How e-bike operator Forest got more Londoners on two wheels

0:11Gustav Gyllenhammar:Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monaco Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Coming up on today's programme, how can London get more people on two wheels? We'll meet the co-founder of one of the capital's largest shared e-bike operators.

0:28Caroline Seton:Everyone wants bike usage to increase. I think there's, broadly speaking, support for dockless bikes. We've just got a bit of catching up to do with the regulation, but that's very normal with so many industries where, you know, the fabric of the city changes or behaviour changes and then the regulation needs to kind of catch up.

0:45Gustav Gyllenhammar:And later, we'll switch lanes from mobility to music and much more as we hear from one of Spotify's leaders about the company's growth in paying subscribers from five to nearly 300 million. Spotify is built on two things at the same time. Bleeding edge technology, but it's also very much a culture company. So we have hundreds of editors and music experts and other curators around the world that sort of blend into and creates the Spotify that feels magical to all our consumers around the world. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:28Gustav Gyllenhammar:You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Caroline Seaton is the co-founder of Forrest, an e-bike operator here in London, offering affordable app-based bike hire across the capital. Since launching in 2020, Caroline and her co-founders, Augustine Quilestasi and Michael Stewart, have grown Forrest from a startup with 200 bikes in two boroughs into one of London's largest shared transport networks, with around 100 ,000 trips made a day. Caroline stopped by Midori House to discuss building a profitable mobility business, working with local councils to make active travel more accessible, and how London can become Europe's leading city for cycling.

2:06Gustav Gyllenhammar:She began by telling me the Forest origin story.

2:10Caroline Seton:We first founded Forest really to create accessible bike options for people. There are a couple of operators already in the market and they were really expensive. So if you want to promote behavioral change, it has to be accessible and affordable for people to give it a try. So Forrest's whole proposition was 10 minutes free. And in exchange for that, you saw a few ads within the Forrest app when you opened it and when you ended your ride. That was a really great way to get new users, break down those barriers and get people cycling. And we've always been working really hand in glove with the boroughs to make sure that as we're growing, the number of people cycling is so visible, as you can see around the city, but we need to keep growing that.

2:54Caroline Seton:We need to make it more accessible, not just from a price perspective now, but also for other people who have other needs on bikes, implementing obviously options for children or cargo bikes too, that just really help us change the fabric of the city and make London the best cycling city in Europe, which is where we want to go.

3:12Gustav Gyllenhammar:Well, and it's interesting because that is very much, there's a real intentionality about the business and a focus on London specifically. And it's interesting, you know, reading around comments you and your co-founders have made before about not just that conviction, but this idea that, look, we also need to make this a profitable concern. It's not been based, like many fast growth businesses on sinking money in some sort of over the rainbow pot of gold thing. There's that intentionality is sort of baked in, has that been difficult as it has grown, as it's become successful to keep, to adhere to those foundational values, do you think?

3:42Caroline Seton:Yeah, absolutely. I think because Augustine Galastasi, who's the founder of Forest, he was at Cabify. They learned a lot of lessons at Cabify. And so in Forest, we're exceptionally lucky that discipline is completely in the DNA. And it's not something in, you know, in micromobility because it is such a capex, you're a capital intensive business, you can make some really expensive mistakes if you don't keep an eye on it. So that's always been the way. We don't raise too much money, we raise enough money, because if you've got money that you're smattering everywhere, you need to maintain that discipline.

4:16Caroline Seton:So that's absolutely like something that we're going to stick with, particularly now as the quantums get bigger and bigger, that discipline must stay.

4:23Gustav Gyllenhammar:Now, I know one of the things that you've looked after, I think, since the start of your journey with Forrest has been these relationships with boroughs you mentioned from the the beginnings in sort of north west-ish London to today how complicated are those relationships because obviously forest is operating at one of these interesting sort of intersections between whether it's state or local municipality and then a market structure that is not an easy environment in which to operate effectively as many entrepreneurs and other business leaders will tell you How are you finding it?

4:54Caroline Seton:Yeah, well, it's been a real, it's been a journey. So as I mentioned earlier, we started in two boroughs. We're now in 20. And we've been slowly just organically growing those. And the key thing for us is making it work for the city in the sense of it has to be a contiguous operating area. And what I've been by that is having boroughs next to each other be added to the map because then that enables more journeys. And through more journeys, the bikes are used more regularly and that's a more efficient use of public space because as you touched on, that intersection that we're at, we need to make sure that we're operating in a way that makes best use of the public space.

5:31Caroline Seton:The way people get around has changed, but actually with the exception of the bikes parked, the city still looks the same, relatively the same from a car perspective. And so so much of the space is allocated to cars and often those cars can sit there for days or weeks at a time when we know that one car space can take 10 forest bikes, that's 50 trips a day. And so what we're really trying to work with the boroughs on is providing that data and that insight, which we have gained now over the last five years to show these are where the parking space will be best converted to bike space. And so you can really optimise the city in that way.

