For this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sat down with Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, which has had incredible success in the field of student transportation. The company began as a private service to tackle a problem Ritu was facing herself: how to function as a working parent dealing with erratic pickup and drop-off schedules. Before long, it became clear that there was a far larger opportunity to change pretty much everything about how all kids get to and from school. Pivoting to working with school districts and a fleet of electric buses, the company set out to “modernize student transportation to make it safe, sustainable, and accessible for all.” To say it’s been a success is an understatement. Zum now serves thousands of schools in multiple states, and in February 2024, it hit unicorn status with a valuation of over a billion dollars. As Ritu says in our conversation, “the service is for everybody.” We also talked about everything from carbon-neutral buses to cracking the procurement system of public school districts, the invaluable asset of parental peace of mind, scaling care, and more, including: • How Ritu came to entrepreneurship• Scaling trust• How coming from the outside allowed the company to transform the industry• Shifting from a B2C company to a B2B company• Zum’s values: customer obsession, doing things the right way, thinking big and executing meticulously, and building better communities.• How a clear mission makes alignment easier• Zum’s “Five Step People Program” to reinforce culture and behaviors—Brought to you by:Mercury – The art of simplified finances. ⁠Learn more⁠.DigitalOcean – The cloud loved by developers and founders alike. ⁠Sign up⁠.Neo4j – The graph database and analytics leader. ⁠Learn more⁠.—Where to find Ritu Narayan:• X: https://x.com/ritun • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritunarayan/ • Zum: https://www.ridezum.com/ Where to find Eric:• Newsletter: ⁠https://ericries.carrd.co/⁠ • Podcast: ⁠https://ericriesshow.com/⁠ • X: ⁠https://twitter.com/ericries⁠ • LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/⁠ • YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow⁠ —In This Episode We Cover:((((((((((((((((((((((((((—Production and marketing by ⁠https://penname.co/⁠. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email ⁠[email protected]⁠ Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.