Swoop

Amir Ghorbani grew up around his parents' limousine and party bus company in Los Angeles, gradually becoming involved in daily operations from childhood. Despite having a strong family business, he noticed that their booking systems and operations dashboards were severely outdated. Throughout college, his friends constantly asked him to organize party buses for weekend trips because the booking process was such a hassle—they weren't confident they were getting the best deal without visiting the lot in person. Amir saw a clear pattern: younger generations wanted to book group transportation but found the existing process archaic and uninviting.

Swoop started unconventionally as an on-demand service rather than a marketplace. Amir teamed up with college friends who had been asking for his help booking party buses. Using his parents' underutilized vehicles (a few Sprinter vans on weekends), the team downloaded Slack to feel professional and subscribed to basic on-demand software. They launched what was recognized as "Uber for groups," manually dispatching rides and learning the industry from the ground up. After about a year of this on-demand model, they realized the fundamental mismatch between their operations and customer preferences: "We realized that normal people liked to schedule in advance. Not everyone in the world is a whimsical kid fresh out of college." This insight sparked the pivot to a marketplace model.

Amir's parents' limousine shop became Swoop's first vehicle operator on the new marketplace platform. As validation of the model, Swoop increased their sales by over 20%, proving the marketplace concept worked. Initial marketing was grassroots and scrappy—they applied large Swoop stickers to vehicles and appeared at events, handed out flyers with promo codes, and offered free rides to larger groups. They partnered with bars and restaurants to offer package deals for Rams games transportation. The real breakthrough came when they focused on social media and influencer partnerships, providing free rides in exchange for social posts. Their following exploded from 500 to over 10,000 followers in a few months.

Once their brand was established, Swoop's business development team (led by Peter and Ruben) pitched them to become the preferred transportation partner at top wedding venues in LA. This became a game-changer—the wedding industry became their largest revenue stream. They created cross-marketing through Wedding Wire and The Knot, and launched a wedding planner referral program with commissions. Their strong track record led to excellent Yelp reviews, which drove more organic sales. Early experiments with paid social (Instagram, Facebook) proved too expensive, and while Google Ads worked for specific audiences, the ROI wasn't consistent. However, direct outreach, relationship management, and partnerships showed "the greatest impact." By the time they approached customers in-person for a Swoop ride, conversion was nearly guaranteed: "Once we got you in a Swoop, it was game over."

By July 2020, Swoop had secured pre-seed funding, which allowed them to build a full-time team and hire engineers. COVID-19 forced a reflection period, during which they realized the transportation industry's biggest gap: lack of advanced technology for operators. Many were still scheduling trips with pen and paper and communicating across multiple channels. Swoop pivoted again to develop fleet management and networking software for transportation companies of all sizes, while maintaining their marketplace operations. The new vision is to create an ecosystem where operators can hand off unavailable trips to each other and still earn a percentage—essentially "farming out" rides more efficiently.