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read the article, what was the idea?

spamming craigslist users to bootstrap your userbase?

using venture capital to undercut existing businesses and get the public on your side, allowing you to dominate local politics?

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Offloading risk and capital costs to ordinary members of the public that already owned underutilized assets. Love them or hate them, it was pretty genius.

Lyft (zimride) started the first carpool site. Sidecar started the first rideshare app. Uber used excess black cars capacity to start. I would say sidecar and lyft were pretty genius but Uber won the game.

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