Bird and Spin merged into Third Lane and swung $50M to profit (interview)
Co-CEO Stewart Lyons right-sized cities, cut SIM costs and dropped in-house manufacturing — profitable every month from March 2024, he says.
What was changed
When Stewart Lyons stepped in as Co-CEO of Bird and Spin in early 2023, he inherited two of micromobility's most recognised but recently beleaguered brands; a year later they merged under a new umbrella, Third Lane Mobility, officially launched in March 2024 with profitability as the stated aim. In an interview with Zag Daily, Lyons says the company came out "with a bang in March" and was profitable from the get-go, staying profitable every month through December 2024.
The reset touched everything. Every city was treated as an individual business that had to be profitable, ending the norm of head-office costs weighing cities down. Payroll, leases, insurance and vehicle sourcing were right-sized top to bottom. Renegotiating the global SIM contract cut what he describes as an uncompetitive roaming-aggregator arrangement, and operations moved to a blended model — some in-house, outsourced fleet managers retained on task-based terms in select markets — which Lyons credits for cost, uptime and vehicle lifespan.
The hardware model changed most: the in-house, built-from-scratch China manufacturing operation was dropped because Chinese suppliers had caught up. Third Lane now primarily sources vehicles from Segway-Ninebot, with units from Okai and others, customised only in the IoT and firmware while the customer-facing software and app stay entirely in-house — a blend he compares to how the mobile phone business evolved.
The dual-brand structure was deliberate: Bird stays focused on dense urban markets and major metros, Spin on university towns and smaller cities, mostly in the US southeast — an arrangement Lyons likens to P&G's dozens of brands under one umbrella. By the end of 2024 the company had logged 35 million rides and $220 million in gross receipts with nearly $20 million in adjusted EBITDA, a roughly $50 million EBITDA swing that reversed Bird's $30 million loss in 2023. He credits a mindset shift as the crucial first step, not any single initiative.
Why it worked
Bird had chased top-line growth at all costs — too many hires, too many markets — and head-office costs were weighing every city down.
Off-the-shelf scooters closed the gap with in-house designs, so building vehicles from the ground up no longer paid.
The decentralised fleet-manager model had outsourced daily operations wholesale; blending in-house and task-based outsourced work improved cost, uptime and vehicle lifespan.
What can be applied
When every market has to pay its own way, the head-office subsidy that hid the losses disappears — and so do the losses.
Aftermath
Third Lane delivered profitability every month from March to December 2024, according to Lyons, closing its first year with 35 million rides, $220 million in gross receipts and nearly $20 million in adjusted EBITDA. He calls the regional insurance strategy a competitive advantage that has reduced premiums significantly, but keeps the details vague.