Hip Daddy travel, whether work or personal, likely involves something starting with an “U”.  You know Uber, who doesn’t.  And you might even know Lyft, likely.  And then a variety of other smaller ‘local’ players are out there attempting to tackle this category.  Why not? It’s a hot space, useful to the consumer, and where the world of transportation is heading (or already there.)  But with all the greatness this ride-sharing world brings, there is always some bad vibes circulating….for every positive headline your read, there might be two negative ones.   So something must be done to flip the conversation a bit. Hello Juno.

Juno is a ride-sharing service based in NYC, started by a very smart man, Talmon Marco.  Similar to how he saw an opportunity in the global mobile messaging app space years ago when he founded Viber (which he eventually sold for $900 million), Mr. Marco sees a huge opportunity in ride-sharing.  And it’s all about the drivers, which it should be.  Like many companies that get as gigantic as Uber has, the overall quality control factor seems to have taken a back seat (pardon the pun) to simply getting more cars on the road…meaning the over Uber experience is surely not what it used to be when the drivers seemed to “care” a bit more (there was a positive badge associated with being an Uber driver at one point.)  Juno believes in its’ drivers and wants to even take it one step further.  The Brilliant idea?

Give the drivers equity in the company.  Make them feel apart of the family, given them purpose, give them drive, make them happy.  Juno has reserved half of its founding shares for drivers. Drivers earn shares by picking up more rides, and those who drive full-time for 24 months out of 30 can keep them, even if they’re taking rides for other companies like Uber and Lyft during the same time.  This deserves a Hip Daddy Hooray.  It makes sense, and is simply the RIGHT thing to do, and what this category needs right about now.  We love the name, and look forward to them developing an interesting brand around all this goodness- think maybe a more relevant and modern Life Is Good type company…hmm, interesting.

So next time in NYC, check out a Juno.  “Doing good in the neighborhood”, that’s what they do.  We hope to see this company scale and soon be driving in a city near you all!