Lyft Halo
Background
Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to work at the UGA Entrepreneurship Program’s Great Brands Competition in Athens. It was a one-day competition consisting of 9 student-led teams, covering a range of different industries, from all over the US that pitched to a panel of 4 investors in hopes of taking home the grand prize of $25,000. Each team did a 15-minute private pitch to the investors and at the end of the day, the top teams pitched in front of UGA students and faculty at Studio 225 in downtown Athens. Throughout the day, I had the opportunity to talk to the different student entrepreneurs and was lucky enough to meet the co-founder of Halo Cars, Ryanne Fadel, whose company was acquired by Lyft in 2022. After the competition, I researched more about Halo Cars and realized how the innovation for this brand is extremely prominent within the ride-share industry and wanted to share it with the class.
What is Lyft Halo?
Have you ever seen the digital rooftop advertisement screens on a taxi cab? Those are called Halos. The Halos are smart digital screens that show engaging videos that are specifically targeted to the vehicle’s exact location and time. Ryanne and his classmates came up with this idea in 2019 and within three years, the company sold to Lyft for millions. They came up with the idea after seeing an advertisement at a bus stop. They realized a company paid millions of dollars for the advertisement to stay in that one location and saw a market opportunity to provide value by introducing extremely targeted ads that get much more exposure than a bus stop. This could be accomplished via ride-share vehicles. What makes this idea novel is the technology that allows for precise hyper-targeting capabilities as the vehicle moves around. Before Halo, companies would pay millions for a fixated advertisement that had no guarantee of the number of impressions that it would make because of its singular location (bus stop ad example). Ryanne and his colleagues sensed an opportunity after realizing connecting advertisements to taxis, Ubers, and Lyfts would allow companies to pinpoint exactly when and where they want their advertisements to show up to increase impressions among their audience.
Additional Ride-Share Technology Innovations
Learning more about the technology behind Halo left me wondering what other breakthroughs are coming through the ride-share industry. Many ride-share companies are leveraging machine learning algorithms to improve their services in different ways. One technology that is being worked on is a one-click chat that utilizes ML algorithms to create automatic responses so drivers can safely yet thoroughly communicate with their customers while they are driving. It generates auto responses based on the consumer communication received to keep both the driver and passenger well informed about the status of the car and other information related to pickup time.
Another type of AI that has been introduced to these companies allows drivers to increase workflow optimization through routes and heavily trafficked areas. An example of this is PPZ maps which is used by Lyft and allow drivers to identify high-demand areas to increase income for drivers. This software uses algorithms that take in data such as “rider model, driver model, budget and forecasting to represent forecasted demand. This information is then used to refine supply allocation” (Medium).
Lastly, another way AI is leveraged for ride-share companies is through neural network-powered ML models which power the forecast of pickup/dropoff ETAs, rider demand, and hardware capacity requirements. Uber uses an internal software known as X-Ray. This software optimizes a model’s prediction rates by allowing thousands of features to be searched in parallel.
Both Uber and Lyft use many different applications of AI to power their business. With the growth of these companies and changes in the AI world, it is interesting to see what the next technology will be and how these changes will continue to disrupt the industry.
Lessons in Entrepreneurship
Aside from the technology innovation aspect of Halo, I wanted to dive into some of the lessons I learned from talking to Ryanne and listening to one of his podcasts on Youtube (linked below). After Halo was acquired by Lyft in 2022, Ryanne and the founders of Halo left Wharton to work for Lyft. Ryanne was there for a few years and decided to return to Wharton to complete his degree. His story and the background of Halo hold a lot of valuable lessons for entrepreneurs.
One thing he mentioned was the importance of writing down all terms that are agreed on verbally. Ryanne said his co-founders would discuss things and agree verbally, but once there was money on the table people would go back on what they said for personal monetary gain. He mentioned the difficulty of doing business with friends and that he probably won’t put himself in a position where he has to navigate that grey area again.
