Blink Rides

In October 2018, Lana Kitto attended a conference in San Diego, CA. Venturing out in her business attire, high heels included, Kitto discovered rentable scooters to tour the city. “I decided to download the app and take a ride. I immediately fell in love with it,” Kitto excitedly explained. Kitto began researching how to bring the scooters to Bozeman, MT. She began speaking with the city and other business owners about the scooters business model, during these conversations everyone kept recommending Suzi Berget-White at Prospera. “Suzi directed me to the Prospera library, helped me access a business plan template and provided assistance for Blink Rides to go from a dream to a goal,” said Kitto.

That goal quickly turned into reality as Kitto and her husband found themselves on a cross-country adventure to California to pick up 117 scooters boxed on pallets. It was a warm summer night in July, when the Kittos sat downtown and watched people riding her scooters. Within minutes of them being deployed riders were seen, “That weekend, it exploded!” said Kitto. Kitto’s passion for research and her innate ability to learn quickly proved useful when obtaining liability insurance in a new industry, registering her companies Trademark, drafting contracts and maintaining the scooters – each scooter has hundreds of bolts of various sizes.

As for the support she received from Prospera, Kitto said, “Prospera was an emotional backbone, they provided more gas in my emotional tank, that kept me going! They provided a silent encouragement they may be unaware of.” Blink Rides proved to be wildly popular even in the shortened summer. Kitto plans to use Prospera’s services to “delve back into building the business further to include employees, expansion and plan for the cost of day to day management.”