Delilah Lanoix fell into the business of helping people get from point A to point B by chance.<\/p>\n
At the turn of the millennium, Lanoix and her husband, John Harris, took up an offer to buy a company with a small fleet of vans shuttling patients with disabilities to and from doctors\u2019 appointments and regional centers.<\/p>\n
But the business, and the vision behind it, didn\u2019t stay small for long. Lanoix knows how to say \u201cyes, and \u2026,\u201d after all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took that and we grew it to over 200 vehicles, and we serviced all of Southern California,\u201d said Lanoix, who tapped into demand by striking up contracts with care providers and agencies.<\/p>\n
As rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft ushered in a new age of transportation, the New Orleans native took it upon herself to ensure riders with extra needs didn\u2019t get left behind. A transformed movement ecosystem called for a new model.<\/p>\n
Lanoix now serves as the chief executive of Butterfli Technologies Inc., the downtown-based transportation company she co-founded with Harris in 2017. Butterfli expanded on the duo\u2019s previous venture, which became one of the many small businesses moving riders with disabilities in a new, expanded network of more than 400 vehicles.<\/p>\n
Contracts with enterprise clients like hospitals, including Kaiser Permanente, are key to Lanoix\u2019s strategy. A common use case is the transport of discharged patients, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to move that person out of the hospital to prepare a bed for the next patient, and if that person is not transported in a timely fashion, it can cost the hospital quite a bit of money,\u201d Lanoix said, adding that dependable transportation for patients on stretchers is particularly difficult for hospitals to find.<\/p>\n
While organizations remain core customers, the boom of on-demand rideshares pushed Lanoix to debut a consumer-facing platform on Butterfli. Comprising a fifth of the company\u2019s business, the platform offers riders with diverse needs a sense of agency, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the importance of persons being able to access services for themselves,\u201d Lanoix said. \u201cIt also gives them a sense of independence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riders who use assistive mobility devices or gurneys can book online or by phone to be paired with drivers from one of<\/p>\n
Butterfli\u2019s partner providers. The service proved invaluable to a 107-year-old woman who wanted to go to church on Sundays, Lanoix remembers.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was isolated, and it meant a lot to her just to get dressed up and go to church,\u201d she said. \u201cShe just needed some care, for someone to come in and pick her up from her home and escort her into the vehicle and then be there to pick her up on time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Filling a need<\/p>\n
Empathy and an understanding that anybody can develop a disability are the backbones of the work Butterfli does, Lanoix said. Most of the company\u2019s 20-some employees have someone in their life who needs extra help getting around\u2013 or a loved one who would\u2019ve benefited from access to rides catered to their needs.<\/p>\n
For Sebastian De Vivo, Butterfli\u2019s chief financial officer, it\u2019s a little brother with a disability who needs a ride to the regional center every morning and a grandmother who communicated through food and cherished trips to the Spanish-speaking market.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, I couldn\u2019t (drive her) or my siblings couldn\u2019t do it, and knowing that this was something that could have changed her life was a big deal for me,\u201d De Vivo said.<\/p>\n
When he landed in L.A., fresh out of the world of academia, De Vivo was searching for roles that would allow him to make a positive social impact. After a few years of work on regional economic development initiatives in L.A. County, he connected with Lanoix through a friend from business school.<\/p>\n
De Vivo was surprised that, at the time, Lanoix was one of the only entrepreneurs fleshing out the idea of making rideshares accessible to users with barriers to mobility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018How has this not been done?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Soon after their first meeting, De Vivo began advising the company on creating sustainable growth and impact. The way Lanoix has assembled a dedicated team that \u201cgives 100%\u201d from the ground up is inspiring, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelilah has a gift to communicate her vision and share it with you and then seamlessly fit you into her mission,\u201d De Vivo said. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forrest Zhang, who leads a four-person software development division at Butterfli as the company\u2019s chief technology officer, said Lanoix puts a great deal of trust into her coworkers. Since meeting La- noix through mutual acquaintances about five years ago, Zhang said he\u2019s come to appreciate her strong sense of direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the visionary, and I\u2019m the executor,\u201d said Zhang, whose team is creating an artificial intelligence agent that will answer users\u2019 frequently asked questions and help them book rides. \u201cShe\u2019s not micromanaging at all; in fact, it\u2019s quite the opposite of her style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Partnerships are paramount<\/p>\n
In the years since Butterfli\u2019s debut, major rideshare platforms Uber and Lyft have both introduced specialized services for riders with physical disabilities. These include the Uber WAV feature for motorized wheelchairs and wheelchair-accessible Lyft Assisted rides with door-to-door help.<\/p>\n
But mainstream apps aren\u2019t really a source of competition for Butterfli, Lanoix said. The company partners with Uber on some of its WAV rides and has stepped in to do the same for Lyft in the past when demand for accessible rides on the platform has outstripped supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cUber and Lyft had both tried to tackle the issue, but the problem with them was that they wanted to deal directly with the driver,\u201d De Vivo said. \u201cThere\u2019s too much compliance, and there\u2019s too much work to make sure that the customer gets what they need, because the needs are so var- ied and so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butterfli\u2019s agnostic approach to serving neighborhoods across L.A. County also gives it a leg up. Rideshare apps\u2019 WAV coverage tends to cluster around densely populated areas, De Vivo said, so riders living outside of central L.A. and the San Fernando Valley might face longer wait times.<\/p>\n
Ensuring rides are not only physically accessible but also affordable has been a core tenet at Butterfli since its founding, Lanoix said, and remains so as the company charts an expansion into northern California, Florida and Texas.<\/p>\n
Since 2018, Butterfli has offered local residents with disabilities up to a dozen $2 rides per month through the state-funded Access for All program administered by L.A. Metro. It also ran a partnership with the L.A. Urban League, supported by a grant from Honda, for free WAV rides under the LA Navigate Together program.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We\u2019re) really trying to figure out how we can serve our customers and connect them with the programs that can help cover that extra mile,\u201d De Vivo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Delilah Lanoix fell into the business of helping people get from point A to point B by chance.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[162435,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-405038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-butterfli","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}