nice now in terms of the size of a sumer so that people that are listening to really get ah an understanding of the scope. How big is the company I mean anything that you can share around number of employees for anything else that you feel comfortable sharing.

Mina Nada: Yeah, we’re about 400 people more than one people globally now we’ve got a chunk of headcount in Australia which is sort of your corporate and and a lot of the tech headcount sits here but the majority of the operations. And marketing and sales headcount sits between Europe and the us where the majority of actual bikes are in place and a really big chunk of the of the headcount is is kind of sort of those maintenance teams I discussed how kind of. Um, intensive the maintenance was of these vehicles and so we we have pretty big teams of mechanics that are um, both mobile mechanics as well as you know just in in warehouses that are you know constantly maintaining and fixing and checking. And doing q a on on vehicles in in the markets where we have the most vehicles deployed.

Alejandro: And in in in terms of like visualizing here the the future together and and kind of like bringing the listeners as well into how you guys are thinking imagine you go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of Zuma is fully realized. What does that world look like.

Mina Nada: Yeah I think there’s a few things that are in zoomo’s control and a few things that are not but I think in in the future world where zumo’s vision is fully realized we have a lot more cities that are similar to Paris in that they have. Seen the light of micromobility being a much more efficient way to move around much better for the environment introduced a lot more bike lanes and congestion charges and things that are um, taking cars off the road and making the roads friendly for smaller form factors. I think that’s really critical. Ah, you know I think any urban planner or or you know mobility expert sees that um you know urban centers are not fit for purpose for for cars and and and wants to make them more friendly I think one of the biggest things that’s holding back. Micromobility is simply unsafe streets or. Rules and cultures that put cars above human beings and and I think that that’s a fundamental mind shift that you know mindset shift which is I expect to take place over the coming years and there’s a very strong movement towards that that’s driven by you know people who are who are environmentally oriented people that ah just want their streets to be safer and quieter and and and. People who just care about efficiency and want to get to work more quickly. So I think that there’s a broad. Um you know change in our infrastructure of our cities that supports micro mobility and I think in that in that world. Um, what you see is a variety of um, ah, light electric vehicle form factors. That will thrive in the enablement of last mile delivery I think that you know another sort of secular macro trend that is happening is that ecommerce which is already expanding very rapidly. Its share of all commerce and depends fundamentally upon delivery is getting quicker and quicker and so customer expectations are going from. one- weekek delivery two-day delivery sameday delivery you know, same hour deliver hour 10 minute delivery increasingly and to enable that sort of speed of delivery on the 1 hand you need basically micro-fillment centers that are closer to the end user and basically electric bikes because you know again in in those urban environments. Yeah, cars are not able to move around are able to park are able to kind of move nimbly able to enter the foyer of ah of an apartment block or or you know, um, skyscraper very efficiently and so in those environments you know, expect to see. Um, um, a multiplicity of of of. Different vehicles and in the same way that in kind of our traditional sense of the automotive world. There are different form factors for commercial ah vehicles. You have small pickup trucks big pickup trucks, small trucks, big trucks small vans big vans um, all serving somewhat different um commercial use cases.

Mina Nada: We also see a world where it’s not just going to be like 1 silver bullet vehicle that rules them all. There’ll be a multiplicity of vehicle form factors to to meet the varying needs of um of different businesses and and and different sort of consumers and so I think. Already we are seeing in Europe and the United States electric bikes outselling cars and actually they’re the number 1 electric vehicle that exists I think that that trend will accelerate I think that electric vehicles or electric bikes specifically are very very early in their technological journey I think that they’re they’re similar to where. You know mobile phones were I don’t know fifteen years ago there’s there’s still you know the price of mobile phones has been going up because the technology that people want in their phones is is is improving. You know whether it’s better cameras or better processes or better screens and. You know I see the same thing for electric bikes. You know when we look at our roadmap going going out forward people. Want abs breaks people want better connectivity people. Want bigger motors people want more colors and they basically want features that that are not um, ah you know able to be done today at scale. But. You know in the same way that you know mercites bends will roll out the latest technology in the s class and then it’ll trickle down to kind of more familiar mass modalities over time I think that’s sort of going to be the journey that we see in micromobility as well. Where a lot of these features that consumers want whether it’s you know. Also. Advanced driver assistance or or safety features like lidar and that sort of thing entering into the phrase. So I think more form factors more volume and more advanced features I guess is the is the simple way to to summarize all of that.

Alejandro: Now imagine if I put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time back in time to that moment where you were thinking about going at it full time giving everything you got and imagine you were able to go back in time and have a chat with a younger self. That you garMina Nada: and you were able to give yourself 1 piece of business advice before going at it with the business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Mina Nada: I think it would have been think bigger. Ah you know, ah aim higher and you know be even more ambitious because um. I don’t know if it’s an australian thing or a lack of experience thing but you know when we went to first raise our our initial round it was you know very much we have this business. We know it works. You know if you give us some money we’re going to help you make more money as an investor. Um, you know back then. I wasn’t really talking about I think this is what the future could be in four or five years time all about thinking was about like the next one year or 2 years and I think that um yeah, that works for traditional maybe private equity style investing which is also guess what what? I was more familiar with but I think venture investors who are kind of really betting on. Founders and macro trends and really big outcomes. Um, they want to see that you have ah that that broader vision and I think that it wasn’t for a lack of having the imagination I think it was. You know what? I’ve learnedt I think over the last number of years about about about capital raising in the in the vc space is that um you know people have very long time horizons they’re not expecting to make their money back in 2 years time or 3 years time they want to back founders who have a vision out for you know, 3 4 5 6 seven years and have a broad kind of game plan on that and so you know I think that um you know every capital raise we’ve we’ve become more ambitious actually and and you know partly it’s driven by you know we’ve been successful and we’ve delivered on what we’ve said we would do and obviously there’s a bit of a balancing act there. There’s a lot of charlatans out there who raise money for. You know, crazy ideas that they have no way they have no idea how they’re going to execute them. Um I think I think you know the the nature of of myself and my cofounder we’re very pragmatic, very practical. We. You know we don’t do necessarily like the Silicon Valley you know ah crazy kind of um. Future future painting vision. We haven’t done that necessarily and I think that um you know I think if we’d been a little bit more ah broadly framed in the way that we we express you know what we can do and what we can’t what we might do we might have moved a lot more quickly and and and um. Ah, you know, being able to take more risks than than what we’ve done to today. So I think you know that’s that’s 1 thing and not sorry. It’s not sure if’s necessarily the 1 thing I would say but it’s definitely 1 thing that comes to mind.

Alejandro: And me now for the people that are listening. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

Mina Nada: I Guess Linkedin I’m I’m I’m there and and you know open to to receiving inbounds from from their all time always come across lots of interesting people there I think that’s actually how we how we connect it.

Alejandro: Amazing. Well Mina Nada: thank you so much for being on the dealmakerr show. It has been honor to have you on with us today. Thank.

Mina Nada: My absolute pleasure Alejandra thank you for for also listening to my story.

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