#163: Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) — Mobility as a Service & The Future of Transportation

—AI-Generated––

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:00:00]:
Overall share mobility of business is about getting employees to work, and the vision we have is that one day transportation will be as big of an employee benefit as health insurance.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:14]:
Let's discover what people are building in the greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the real pleasure of speaking with Ryan McManus, founder and CEO of Share Mobility. Ryan is passionate about solving work force and rural mobility challenges, creating and affording equitable access to transportation, and ultimately changing the way people actually commute. To this end, Share Mobility, which has raised over 12,000,000 in funding from investors like Jumpstart Ventures here in Cleveland, JobsOhio, Iron Gate Capital, Seamless Capital, and Venn Ventures, amongst many others, is a mobility as a service platform, empowering companies and municipalities to seamlessly implement new transportation programs or optimize existing ones as part of an employee benefits program. Practically, this has resulted in exciting mobility programs and pilots, like the one with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authorities to expand equitable access to employment opportunities in Solon for all the Greater Cleveland Region, providing first and last mile ridings from public transit centers to employment sites.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:36]:
In a world where we are increasingly thinking about mobility holistically, Ryan has a fascinating and unique perspective on autonomous vehicles, connected car innovations, multimodal transportation, the transition to mobility subscriptions away from car ownership, what mobility as a service even is, and a whole lot more about the future of transportation. I really enjoyed getting to learn from Ryan about where this space is headed, Cher Mobility's role in shaping it, and his reflections on entrepreneurship. So please enjoy my conversation with Ryan McManus after a brief message from our sponsor. Lay of the Land is brought to you by John Carroll University's Bowler College of Business, widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the region. As we've heard time and time again from entrepreneurs here on Lay of the Land, many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University, success in this ever changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technologies and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen, all qualities nurtured through the Bohler College of Business. With 4 different MBA programs of study spanning professional, online, hybrid, and 1 year flexible, the Bowler College of Business provides flexible timelines various class structures for each MBA track including online, in person, hybrid, and asynchronous. All to offer the most effective options for you, including the ability to participate in an elective international study tour providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture. The career impact of a bowler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:22]:
To learn more about John Carroll University's bowler B. A. Programs, please go to business.jcu.edu. The Buller College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a college of business can have. So, like, I I often do before an episode was was thinking about where the the best place to start would be. And the the work you're doing deeply resonates as as someone for who years has been in Cleveland without a car, you know, and and really have advocated for walkable office space destinations within my own companies. And it's it's just so obvious how the barrier to get to work can be prohibitive in the absence of a car and and comprehensive public transportation options. And I, you know, also recognize getting to decide where your own work takes place is is not leverage, you know, most folks have available to them, which is, you know, all to say, very excited to learn more about the the impact you're having here in the the greater Cleveland area and and really more broadly the the vision that you've set out to accomplish with shared mobility.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:31]:
I I I personally think it's an awesome undertaking, so it's, it's a privilege to have you on to learn more about it.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:04:37]:
Thank you very much. This is a great start to the conversation knowing that you have that firsthand experience as a transit user. I think I know a large percentage of the population doesn't have that perspective, and, building a business that's kind of the intersection of personal transportation and transit, we end up doing a lot of education. And so, again, to come on our podcast like yours and and talk about why we're creating employee transportation is a great opportunity. So thanks for having me on today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:11]:
Absolutely. So at the at the highest level, what is Share Mobility? Just to set the stage.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:05:17]:
Sure. Share Mobility is a technology enabled transportation company that is working on making transportation an employee benefit. The biggest part of our business is working directly with companies that are typically in manufacturing or logistics or food production, anywhere where you have a large number of hourly workers where those jobs are outside of transit service areas. Most often they're in rural areas and were operating vans and buses, moving 14 to 50 people from the city to jobs that they otherwise couldn't get to unless they had a personal vehicle. And to make all of that happen at scale, we have software that operates everything. There's, some efficiency built in. We've got some innovation around how we get all the rides scheduled and optimized in advance. But the the overall share mobility of business is about getting employees to work.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:06:18]:
And the vision we have is that one day, transportation will be as big of an employee benefit as health insurance.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:27]:
I love that. When I think about, you know, transportation in in my own life, I I feel like transportation, cars, those, for some reason, are normally deep rooted childhood interest. And I'm, you know, I'm curious for yourself where your your own, you know, passion and and interest for mobility kinda stems from when when you think back on, even before, you know, your time at at Share?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:06:52]:
