Immensely popular ride sharing app UBER has been using a novel approach for driving engagement with its audience in cities across the world. Through its #UberPITCH initiative, it offers entrepreneurs a 15 minutes free ride with VCs from reputed firms so that they can pitch their idea to them. This is exactly the kind of stuff that gets budding entrepreneurs excited.
It's not everyday that you are offered the chance to interact with an investor in the candid confines of a moving vehicle for 15 whole minutes!
This August, Uber offered entrepreneurs from Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and Bangalore a chance of a life time. The event was held on two days – 12th and 13th of August between 12 and 4 pm. We decided to share in the excitement by monitoring #UberPITCH conversations. I am glad to share insights from our live Uber Tracker. (If you would like to see the tracker, click here)
User Locations
Entrepreneurs from New Delhi were the most excited with 410 tweets being posted on Twitter. This may be attributed to the fact that UBER is more popular in Delhi than any of the other cities. One day prior to the event, UBER had sent an email to all its users to inform them about #UberPITCH.
Chennai and Mumbai were the other top user locations from where tweets were sent.
Most Engaged Users
Uber had partnered with popular YouTube channel - The Viral Fever. Their twitter handles @TheViralFever and @TVFPitchers were the most engaged in #UberPITCH conversations followed by @Uber_Pune. Apart from Uber and TVF’s own handles, users who were most engaged were @smriti_dubey and @ashwaryagarg with 35 and 18 tweets respectively.
Most Talked About VCs
The event was all about interaction between entrepreneurs and investors, so we thought it would be interesting to see who is more sociable on Twitter. The top 3 most talked about VCs were @Jollygamist from Unitus Seed Fund, @pratikpoddar from Nexus Venture Partners and @mehtasanjay who is associated with multiple angel networks.
Top Conversation Aspects
Those who participated in the event took to Twitter to share their experience, praise the initiative, express their frustration or make requests. Through our listening tool we identified 5 key aspects of those conversations.
Apart from the fact that most tweets were about VCs and those who were lucky enough to get the opportunity to pitch, there were a lot of praises for Uber’s initiative. Those who were not able to get a ride were vocal about their frustration while some were appealing Uber to give them a chance.
Hour by hour activity
The hour by hour activity went by as expected. Conversations were at their highest when the event began at 12 pm and started fading away towards the end at 4 pm.
Uber may not have got the kind of phenomenal response it should have, but it got a lot of people excited within a very short period of time. Entrepreneurs who did not get a chance to present their idea are sure to stay tuned for the next time #UberPITCH comes to their city.