One morning in September 2024, two Jonathan Cohens — one from the Rockaways in Queens, the other from London — stood in an empty 15,000-square-foot parking garage near Hudson Yards in New York City. As they walked the broken yellow lines, they explained how the space would help Joco, their shared e-bike delivery startup, continue to grow.
“We’re removing all the cars, and this will be completely dedicated to electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and light-duty electric vehicle charging,” Cohen (NY), Joco’s Chief Growth Officer, beamed to TechCrunch. .
The two walked through the cavernous grounds, interrupting each other like a married couple telling a story to friends, as they set the stage for a place that would be as much about utility as it was about community: a mechanical workshop in the back, several rooms with charging lockers so riders could swap e-bike batteries, docking stations and two bathrooms.
Cohen (London), Joco’s CEO, pointed to an area not far from the front that would be designated for a Joco concierge service, where delivery people could check in, pick up items and take a break from the chaos of the city.
“Think of it as a gas station [for delivery riders],” added Cohen (NY). “They’ll use it as a place to just relax and take a break.”
The concept of offering gig workers a pit stop — a place to use the restroom, charge their phones and even pray — isn’t new to Joco, which already offers the service in partnership with Grubhub at two Alphabet locations City and Midtown. West. And after nearly failing the company several times in its first year, such duties of care to customers are a major reason why Joco is still alive.
Joco co-founders Jonathan Cohen (CEO) and Jonathan A. Cohen (CGO) stand in what will become an e-bike hub and warehouse in New York in September 2024.Image credits:Rebecca Bellan” loading=”eager” height=”509″ width=”680″ class=”yf-24rror loader”/>
Joco co-founders Jonathan Cohen (CEO) and Jonathan A. Cohen (CGO) stand in what will be an e-bike hub and warehouse in New York in September 2024.Image credits:Rebekah Bellan
Joco – named after its two co-founders, who met at Columbia Business School in 2017 – launched in New York in 2021 with the mission to compete with Lyft-owned Citi Bike with shared, docked e-bikes. The Cohens thought that placing Joco’s docking stations on private property would allow them to avoid both Citi Bike territory and city oversight. They were wrong. The NYC Department of Transportation immediately charged Joco with operating a bikeshare without prior approval from the agency, forcing the startup to forego offering consumer rides and opt for last-mile delivery.
Now Joco serves both gig workers who rent e-bikes at daily or weekly rates and business customers who order a dedicated fleet from the start. Joco has approximately 18 enterprise customers – including Grubhub, Reef, Fresh Direct and other major logistics companies – in New York, Chicago and Miami. As part of its B2B package, Joco also offers fleet management technology, service and maintenance, docking stations and, increasingly, battery charging cabinets.
These cabinets, which Joco says are FDNY-approved, are a growing industry for the startup, especially in New York, where battery fires are rampant due to unsafe charging practices, leading many buildings to ban e-bikes and e-scooters. Joco has sold approximately 100 battery cabinets to residential buildings, such as owned by related companies, and to last-mile logistics companies, such as Travis Kalanick’s Cloud Kitchens, across the country with plans for international expansion.
Gig delivery workers can rent e-bikes, rest, charge their phones, and use the bathroom at this Joco and Grubhub concierge in New York.Image credits:Rebekah Bellan
The Cohens say the DOT’s pushback was a “blessing in disguise” that helped them become profitable — not EBITDA profitable, “net, net, net profitable” with “real salaries” — despite raising only $7.5 million in venture capital money had picked up. Other similar hardware-as-a-service startups have raised many millions – even billions – more in venture capital, and just as many have failed due to the company’s high capital investments and low margins.
“It forced us to focus,” Cohen (London) told TechCrunch. “That’s a lesson we unintentionally learned faster than we should have. The other lesson we learned is to really pay attention to the customer. Because we love our customers. Last Sunday in Queens we had a guy whose bike broke down, and I rented a car, I went there, I picked up his bike and took him back to another station in Manhattan.