Yeah. I probably qualify as a car guy. I really like racing. I've always liked cars. I I worked for over a year when I was 15 to be able to save up enough for my first car. And so for me, transportation has always been freedom. But growing up in an area that had no public transit, car was the only option. The opportunity to see shared mobility was kind of an evolution that started when we were going through an incubator program or accelerator program here in Columbus that NCT Ventures funded.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:07:28]:
And AEP was behind it. It was called, the Smart City Accelerator. And that was when we got to meet with both businesses, educators, and senior communities, and we heard firsthand about their need for transportation. And it was at a time where Columbus had, smart city projects and so transportation was on the top of mind of everyone. And we just kept running into organizations that had this transportation need. And my my background is in b to b. I was an entrepreneur working in b to b before starting Share Mobility and so I I looked at how do we solve this transportation problem from a a business perspective, and how do we build a a transportation solution that solves what the companies needed? That was kind of the initial idea. Come to find out, putting yourself into the hiring process and helping somebody make a decision about transportation and is actually the really big idea.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:08:30]:
And making this not just about getting people to work, it's about enabling a company to be able to hire someone that doesn't have transportation. And if you hire somebody that needs transportation and you provide it to them, that individual employee becomes a more reliable worker for that business, which has a bottom line benefit, and we figured out how to make how to justify that companies should be paying for this benefit for their employees. So it's not just, hey, here's here's a new type of transportation. You know, it's it's a it's a whole new industry that's helping businesses see how the expense of commuting is actually one of their largest expenses. It's not in one place. It's not a hard cost. It's in a lot of different areas, but we've been able to help companies in across 9 states now introduce their 1st employee transportation program. And, Cleveland is actually been Northeast Ohio has been one of the best areas for us in part because of the growth.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:09:36]:
The growth of new business, the reshoring of manufacturing, and just, the growth of existing companies who their greatest competition is not somebody down the road making the same thing as them. It's their neighbor, and they're competing over labor.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:53]:
So when when you think about, you know, maybe with the the impetus of smart city as a catalyst for, you know, exploring some of these ideas in the first place, Where did the unearthing of, you know, this is a problem at scale, and there's possibly the shift that can happen from, you know, people buying and owning cars to, you know, thinking about it from the context of it's actually, potentially, and is an employer problem.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:10:23]:
I started off thinking about autonomous vehicles being the real driver in the shift from car ownership to mobility. That's an industry evolution that I believe is is in progress, is inevitable, and the only unknown is how long it's gonna take. And so that made me say I wanna be a part of that industry transformation as people go from buying cars to sharing cars. And my my first experience was on Turo. I had a, in 2016 I got a Tesla and I put it on Turo and I started sharing it and within a month I was driving a car that let's be honest, I couldn't afford. But I paid for it fully by sharing it 5 to 7 days a month. And so that showed me how this very, expensive asset that's pretty underutilized 5 to 7% of our time is the vehicle is used 5 to 7% of the time. And so it's just very, very clear that these underutilized assets could be better utilized through sharing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:30]:
And And Turo is like an Airbnb for for cars. Is that

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:11:34]:
Exactly. That's a great way to say it. And, it allows you to allows you to connect on a peer to peer basis. And so that kinda got me thinking about car sharing. But in 2016, there was a big perception that ride sharing had kind of won. There was 2 big winners. Ridesharing had filled the gap between car ownership and public transportation, and there was no other opportunities in that. I disagreed.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:12:06]:
I I saw that or I didn't see it. I heard from businesses that the ride sharing options weren't available for them where they were at in a rural area. Or if they had their employees using it, they were spending so much of their paycheck on ride sharing services that they went to go get a different job. And that, you know, Columbus has been a great place to build a business because so many of the companies embraced our idea really early on. Like, we were lucky to have Huntington Bank, CoverMyMeds, Chipotle, some of these big enterprise organizations be willing to be our first customer. I don't know that that happens everywhere. I'm positive it doesn't happen everywhere. And so that's where we were able to kind of connect this idea of, businesses need an employee transportation with let's figure out how to actually operate it.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:13:01]:
And the way that we run it today is very different than when we first did rides in 2017, but the foundational vision of one day everybody's gonna be a passenger and how do you build a business that gets more people who are passengers all the time. That that is still as true as ever. And then there's, like, little data points that help support this long term vision. 25% fewer 16 year olds get their driver's license every year than a decade ago. And so you have this slow erosion of, driving. Cost of car ownership is going up far faster than the rates of income, and so car ownership becomes something that less and less of our population can attain. And as we get into things like electric cars that cost more, self driving cars that may cost a lot more, Those vehicles and those types of technologies are gonna be only available to those who can really afford it unless we do 2 things. We we get people to share and we also get people to plan it in advance.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:14:05]:
It seems like it doesn't seem like a big thing but it's actually kind of the foundational piece of shared mobility is that we're getting everybody to plan their commute in advance. And think about that in a big way. Take Cleveland today. What's it like? How many people work in Cleveland? Is there a 1000000 workers in Cleveland?