6:08Caroline Seton:So it's very much a partnership because we're changing the way that people get around, but we need to make sure that it doesn't compromise non-users as well. and those are obviously like shared objectives between us and the boroughs. I think anecdotally it's been really interesting to hear from the CEO of Wimbledon. She was saying that they have now had to change the way that the queue is managed because dockless bikes have enabled people to get to the queue so much earlier than when they were waiting for the tube to start. So I think that just sort of highlights in a very like British summer way how dockless bikes in particular have really changed commuting habits and the availability of the city.

6:46Gustav Gyllenhammar:And they've had other effects on the commons as well. And I've got to ask you, because I suppose that one of the bugbears of people who are not fans, and it's, I don't know, I tend to, it's quite binary, it seems, the people I speak to. There's the big fans, and then there's the sort of skeptics, I'll politely call them. But this idea, you know, it's exploiting an important part of the commons. And I think particularly with dockless bikes, obviously, there are those anecdotal moments where you hit a street corner, and it's just covered in bikes, or some old lady has gone tumbling over. This is a really active problem, not just here in London, actually.

7:14Gustav Gyllenhammar:How does this work? How do you work with your partners in boroughs, in City Hall and so forth, and internally to ensure that you're addressing that problem? Because there's not easy quick fixes. And like you said, you're trying to do a long-term behavior shift here as well, which is not easy. Is one side right? Is one side wrong? Are you operating in the gray area? What's your take when people say, hey, Caroline, I'm fed up. They're always left on my street corner. What's the riposte?

7:39Caroline Seton:And we absolutely sympathize with people who can't get through. So this combination, it's technology. So we're using GPS technology to create no-go zones, no parking areas. And we fine people. We've got a three-strike escalation policy and rider education. So there's a whole load of levers that we can pull. And we can lead a horse to water so much time. And that rider behavior is something that the instances are getting fewer.

8:08Gustav Gyllenhammar:I was going to say, are they getting better?

8:10Caroline Seton:They are getting better. They absolutely are. but it's much harder for people to see that because of the sheer volume of trips that are now taking place. So as the education does come up, but the hour is the absolute number. And so, yeah, it's technology, but as you said about a whole load of bikes on the pavement, we need more parking infrastructure to reflect the demand and the usage of the bikes.

8:31Gustav Gyllenhammar:And is that conversation moving in a positive direction? Yeah, absolutely. Your partners are engaged with that, do you think?

8:35Caroline Seton:Yeah, I mean, some of the boroughs have done an amazing job at converting parking spaces, and those are really constructive relationships that we have with them. TFL as well is investing and looking at more parking infrastructure. And then ultimately, because we haven't retouched on this yet, but legislation is coming in to regulate dockless bikes and those powers will be devolved to local authorities like TFL. And that will help sort of eliminate this patchwork that we have in London because until fairly recently, there was a real mix of some boroughs were completely free-floating and then others were exclusively parking bay.

9:09Caroline Seton:And then some of them were somewhere in the middle with a hybrid model. So now with this, ultimately, this kind of, I wouldn't say it was what we're all aiming for, there'll be more consistency across the boroughs. And that also helps with user behavior as well because users often don't know if they've crossed borough boundaries. So they don't know if they're able to park responsibly on the pavement or in a parking bay. So that creates more confusion. And then you often just get that sheep mentality. You see one bike on a pavement parked, perhaps not on a bay, which is illegal in that particular borough.

9:41Caroline Seton:And people follow suit thinking like, oh, safety in numbers.

9:44Gustav Gyllenhammar:I often see that with trash because you see people, somebody will put an apple core or a cigarette butt on a sort of a little bit sticking out of a fence and then it grows and grows. People really want to do the right thing. But as you said, they need to be signposted a little bit.

9:56Caroline Seton:Yeah, and people also don't want to be charged. So they think, oh, well, if that bike's there, you know, I'm not going to be charged. So, I mean, the fines do work to an extent and we don't see a number of our users continue to re-offend. it as a small number of users who continue to re-offend and then we ultimately have to ban them.

10:13Gustav Gyllenhammar:Another interesting question, of course, more people on bikes. I'm a regular cyclist. We've got lots of them here at Monocle. It contributes towards a healthier, greener, cleaner city. But it often leads to this idea that, well, actually, we've seen these pictures of thousands of, not forest bikes necessarily, but certain city bike providers. Millions of bikes lined up in some field somewhere in the Far East. They've been shipped away. Actually, the usable life of these cycles is too short give us some details because it's interesting forest is sort of more they're more modular there's more repairable components i know again that was a foundational principle to stick to but what are the kind of life cycle is it really a sustainable fix or is there still again are there other improvements caroline to make in terms of the well the life cycle forgive the pun

10:54Caroline Seton:of the actual bikes themselves no i mean i'm so glad you asked this question because we've been looking at this some of our bikes are coming up to five years and we are so pleased with how they're performing and that's because of these sort of proactive upgrades that we do to the bikes we really feel like we've cracked our model of bike that we can extend the life and we're looking at eight or nine years from some of our bikes and it's yeah it's a combination of proactive fixes but it's also the maintenance and the really high standards of maintenance both on the street so each bike has a touch point every 24 hours or in the warehouse and they're brought in every three to four months for a full reconditioning.

