The mobility startup Dance relies on these tools

The startup Dance, founded in 2020, offers an all-round service e-bike subscription. Pedelecs and e-mopeds as well as the software including apps are developed in-house. The e-bike, including all-round service, is rented out on a monthly subscription, similar to Swapfiets.

The team consists of over 100 employees and follows a remote-first approach. This means that work is primarily done remotely; the individual teams meet every day in the Berlin office, which is housed in the “machine room”. The machine room is a “shared innovation ecosystem that brings together German medium-sized and family businesses” initiated by Viessmann, among others.

As was already apparent during our visit to the office check in t3n issue 66, Dance relies entirely on Apple products. It starts with the Macbook Pro, which every employee is given as a working tool, and extends to iPhones and iPads that are used by service employees and mechanics on the go or in the workshop.

Dance relies on Apple products for personal reasons: As co-founder and CEO Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss said at an on-site visit, Apple simply offers the best technology to “build an innovative and flexible company like Dance”. The founder had his first contact with Apple products when he was a child, when his father brought home a Mac Plus.

Another reason Dance chose Apple is the ability to develop their own apps. Because with the help of the programming language Swift, Dance developed two apps for workflows because there were no corresponding apps that covered their own needs.

One of the apps is for Dance customers, who can use it to connect to their e-bike, track rides, manage the account, book repairs and contact Dance directly. A specially developed app is also available for Android users.

The other app, Taranis, supports the operations team in managing e-bike inventory and helps riders plan which bike needs to be delivered where and the best route for delivery. Mechanics can use the Swift app to see what needs fixing on which bike. The repair orders land directly on the employees’ iPhones via Dance’s AWS cloud server. Furthermore, customers can be informed when their bikes are ready for use again.

A QR code is attached to each bike as an identifier, as well as to the spare parts. This procedure also helps to keep track of the inventory. The app can also be used to coordinate the working hours of the employees.

According to Dance, it has been mostly large companies that have used such custom apps so far. With the help of Swift, even smaller teams could build and use apps like this, according to Bella Wu, product and growth lead at Dance. The advantage is also that the requirements for the app can be worked out together with the respective team and adapted again and again.

Incidentally, such internal apps can be played out via Apple’s Business Manager. They can even be automatically distributed to company-owned devices. Alternatively, they can be made available invisibly in the app store. To do this, users only need to have the direct app link. This type of provision is not unusual: Google also offers something similar for Android Enterprise customers.

While Apple services and Swift apps are sort of the heart of the company, Dance uses other tools and services depending on the department and purpose.

For example, the HR team uses the Personio and Recruitee tools for HR and applicant management. Moss Creditcards is used for accounting. Dance relies on Hubspot as its CRM system, and Braze is used for newsletter management. Another tool Dance uses for customer support is Dixa.

The startup uses Asana for project management and task management, and Looker is used as a KPI dashboard. Slack is used for company-wide team messaging.