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:29]:
Oh, you know, depends the the the geographic designation. You're going, but Ballpark.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:14:36]:
But however many there are, all of them decided this morning how they were gonna commute on their own, and one person left 5 minutes earlier than they did the next day, one person got on an earlier bus, and every single individual decision, it's kinda chaos theory, that creates congestion in rush hour traffic. Right?

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:56]:
For sure. And the the context I can add is, you know, there's just in downtown Cleveland, maybe 20,000 folks who live there, but well over a 100,000 who end up working downtown. Massive commutes.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:15:08]:
Exactly. So let's just say downtown, you take that 80,000 people that are coming in, and what if we got them all to schedule when they were commuting? Not everybody can, not everybody wants to, but what if we got a large, even a small percentage of them to plan when they were coming in? Now you could be optimizing roadway usage, you could be optimizing access into parking. Even if people were driving themselves, if there was some kind of coordination around that. And so that that as populations get bigger, as cities get bigger, I see it as an inevitability that commute planning will be something that companies have to take on. And today, because commuting is totally on the individual employee, shared mobility is focused on those who need it the most. And it turns out, those who need transportation the most are also the the types of workers that companies are are competing for the most.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:08]:
So having identified this this gap in in mobility, you know, between, call it, on one end of the spectrum, full ownership, and and on the other, maybe public transportation with with ride sharing in the middle. Having identified the gaps on the spectrum, how do you set out to begin to address this problem in the first place as you're having identified, you know, the the the depth and scale and severity of the problem?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:16:37]:
Yeah. We started out actually operating it ourselves and we got vans and we we worked with a couple of different types of companies to kind of figure out their various needs. We had an unforeseen kind of event in in our growth which was COVID. And what that did for us was it really accelerated our plans to create more partnerships so that we could scale the business even faster. And that that led us into creating this national network of transportation providers that are operating on our platform so that there was no location that we couldn't go to. There's if our customers need to add another van, we've we've got a partnership with Enterprise that allows us to go and get more vehicles. And so we we looked at it and said, alright, we figured out how to operate, Now we figured out how to be able to be anywhere that our customers need us and now it's about replicating that and taking it into more places, with our customers and getting more and more companies to really understand the the value of providing employee transportation as a benefit.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:57]:
That to me is is one of the the more interesting parts of it where, from a company standpoint, the the sales process involves an education process. And I I think just even hearing about I would love to understand, you know, how those conversations go. What's the kind of resistance or hesitation you might you might receive from companies? You know, kind of take us through the the the pitch, if you will, for for what this looks like in in practice.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:18:33]:
Right. You know, as an entrepreneur, I love building businesses that are gonna be unmatched, And that when you go in and you talk to a customer, there's not 5, 6 other options. And with employee transportation, there's almost no exception. There's no incumbent. There there's no organization in there that's doing it, at least where we're going. I mean, Google's been doing this for a decade. Companies in the Bay area have been going out and doing this for a very long time. But for us, we're kind of the pioneers going in and educating, HR departments and then using their own data to educate and convince executives.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:19:15]:
So it's kind of a 2 part sales pitch. It's 1, let's understand your your employee needs and what your employee turnover is. We see an employee turnover rate is 50, 75, a 100. It's nothing like food service where it can be 2, 3, 400%, but in manufacturing and production, their turnover rates threaten the output of their facilities. And so, it's become their their greatest problem But if you just tell them that that's their problem and then they go into executives and say we should do it and they look at what the cost of it is, often it gets say like, do we pay for this today? No. You don't pay for it today. Whose problem is it today? It's all on the employee. Why why go start it now? That's where often a lot of conversations end where an executive doesn't have the forethought to do the math on why this is going to be good for them long term.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:20:22]:
The executives who allow us to put the data in front of them to show them that they have employees spending 30% of their income getting to work or there is a huge pocket of people 45 minutes away that they could be hiring but they need transportation, They see how transportation can make them an employer of choice. And that if you are the only employer in an area who's able to say, I have transportation options for you, you're going to get all of the employees and you're gonna create a really loyal workforce. People are gonna start talking about this. That that allows you to go get part of the workforce that others are are not able to access. And think about all of the growth of jobs in Ohio. So many of them, the businesses are in rural areas. There's a statistic that every county publishes you know, it's the inflow and outflow of commuters, and you can look at places like where Intel is going. They have over 50% of their workforce is commuting in from outside of the county, which means there's no public transit that goes there.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:21:30]:
If another business comes into that county and goes and creates 5,000 jobs, which is an amazing thing for this the region, that means that 5,000 people are likely to have to come from outside of the county or other businesses in the area are gonna lose employees and then that business is going to have to go outside of the county. And so it's actually one of the greatest risks of economic growth is that we don't address this spatial mismatch of where the people are getting further and further away from where the jobs are. And, moving the people to where the jobs are is absolutely gonna be necessary in, meeting the job creation goals that the state of Ohio has. And if if, some of these incentive programs are successful like House Bill 340 which is gonna create a new program for employee mobility, it it could set Ohio up to really be the state of choice for businesses that are looking to grow and need people because we as a state are better at moving our our workforce around. Like, I think it'd be really cool to see mayors from 2 different counties working together to create job connections between people in one place and employers in another place.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:49]:
Why is it important to to be working specifically with with HR?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:22:53]:
Well, I I think HR, it's not their fault, but that's where the problem begins. So, if you've ever noticed, every job application says, do you have reliable transportation? And that is the legally approved, kind of discriminatory statement against people that don't own cars. It's considered financial information whether you own a car or not. And so just like an employer can't ask whether you have a bank account or if you've got bankruptcies or any or or they can't ask if you own a car. And so every job application now says do you have reliable transportation and that's created this kind of taboo but there's also a real legal concern that HR has and so instead of asking do you have cars they have to say do you have reliable transportation because it's reasonable to expect your employees can get to work. But this results in low show rates, employees not showing up on their 1st day of work, high turnover, employees taking a job but they don't really they're not able to get there consistently. And the biggest part is people just don't show up if they can't get to that job.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:56]:
Right.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:23:56]:
And and so we're not trying to change the legal angle of this, we're trying to change the conversation. So don't ask if they have it, offer it. If we have a company that's working with the RTA Connectworks program, now instead of asking, they offer, we have this program that's available to employees just like a 401 k. I don't ask if you have a bank account when you go sign up for a 401 k. This, you don't have to ask whether they have a car or not. Proactively offering them something. And if we can get more companies at that point of hire to be saying, here's an option for the bus, here's an option for a shared mobility, you could walk to work. We want those options to be introduced.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:24:39]:
You've got to get over that box that says, do you have reliable transportation?

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:44]:
And I and I imagine this is where the the widening of the scope of, you know, who Share Mobility is working with in partnership has gone as you layer in, you know, transit agencies, municipalities. You know, to to to paint a a concrete picture of it, I love to hear about, you know, the the GCRTA pilot and and the work you're doing there. But it it is this, you know, comprehensive group of of stakeholders involved. It's not just employers.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:25:13]:
Public private partnership's a really good way to kind of explain why we're having success. Let's talk about the GCRTA program. It's called RTA Connect Works. It launched in January of 2023 and it's in 2 communities. It's in the Solon area and then it's in the the Arrow zone district and the Arrow zone district is about a 50 mile radius around the airport. It encompasses about 7 different communities or portions of those communities, and there's a lot of employers in that area. And both Solon and the ArrowZone District were selected because there were a lot of jobs that were outside of the bus line creating a last mile problem. So RCA Connect Works is a last mile solution and what's unique about it compared to some other last mile programs across the country is it's only available through companies that are contributing.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:26:12]:
And we have a very low cost subscription program. Employers pay about $30 a month per 10 employees to be able to be added to the bus line. And for companies that might have talked to transit agencies about extending lines or adding services, they know how expensive that could be and so we've created what is a pretty affordable program for companies to be able to participate and it allows them to give it to their employees and then what we're doing is we're picking them up at the nearest bus stop and driving them to work. And we've made it really easy for the employee to have a total trip plan where they can say where they live and where they're working and when they need to arrive and we build their whole journey including their RTA connections. But what it's doing is it's allowing businesses to start recruiting from across the city individuals that don't have a car and that's gonna open up the hiring pool. We think it's gonna make these two regions of the city more competitive for workers and we hope to see this program create success so that it can be eventually taken inside RTA and operated and get to more communities. We know that these aren't the only two areas where employees can't get to jobs. Parma's got this same problem.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:27:40]:
But we're running a pilot, we're running it through June of next year and the key to success of that pilot is participation of the businesses. And we've had some good participation but it's slow and the education process, is still underway. And so much about is about how forward thinking is the HR person, how, receptive is the CFO, but literally you can retain 1 worker. If you have a 100 employees, if you retain 1 worker in a year, the ROI of joining you have a complete ROI in joining this program. We know it's gonna end up being more than that And so I think programs like we're running, with Cleveland RTA will, end up proliferating across the country as more and more communities try to address the needs of their workers that don't have transportation. This is really great for Cleveland because the jobs in Cleveland are gonna be able to keep people in Cleveland versus them going outside of Cuyahoga County for work. I'm sure that that's a big initiative of Mayor Bibb is to be able to help more of his residents also work inside of the county We've gotta make sure all of those jobs are reachable. So I think it's great that you have a mayor who is so pro transit.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:09]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, what I love about just, you know, hearing about the the work you're doing is, you know, historically, when you can create these kind of win win scenarios where employees win because they have access to things that they didn't historically have access to, where employers win because they're able to retain and attract talent in a way that they weren't before and where, you know, governments win because they're addressing the the core fundamental needs of their citizens. And that historically has been the recipe, not just for, you know, good in society, but also real formative businesses.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:29:44]:
I'm proud that Share has kind of threaded the needle to create something that's bipartisan and good for everybody, and that whatever lens you're looking at this whether it's from an economic development or an equitable access angle, both of them are getting support and by working with transit agencies, we're able to help extend the type of critical utility that they provide in communities. One of the things that I hope happens is that by getting more companies to do this, individuals that could drive will also start to choose transit. AeroZone is a great area to consider because they have the red line where you can ride a train right into near the airport, and that's a pretty great commute.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:34]:
Lay of the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects and by 90. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped hundreds of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great, Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you are interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to ia.layoftheland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. I will I'll channel kinda 2 skeptics questions with with that in mind. Just knowing that at the onset, you framed, you know, cars as freedom, and I I think that sentiment is is shared by by many.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:47]:
How compelling does it have to be for people to opt out of using a car if they do have one and into something like Share Mobility is offering?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:31:58]:
Oh, man. Given the option. Very, very difficult. I I gave up having a car for 2 years to to test out the viability of of, not not driving at all. And my wife and I measured it on on how often I was not helpful. And, you know, eventually we got to a point where life got so busy with 2 kids and got activities where that second car became a necessity in our lives and and I think that's a really common thing. We are not gonna eliminate people's desire for cars. We're not gonna eliminate that feeling you get when you get a new car.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:32:40]:
Cars are so tied to our personal identity when I I think transportation is a human right and that transportation is freedom. Car is what I had to choose. If I could've gotten to a friend's house for a $10 Uber ride and not worked all weekend because I didn't care about the car, I might have chosen that, but I know my kids are choosing that, and the people who are 18 to 25 are already choosing that. So while I may not convince an executive from KeyBank to give up their car, and and they're gonna drive downtown, it's probably because it just they need to for their lifestyle. It's not it's not that they don't believe in transit. It's that's where they're at. There are so many people that we can serve. I love that share mobility is about bringing transportation to people that need it and not about converting you from one thing to the other.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:33:51]:
I am not taking you out of your car. I am not taking anybody out of a bus. But what we are doing is taking people and getting them to a destination they otherwise couldn't reach. And for for somebody that lives in East Cleveland that might mean earning $18 instead of $13 and that ends up being 7 to $10,000 a year and that can be transformative. And if they can keep that $7,000 more and not have to put it into personal transportation and they can ride the bus where they can ride RTA for a whole year for for a whole lot less. I think you're gonna see more and more people choose that. And over time, the the world is gonna move to where more people are sharing mobility than owning motors. But for today, there are so many people, there are so many people in Cleveland that we can serve and we can uplift them by making transportation more accessible.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:34:49]:
It's a needle in the haystack though trying to market broadly to find them. That's why the employer is so critical because the employer is going to meet somebody and at that time of employment, they have a short window to introduce something other than a car because once you choose how you're gonna commute when you take a job, you pretty much keep that the entire time you work there. And so being being an option that the HR department can proactively offer is how we're going to become a mode of choice. And shared mobility as a benefit is about directing somebody to, a mode of choice that could be public transit, it could be micro transit, it could be something else totally different in the future. But I believe firmly that making this a benefit where HR is using it as a recruiting tool is how we're gonna transform, the automotive industry to mobility. And and I don't have to take anybody out of a car to start moving a large percentage of the population into shared mobility and, there will be end end up being a tipping point. But, for now, we're gonna serve those that need it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:04]:
And it's not just, you know, employers and and government agencies that you've convinced along the way of this, you know, the power of this mode of choice. It's it's also investors. I know you've secured, you know, roughly over $12,000,000 in in funding. I'm curious as you navigated, you know, that stakeholder group and and those conversations, you know, really the the longer term vision that you've painted for the future of shared mobility and and what that path looks like in in your mind.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:36:34]:
So we have a really great group of investors, well, so many of them from Ohio, like like Jumpstart in Cleveland or Rev 1 here in Columbus and NCT Ventures, but those investors have always kind of believed that shared mobility is is going to happen, and we have found product market fit through enterprise. And despite there being a lot of other companies that have had challenges making transportation a viable business, that this b to b angle is the real winner. And that by figuring out how to grow without assets and creating partnerships so that there weren't so many forces working against us. I think all of the investors have wanted to and just wanted to see that we were making or or were attracted to the fact that we were making a positive impact in the world but also are building something that could be very, very valuable. The sheer size of the total addressable market of this is also one of the things that I think makes investors go. It's it's definitely worth it, right? When you look at there's 25,000 businesses with hourly workers that are outside of cities, right? There are so many employers today and about 5% of employers provide some type of employee benefit. So you've got 95% of employers that have done nothing yet. And, it's, we're in a position to be a first mover to convince those companies to do something and to do something with shared mobility.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:21]:
Right. And I imagine, you know, particularly in in the wake of the this whole narrative around reshoring and manufacturing competency and and probably the resurgence of of that kind of work that's coming, you know, in in critical mass to to Ohio and and places like it in the Midwest?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:38:41]:
It's pretty exciting to think about the potential, for for economic growth. But for for all of that to happen, we've gotta help get the people to the jobs.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:51]:
I'll I'll channel back in the the other skeptic thought I had, which was who may put forward something to the effect that this may feel more like a treatment of a symptom versus, you know, an underlying true fix for the the root cause of some of the transportation gaps that that you have unearthed and and are focused on, from an infrastructure level. How do you think about, you know, those kinds of challenges when you kind of layer on the the ultimate goal for for where you're going, the the kind of North Star of aligning all these people and, you know, aiming to empower, you know, mobility access everywhere.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:39:30]:
I think it's important to remember that transportation is never gonna be a winner takes all and that the future is multimodal, and being interoperable with these different whether it's scooters or bikes or ride sharing or public transit, being interoperable with those is is really an essential part of this future and if that if that isn't complete then it's never gonna reach its full potential. And so with with share, we've really focused on what part of the problem can can we solve and be the best at and how do we work with others that are seeing this problem early. So, for example, we've created national partnerships with refugee resettlement organizations who have very early indications about who is going to need jobs. And we know, unless they have walkability to those jobs, a 100% of those individuals are gonna need transportation. And we can then bring a solution to that group who's who we know is gonna need that transportation. If we can figure out how to get public transit to fund that ride so that it's a lower cost to the company, we're absolutely gonna do that. And we wanna see the technology that's integrated with the employer be what's really driving the demand. And who ends up operating to fulfill that demand is is kind of secondary.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:40:58]:
That's gonna be commoditized. And if public transit is able to fulfill that role, then we absolutely want to see that happen. I think what you're gonna hopefully see is that public transit looks to build up high frequency, and multimodal looks to drive demand into those main arteries that have the most activity. Right? Like if if you go to New York City, the reason the subway is so great is that it comes every 5 minutes or something, you know. It's constantly available. You can get anywhere. The reason that Amtrak from Cleveland to New York is not that great is that it leaves twice a day at 3 and 5 in the morning and it takes 12 to 15 hours there. Doesn't work for most people.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:41:47]:
It certainly does not. Yeah. But I think it's important for each group to kinda see what they can do best, and and I think public transit can be best at that really high frequency, main corridor type of activity. And private partners can help fill the gaps in between and new technology is going to inevitably create new gaps. Like if that Amtrak proposal going from Cincinnati to Cleveland is successful, there's gonna be a new first and last mile problem at every single one of those stops. And it could be addressed through very, very large parking lots or it could be done like they did in New Jersey where they subsidize last mile rides to get people to and from those stops and better utilize that real estate into something like affordable housing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:43]:
Having, I think, thought deeply about this problem from many different angles and working to solve it within the the practical constraints of reality. I I am curious, you know, where are you granted transportation, omnipotence, and can kind of rearchitect the the system to a a way that that you see kind of meets all the needs of of all those involved? What that kind of moonshot vision for mobility would would look like?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:43:11]:
That's such a great question and really fun one to get to opine on. I'm not sure it's a future that everybody wants, but the the biggest thing that would transform mobility is if commuting became assigned and that the commute became something that your employer gave you. And when you go get a job, you are given your commute plan and it's it's already figured out for you, it's super optimized, or you can opt out of it and spend more. If we were able to accelerate the choice by incentive, let's call it incentive, incentivizing people to be choosing those things, we could we could drive a lot more change faster and I think eventually that's the future especially as you look at mega cities with really really big populations. I think you get into places where you have to be directing a large percentage of the workforce in how they're commuting. For today, it's it's kind of a carrot where, like, if you choose it, there's a financial incentive for it and we just gotta help people understand how that financial incentive works because those people live in a cash world, they don't necessarily see how $20 in gas can add up to $500 a month in car expenses. But, you know, the big idea is that one day people will go into their job and they'll be given their their commute plan and not just gonna be expected, but they're gonna look for it. And I think my kids will look for jobs that have transportation provided.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:45]:
Yeah. No. I I love that vision. I I see how, you know, the the the practical reality that you're operating within shared mobility converges with that, you know, down down the line.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:44:56]:
Yeah. It's it's not the world we live in today. Car dependence, car infatuation is something that's not gonna be affected by us but I don't have to care. I I I have plenty of people that I can care about that just need access to a better job, or if we can get them access, they can keep that job, and they're definitely gonna keep more of what they earn.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:21]:
What motivates you, you know, through this ultimately? How do you think about what success looks like, the the the impact you're hoping to have, you know, in retrospect, your your your personal drive?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:45:33]:
Yeah. I'm really driven by making sure that share continues on to keep serving companies and the people that work for those companies. The long term viability of this business is really really important because it's a it's a critical it's a critical benefit and I'm I'm really excited about some of the developments that have happened in government with shared mobility over the last 6 to 12 months. I I mentioned earlier the the house bill 340. So it's a employee mobility grant program, sponsored by Republican Bob Peterson and, representative Dave Dobos. Those types of programs are something I'm getting more and more involved in to to advocate for because I see that as a way to accelerate shared mobility. If in the same way that, other types of industries are subsidized, we can bring that to employee transportation. There's gonna be more companies that are able to try it for the first time.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:46:37]:
And that's where Ohio has an opportunity if this House Bill gets through, we have an opportunity to have the first independent funding program that companies can go to directly to help support their employees.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:49]:
What what have been the the most salient learnings for you along the way? Things that have come as a surprise to you as part of building this company, pursuing this problem?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:47:01]:
No. Sure. The entire history of our business, it's always been about building a great team. And even as some team members come in and out or someone's job gets done and they're not with us anymore, I think the the the team at at Share Mobility is really strong and has has been the driver of all of our success and so, as an entrepreneur, I've been really lucky to be able to attract people that want to work in this business because of our mission and building a business that is both high mission, high impact but but also high value has allowed us to attract people that could go and work at a much bigger company or even a lot more but they they come here because of the the type of work that we're able to do. And so making sure that we have found a a solution that's gonna work for companies at more locations allows us to extend our mission. And so the way I think about software is as a mission driven company, we wanna to touch as many workers as possible and help them get to work. The only way that we can do that at scale is through our technology And now through things we have and some of the things that the team is building, they are going to allow us to serve even more customers, even more efficiency, see multiple companies working together and kind of creating a patchwork of transportation benefits that starts to look a lot more like the way that health insurance is connected where today you've got, chambers of commerce that have coordinated together buying groups to get healthcare at more affordable rates. We're very close to having buying groups for companies so that they can join in employee transportation programs and have a benefit that today is only available to some of the largest companies because most share companies are pretty big.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:48:54]:
And for us to be able to serve the small employer, the restaurant, we've got to be able to create those connections. But the RTA program is a great example of that. And because of it being a network of multiple companies, somebody with 10 employees or someone with a 1000 employees can participate.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:12]:
Right. And it it seems to ride this kind of larger seeming truth of of technological development where there's this kind of innate tie between the influence of geographic factors that diminishes as technology grows and, you know, you guys are just right at the the heart of that?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:49:31]:
Yeah. I think we're going into areas that others have not looked at or haven't had success and that's that's rural areas, but it's always about connecting where the people live into those jobs in rural areas.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:48]:
What do you wish more people understood about this problem?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:49:53]:
So I think, first, more people need to use transit. And I think if people have the first hand perspective as a rider, even if infrequently, they may be more empathetic towards it. They may support things like tax initiatives that help fund public transit. And so I think being a participant in public transit is really, really important. And without that perspective, it's very easy to stay inside of your own car centric world where I don't need a car. Every job I get says, do you have reliable transportation? And they completely put it on the individual. Well, that that may be true in a lot of areas, but that's not the that's not the reality for for many workers. They always appreciate when we meet somebody that They always appreciate when we meet somebody that wants to bring this to their company and they say this is gonna be good for us.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:50:41]:
The nuance of that is every once in a while we hear this is good for them. And if it's good for them, that means that you see there being a difference and that this isn't something that that everybody might want. This is good for us because you see yourself being equal to your your other workers and if we can get more people to be participants in transit, choose something other than their own car for even a few of their trips, they're gonna be more open to supporting and using these new types of mobility options. And the other thing I think is really important in communities like Cleveland is to be resilient when things fail. Mhmm. Sometimes sometimes programs aren't successful and and you can't say, hey, we're gonna throw this away, we're not gonna try it again. One of the things that makes San Francisco and and Silicon Valley so great is the people that live there love trying new stuff. They love trying new stuff all the time.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:51:38]:
And if something doesn't work out they don't say we're never gonna try new stuff. They go try the new thing. And so I need companies to be willing to participate and actively use the RTA Connectworks program because if they do it can be successful and expand. And so it's this really critical time of if you like it participate and if you believe in it support it and if you don't, these things entrepreneurs can't make these things happen without participation.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:09]:
Yeah. As you reflect on on the the whole journey and and the work you've done, of the things we haven't talked about, you know, what do you feel is most important to bring up and highlight as as part of the the journey and and your own, journey as well?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:52:24]:
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is recognize the need to change. And in this business, if we not recognize the need to change, I don't think we would have survived. And the future of mobility is not totally figured out yet and there's a lot of forces at play and there's a lot of moving pieces and adaptability and willingness to change I think is a really important lesson for entrepreneurs to learn and I think it's been really key to our success and it's actually one of the reasons why the RTA Connectworks program has done so well is because our public private partnership has allowed us to evolve really quickly and to address the needs of the market instead of saying, Hey, we had a target, we were off and we missed, let's try to reset the target and let's keep going after it. Be obsessed with the problem and not your solution and that has always been the best way to to find the right solution is being willing to allow that solution to change, but be obsessed with the problem. And I've been really lucky for the last 7 years to be really obsessed with shared mobility, and I'm proud that we've built a business that helps people and brings something that they really, really need and is a net positive.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:44]:
Yeah. I I love hearing that lesson in particular because it's truly one of the perennial learnings from entrepreneurs over time, and it's it's just that, you know, the the business that your company starts with is is very rarely the one that you succeed with. And unless you have that fanatical, you know, focus on what the problem is, and an ability to to iterate and change and reorient, like, that is that is requisite. That's the path. Absolutely.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:54:13]:
Yeah. It's a great lesson, and I'm I'm absolutely convicted that, that more and more people are going to need transportation, but at the same time, more and more people are gonna choose, to share mobility.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:25]:
Well, again, big fan of of of what you're working on, rooting for you guys. We can, bookend the the conversation here with our traditional closing question, which is for a hidden gem in the area, something that other folks, you know, may not know about, but perhaps they should.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:54:46]:
You guys talked about Schritzia? Our new program? It it

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:49]:
maybe has come up not enough though. Not enough. I haven't, you know, there's

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:54:55]:
that Sagarab, I love the sauna and so I heard about this place, this mythical place with saunas and a steak house. It's called the Spitz. I think it's on the east side. I got to go there a couple weeks ago. If you're in Cleveland, this is just the most incredible different experience. It's a real throwback. It's sauna steamy cold plunge place with a steakhouse. And, it's unlike anything I've ever experienced and pretty unique to Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:25]:
It it it there is nothing like it. It is a magical place. Yeah. And if anybody wants

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:55:30]:
to invite me if anybody ever wants to invite me, I'm I'm up up in my own way. I would love to go again.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. I there yeah. Forever desire to get to go back to that place.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:55:40]:
It's incredible. Maybe you have to bring a group of guests over to the Schmitz.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. We'll do a little lay of the land gathering there. Awesome. Well, Ryan, I just wanna thank you again for for coming on, for for sharing your story, and for the work that you're doing with with Share Mobility.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:55:57]:
Thanks, Jeffrey. It was an honor to get to be here.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:59]:
If people had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about, what would be the the best way for them to do so?

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:56:05]:
I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn, or you can find me on x. It's my name with no vowels. So those are 2 easy places to find me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:13]:
Yeah. Okay. I commend the use of of the the name instead of Twitter. I haven't got there yet.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:56:19]:
Why not? I I figured some people will know. But, you know, we

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:23]:
have some Awesome. Well, thanks again, Ren.

Ryan McManus (SHARE Mobility) [00:56:26]:
Thanks, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:29]:
That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to Jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m, or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or at sternfa, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guess for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with The Up Company, LLC.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:11]:
At the time of this recording, unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on the show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.