11:30Caroline Seton:So that means that we're really, and this was about earlier version bike that we're seeing now go past the five years. And then with newer models that we've obviously rolled out or rolled in over the last five years, they are even upgraded even more. So we're really confident. And then in terms of repairs, as we said earlier, we're not raising a huge amount of money. We are wanting to create a sustainable business, both financially and environmentally. And that means that we're repairing seats. If there's a small rip on a seat or a tear, we don't just chuck the whole seat away. We have a whole team dedicated to fixing seats because that's just an aesthetic.

12:07Caroline Seton:There's no need to do away with a good seat. And that also goes to the financial sustainability too. So it is a virtuous cycle because it's much cheaper to repair one. And that's really ingrained in the business like right from the beginning.

12:19Gustav Gyllenhammar:And it's quite a competitive marketplace. Do you think that there's a, Are there pressure points from competitors who maybe aren't operating with the same guardrails or principles? I guess you have the conversations, but presumably part of Forrest's winning MO is not to deviate from those principles. But there must be moments of pressure.

12:40Caroline Seton:Oh, gosh, yeah. Like electric vans, for example. We only ever use electric vans. But at some periods, there's such a premium you have to pay for electric vans because they're in demand. or when there's a shortage of them in London. So it's things like that where, you know, it would be so much easier to cut a corner and hire a petrol or diesel van, but that's just, we won't deviate from those founding principles because if you can't stick, you're completely at sea. You know, you have to be true to yourself. And even at the moment, you know, there's been a rowback over the pond from a lot of sustainability commitments.

13:13Caroline Seton:And we as a team, just this is a business for the long term. It goes way beyond a political cycle and we need to stick to this because that's really what we started to do it for. You can't lose sight of that.

13:25Gustav Gyllenhammar:Let's look to the future then. I guess not just for Forrest, but if we look at kind of e-mobility fixes and essentially lots of what you say depends on good, robust regulatory environment, legislation when it's needed, being delivered with some thought and consideration and a long-term view, which I appreciate you guys are not solely in control of. We need to get buy-in from others. But just in terms of big trends, what are you seeing? What are you hearing that you think is going to help to set that way forwards over a longer term time horizon? What are the kind of key things that you and your colleagues are thinking about?

14:00Caroline Seton:Yeah, is this in terms of regulation?

14:01Gustav Gyllenhammar:Well, in the whole piece, obviously those things, I appreciate you can't know whether they're going to happen at the pace they need to. But are there other broader trends? Is it about supply chains? Is it about more reliable power provision? I don't know. What are some of the big factors shaping your thinking?

14:16Caroline Seton:I think the big factors for us would really be, and I feel like a broken record on this, but it is the provision of infrastructure. It's parking infrastructure because you can't continue to grow in a place where the public realm is already under pressure from bikes. And so the industry will be hampered by a lack of infrastructure to support bike share. And I guess it's also, you know, and we've looked at this as well, is around on-street charging and things like that. so that as the industry gets bigger and the number of bikes grows and they use more, how do we minimize congestion from operations?

14:48Caroline Seton:That's also something that we need to factor in. And that's something that in a couple of boroughs we've seen. Boroughs, they complain that, you know, there's overcapacity at bays and that sort of thing. And then they introduce third or fourth operators, and particularly new operators who their bikes aren't doing, you know, nearly as number of trips because so it's not efficient use of the public space. And then you're adding a whole other set of operational vehicles, which adds to the congestion. So I think we do need to make sure that the boroughs are thinking in the same way as us.

15:17Gustav Gyllenhammar:And is that because they're operating, as many political decision makers do, with a bit too much short-termism? It's a quick fix. There's maybe a revenue win or however it's working.

15:26Caroline Seton:I think we are moving a little bit towards, in some boroughs, seeing particularly before national legislation comes in, when their powers will be delegated to TfL. It's an opportunity now to, sounds terrible, but it is seen as a revenue stream and that for us, we want to make sure that that revenue, that licensing that we're providing to the councils has a flow on effect in terms of how the schemes run. And there's obviously resourcing and things like that needs to be provided for within the council. But then it's also making sure that comes through to parking infrastructure and things that will make the operations run more smoothly.

16:02Gustav Gyllenhammar:But would you say, but you're optimistic though, Caroline. Oh, absolutely. It's shy. There's a lot of thorny, complicated issues here, and they're all running alongside one another, often on different tracks of urgency, depending on borough administration or civic infrastructure on a citywide basis or private stakeholders. It just sounds too complicated. It stresses me out just thinking about it. I feel like it's too much. But you're confident that all of those interwoven parts can get where we need to at the pace it needs to happen?