After 1 year of operating our biggest core insight is that 99% of Gen Z rides are headed to or leaving from a social gathering. This means Yelo’s data + user journey has easily integrated to be the social layer for where people are going and why.

What started as students driving students has now clearly evolved: peer-to-peer rides remain an option and preference for riders, but no longer define our core business model.

By building around that behavior, we have evolved into a social navigation layer that surfaces our live traffic trends, where to go next, deals at top spots, and eventually even dating or POS integrations for nightlife.

This shift has seen us drop rider CAC <$1 through FOMO and external network value (deals, visibility, social relevance, mutual driver option), while also unlocking new monetization channels that let us underprice Uber and still pay drivers more by undercutting Uber’s fare cut.

As we focus on optimizing for stickiness and “magical” user experiences, word-of-mouth growth has compounded, further lowering CAC. We’ve seen monetization will come from the network itself, not the ride, enabling us to scale supply globally by outsourcing to externally already built out sources without touching ride revenue.

Our long-term advantage in the market is building a lower-CAC, higher-stickiness product for the all valuable Gen Z consumer that has the ability to reach Uber scale not just by moving people cheaper, but by helping them navigate socially.

This creates a second-order effect: not only do we solve affordable and equitable transportation access for a generation, but I also believe Yelo can help address the loneliness epidemic by using our data and destinations to create connection, not isolation. (crazy vision, i know!)

We’re not the only ones who see this: Jen Vescio, Uber’s former Chief Business Officer, joined our advisory board in Q4 2025, validating our thesis that the next major shift in mobility will be AI-driven, social-first, and centered around Gen Z, whose behaviors and use cases are dramatically different from any generation before.