Credibility in Emerging Markets: Lessons Learned from Lyft

When I started at Lyft, the company had just seven employees. Ride-sharing was an entirely new concept. Establishing credibility in this emerging market required careful execution; it was never an overnight success.

Looking back after 11 years, I can see the stages through which ride-sharing evolved into the mainstream service it is today. Here’s how we did it at Lyft — and how those lessons apply to the work we're doing now establishing blockchain’s credibility to be used across businesses at Kadena.

Creating a New Industry at Lyft

In the early years, my focus was on building the foundations for growth, ensuring that Lyft became synonymous with ride-sharing. But as we entered the mid-phase of Lyft’s growth, we began to consider how ride-sharing could be integrated into other industries. That’s when things started to click for me.

At Lyft, we realized that ride-sharing could address significant pain points in corporate travel and healthcare. For example, we developed integrations with platforms such as Epic and Cerner to provide non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT), which increased the reliability of transportation in healthcare.

In corporate travel, Lyft integrated with expense platforms like Expensify, enabling businesses to manage travel policies more efficiently. We formed partnerships with major companies such as Apple and McKinsey, scaling our business across various verticals.

The key takeaway from Lyft was how to bridge the gap between a disruptive new industry and well-established sectors. Ride-sharing’s entry into healthcare and business travel required us to adapt and build credibility within existing infrastructures. This concept of linking innovation to traditional sectors is something I’m now applying at Kadena.

Expanding into Web3 at Origin Protocol

After Lyft, I expanded my experience in Web3 at Origin Protocol, where I worked on decentralized finance (DeFi) products like OUSD and negotiated partnerships with blockchain ecosystem players such as Chainlink. My role also involved expanding the Origin ecosystem onto new chains like Arbitrum and Optimism while securing key exchange listings, including MEXC.

At Origin, I learned how critical it is to understand both the technological and ecosystem components of Web3. This hands-on experience of establishing partnerships in traditional industries prepared me to tackle the challenges of Web3 adoption from a different angle. It will inform my approach to connecting traditional finance with decentralized systems.

Applying These Lessons to Kadena

Joining Kadena as Head of the Ecosystem feels like the next natural step in my journey. The lessons I learned about scaling new industries can be applied to the blockchain space when working to bring real-world use cases to the industry. We want to move beyond theoretical applications and demonstrate how blockchain can help industries like healthcare, identity management, and traditional finance.

What excites me about Kadena is the opportunity to work in an ecosystem where new industries, like DeFi, are intersecting with older sectors, such as traditional finance (TradFi). Much like how ride-sharing transformed healthcare and business travel, we’re poised to do the same with blockchain technology in traditional industries.

Looking Forward

At Kadena, we’re working to bring tangible use cases on-chain. The goal is to integrate blockchain into the fabric of existing industries. The experience at Lyft taught me that scaling a new industry is not just about technology—it’s about understanding how that technology fits within the context of older, well-established systems. As I continue this journey at Kadena, I look forward to helping build bridges between Web3 and traditional industries, unlocking blockchain’s full potential.