“When our customers see that, they panic and tell everyone,” he continued. “We do unusual things for the customer, things they wouldn’t expect.” Cohen (London) noted that some of these decisions may not necessarily make ‘financial sense’ on the face of it, but have created customer loyalty.
The concierge service – where multiple employees are on site to help meet delivery drivers’ needs – is one example. Joco is also handing out free bike helmets, visibility vests, hand warmers and, through its partnership with Grubhub, free temperature-controlled backpacks.
There are other startups offering e-bike rental couriers. Whiz and Zoomo come to mind, but they offer longer term rentals where the delivery person has to store the bike, lock it and charge the battery. With Joco, gig workers have access to high-quality e-bikes at a reasonable price and never have to worry about locking them up or carrying them up the stairs again. Riders can lock and unlock the bikes with an app – a small but effective convenience when delivering all day.
“We make a lot more money per bike than another company where you rent the bike and take it home for a month, because we have multiple people using the same vehicle and they deliver them around the clock,” says Cohen (London ), noting that the life cycle of the new Segway bikes is three to five years.
There also appears to be a quiet community among Joco drivers. Employees picking up bikes from the Alphabet City concierge can be seen chatting and bumping fists, and when they encounter another Joco rider on the street, they often wave and say hello.
Joco’s customer obsession is clearly reflected in growth. That empty parking garage? Flash forward two months later and it is now almost open for business, with 1,000 new Segway e-bikes lined up and another 1,000 on the way. That location is one of nearly fifty docking stations, large and small, accessible to couriers in the city. And the Cohens say that’s still not enough to meet the demand for their services.
“All of our vehicles are used every day,” says Cohen (NY), noting that Joco has spent “zero dollars on marketing” since launch. He says the team has managed to grow the company’s gig workforce by double digits every month, mainly through word of mouth.
Joco-crew stands for the e-cargo bike with four wheels and the battery charging cabinet. From left to right: Jonny Cohen (Co-Founder, CGO/Chief Growth Officer), Guman Gezici (Head of Operations, from Getir), Jonny Cohen (Co-Founder, CEO), Julia Rindenow (Partnerships and Marketing Associate)Image credits:Joco
That’s one of Cohen’s tips for early-stage founders: don’t waste your money too early on marketing in an attempt to attract attention and capital. Just put your head down and concentrate on the execution. That’s how the two said they got to where they are today, where cash flow funds their expansion, rather than venture money. For them, “founder mode” is essential because it means always being available to roll up your sleeves, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas or at 3 a.m.
“Like when we switched from the old Acton bikes to these Segway bikes, it was an all-nighter,” said Cohen (NY).
Joco still runs a lean ship, with about seven people on the corporate team. In total they employ approximately 50 employees in the areas of maintenance, call center, operations, warehouse management, software and supply chain. And many of those teams are outsourced to employees outside the U.S., which the cofounders say saves them money as they work to grow the company. They also hire fractional employees, such as their CFO, a good strategy for early-stage startups looking to hire a seasoned C-suite executive on a part-time basis.
That financial prudence is what will help Joco scale up in 2025. The founders said their near-term growth plans come from available cash and possibly some debt, but they don’t plan to raise more equity.
Their goal for the coming year is to grow Joco’s fleet of gig workers from 3,000 today to 10,000 by the end of 2025 and build new docking stations in Brooklyn and Queens. Joco also wants to install 1,000 battery charging boxes in buildings and double its B2B footprint over the next 13 months, partly by adding more four-wheeler cargo bikes to its range.
And Joco has some tailwinds, especially in New York, where a congestion pricing plan will go into effect in January.
“There will be more opportunities for us to get garage space at better prices,” said Cohen (NY). “You don’t need a two-ton vehicle for short transport distances. And so the more we can do to build infrastructure and technology, the more convenient it will be for the riders.
