Nobody tells you how messy it is to launch a transportation business. While tech founders dream of disruption through clever apps, the reality involves navigating regulations, managing driver relationships, and sometimes battling city officials. Alex Kartsel knows this firsthand. Having led Bolt’s expansion across Poland and served as CEO of OLX Autos in one of Europe’s toughest markets, he’s seen what works, and what spectacularly fails in the mobility space. Now as Vice President at EWL Group, he brings battle-tested insights from years in the trenches.
Know Your Entry Point
Too many founders think mobility starts and ends with technology. Not even close, says Alex. “Launching in mobility isn’t just about launching an app. It’s about launching a system,” he explains. The complexity catches most founders off guard. You’re not just dealing with users and interfaces you’re touching “regulation, labor, cities, tech, and daily habits.”
When Alex was scaling Bolt in Poland, they quickly realized the transplant approach wouldn’t cut it. “We didn’t just import a model. We customized it to Polish cities, Polish drivers, and Polish riders.” Without this local adaptation, even the slickest app will face rejection. His advice is blunt: “Do your research. Map the city. Meet the mayor’s office. Sit down with drivers & partners. Be on the ground.” Skip this homework, and you’ll pay for it later.
Early Growth: Building Both Sides
Ask any mobility founder about their biggest headache, and they’ll likely point to the chicken-and-egg problem of supply and demand. “Every mobility startup is a two-sided platform. You need supply and demand. But they don’t grow at the same pace,” Alex points out. Most founders obsess over user acquisition, but Alex flipped the script at Bolt. “We built a driver onboarding engine that could activate people within 48 hours.”
Similarly, at OLX Autos, they focused on seller confidence through “transparent vehicle valuations and quick payouts.” This supply-side focus built the foundation for everything else. The early days demand operational basics: “Make onboarding intuitive. Support partners 24/7. Build loyalty programs early.” Fancy features can wait, reliability can’t. As Alex puts it, “fast response beats perfect UX in the first 6 months.”
Growing Smart, Not Just Fast
Once traction hits, the growth pressure intensifies. Investors want expansion. Competitors are breathing down your neck. But Alex warns against the obvious trap. “Once your engine is running, the temptation is to scale fast. But smart scaling is about choosing where to win – not just where to be,” he cautions. At Bolt, this meant a disciplined approach: “We scaled city by city (more than 30!) only when operational benchmarks were met.” Alex learned the hard way that mobility is stubbornly local. You can’t run Warsaw operations from London or Berlin.
“Mobility is hyperlocal. That means local ops managers, local driver liaisons, local community insights.” His advice is straightforward: “Never try to manage multiple cities/countries from one HQ. Decentralize decision-making, provide empowerment to your team, but centralize your data.”
Unit Economics Over Hype
Here’s where Alex gets brutally honest: “Mobility is expensive.” The costs pile up faster than most business plans account for – vehicles, fuel, insurance, support staff. His approach was relentlessly metric-driven. “We monitored cost per ride, lifetime value per user, cost of driver acquisition, cancellation ratios.” These numbers dictated tough decisions: “If a city wasn’t on track in 90 days, we adjusted, or exited.”
Alex has seen too many companies chase growth while bleeding cash. “Never chase GMV at the cost of operational health. Big numbers mean nothing if every ride loses money.” That’s a lesson learned the hard way by many mobility ventures that no longer exist. For Alex, building in mobility means accepting both the challenge and responsibility: “You’re not just building software. You’re shaping how people move, work, and live.” Get it right, and “the scale will come. And the impact will follow.”
Follow Alex Kartsel on LinkedIn to learn more about mobility, leadership, and building operationally sound ventures.
