The fuzzy pink mustaches that Lyft’s drivers-for-hire sport on their grilles are widely admired as a stroke of marketing genius: When news outlets write about competing mobile application ride booking apps, which gets featured in photos?
The fuchsia whiskers have also been elevated by the Lyft faithful to iconic status as a representation of community, openness, creativity and fun.
The weather is not so deferential, however, with the varied elements across the nation beating the ’staches enough to cause color fading and staining and such (taxi drivers aren't so appreciative either).
Soon, Lyft will fight back against the insults of fate with a new generation of mustaches made of the toughest, brightest and most cuddly faux fur the company could find following an exhaustive international search.
“We call it Superfur,” said Ethan Eyler, who has led Lyft’s fake fur research and development effort since joining the company with the job title of “Inventor” six months ago.
“This is a fur that has never been made,” he said.
The new fibers, manufactured by a faux-fur mill in Asia that Lyft is not naming, were chosen after they bested competitors in a battery of tests designed to simulate sun, snow, rain and more. The trials were conducted by industrial quality control giant Intertek.
Eyler hopes the new mustaches will hit the streets in late March, and he says Lyft has something special in mind to celebrate the debut.
Sourcing fake fur to start with was complicated, and getting a waterproof fiber made was even more difficult, with long periods of time spent waiting for samples and test results, Eyler said.
Fortunately for Eyler, his mandate is to help enhance the passenger experience overall, so he has other projects to keep him busy.
Lyft is also preparing to release a new, custom designed lanyard and clip mechanism for attaching and removing mustaches from vehicles, and a proprietary multi-pronged phone charger that will allow drivers to power their own devices and those of passengers, both projects that Eyler spearheaded.
Another of Eyler's mustache-related products that has taken off is a roughly 10-inch stuffed plushie pink mustache — called a “cuddlestache” — that has proven extremely popular with Lyft users and is given out as a promotional goodie, Eyler said.
Eyler’s mustache machinations even go beyond Lyft, which was founded last year and is already in 20 cities after having raised $83 million from top venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz.
It was Eyler who sold Lyft its first car ’staches through a San Francisco startup he founded in 2010 called Carstache.com.
He still owns Carstache.com, having hired someone to run that business for him, and it continues to sell mustaches of varying colors and design.
Pink, however, belongs to Lyft.
Eyler came up with the idea of putting a mustache on a car one day while commuting to his job at an Internet company in Silicon Valley and then got his sister to sew up the first prototype.
“People were in the streets jumping out, giving me the thumbs up. There’s a very human, visceral response to this product. I realized I probably should do this,” Eyler said. “To the dismay of my family and my inlaws and my friends, I quit my job.”
He managed through a connection to get reality television star Khloe Kardashian to tweet on Twitter about Carstache, and Lyft co-founder and President John Zimmer bought some of the mustaches for gifts. Then Zimmer had an epiphany and decided to make pink mustaches synonymous with the Lyft brand.
Like the other products Carstache.com sells, Lyft’s pink mustaches are cut and sewn by Venetian Fashion, a nearly 10-person manufacturing shop in San Leandro.
Owner Edward Fong said that fake facial hair has been very good to him, with vehicular mustaches now accounting for between 50 and 60 percent of his business. The majority of that demand comes from Lyft, with only small quantities going to Carstache.com, he said.
Lyft’s mustaches may be almost old hat in parts of San Francisco (though they still get a reaction from tourists at Fishermen's Wharf), but when Lyft rolls into a new city, the effect of the pink bristles is still electric, Eyler said.
“There’s definitely satisfaction in seeing this thing I created on cars all over the place,” Eyler said.