Another valuable lesson Ryanne shared was the importance of negotiation. When Lyft acquired Halo, Ryanne and his team were still in college, inexperienced with the business world – let alone with a tech giant such as Lyft looking to acquire their company. When Lyft gave their initial offer to Halo, the team countered, and when the counter was rejected they conceded and accepted an offer lower than they wanted. Even though it was still a massive acquisition, Ryanne said once he got to Lyft he had conversations with executives who alluded to the fact that Halo could have potentially received much more for the acquisition had they been more steadfast about the counteroffer.
Ryanne mentions all these lessons with a positive attitude and uses the knowledge he gained throughout his history at Halo to power his new venture, HydroHero, which is a pool pump that automates all the chemical pool maintenance usually required to be performed by a human.
Summary
In conclusion, AI and machine learning are a huge part of ride-share companies and there seem to be abundant opportunities in the field for the indefinite future. If you have an idea, it’s worth it to pursue because you could become the next Halo cars! Ryanne and his team faced adversity at first, but they kept pushing toward their goal and worked through adversity to become an extremely successful brand that has completely transformed the marketing, advertising, and ride-share industry.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Q9RMwVwt4)
Awesome post Mary! I loved that you connected the industry to something you were able to learn about at the event and I saw they chose a winner for the $25,000 prize. I think the advertisement idea is great and hopefully will show good results on the product. Digital Innovation will heavily affect rideshare and I hope to see it at the benefit of the customer!
Nice lessons all across the board! I do think that’s why many VC’s pair younger founders with a more seasoned executives. Without more experience, its too easy to get convinced to make a bad decision just based on lack of experience. Some things you can only learn by being exposed to a situation several times before. It certainly affected my house-hunting experience this time. I got much better as I went.
Hi Mary, I loved this blog post! It’s great to see how AI is revolutionizing the ride-share industry. I found the concept of Lyft Halo fascinating and how it provides targeted advertisements to riders through smart digital screens. It’s also encouraging to see how entrepreneurs like Ryanne Fadel are using their experiences to develop new ventures that can positively impact society.
Hi Mary! This post is so inspirational and has so many really good lessons in it. Halo is an amazing concept and it’s nice to learn about more ways that AI can work with ride sharing. I thought it was interesting to learn about Ryanne Fadel’s experience with negotiating with Lyft and the outcome of it, especially since he originally didn’t have experience working in those situations. Overall great post!
This is great Mary! It’s impressive how this student-led team came up with the idea of digital rooftop advertisements screens. I’d seen the Halos on cars before but they never had anything on them so was always confused on the purpose. I enjoyed the Lessons in Entrepreneurship section as it has some great information! If only Ryanne and his team were adamant on the value of their company and didn’t give in to the lower offer. Thanks for sharing your experience at the competition!
Hey Mary, great post and thanks for sharing your experience with us. Ryanne Fadel sounds like a great person and a great entrepreneur. I think one of the biggest takeaways this class has taught me, is to learn from others mistakes. Two things that I will take with me from this post is Ryanne’s position on working with your friends and how to go about it. The second thing I will take with me is Ryanne’s growth mindset. His ability to make mistakes, or realized he could have gotten more out of an offer than what he had accepted, and uses these as learning moments, says a lot about his character.
Hi Mary, the innovation of advertisement through the use of Halo is fascinating. It is very unique that you had the opportunity to meet Ryanne and therefore introduce this topic to all of us. I like the lessons from entrepreneurship that you have mentioned and the overall sense of opportunity and innovation within the ride-share industry that is applicable across domains.
Hello Mary! This was a great post. I think it’s clever how Lyft came up with the idea of halos. I think it’s an innovative way to market and be able to spread the info much better. I liked how you brought up how these companies are trying to leverage AI and machine learning to increase the user experience and I think it has so much potential to change how we view the ride sharing industry as a whole .