After failing as a city-wide transit solution, the moving walkway found its perfect product-market fit in airports, solving the specific pain point of long treks through ever-expanding terminals created by the jet age.
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Founders can waste time trying to force an initial idea. The key is to remain open-minded and identify where the market is surprisingly easy to sell into. Mercor found hypergrowth by pivoting from general hiring to serving the intense, specific needs of AI labs.
The moving walkway’s popular debut at World's Fairs typecast it as an amusement ride, creating a "magnificently impractical" reputation that prevented government officials from taking it seriously for major urban infrastructure projects like the Brooklyn Bridge.
While often no faster than walking, iconic moving walkways like Chicago O'Hare's succeed by transforming a tedious journey into a "transportive and calming" experience. This demonstrates the high value of experiential design in otherwise utilitarian public infrastructure.
The decline of moving walkways isn't just about cost or inefficiency. Airports now function like malls, where the business model relies on passengers lingering and spending money, making rapid transit through corridors counterproductive.
Elysian Aircraft's strategy targets regions like the U.S. and Nordic countries where building high-speed rail is infeasible. By leveraging hundreds of existing, underutilized airports, they can create new, efficient short-haul routes, representing a path of least resistance for new transport infrastructure.
After failing to compete with trains, the moving walkway's first successful permanent installation was in a Jersey City train station. It proved its value not as a primary transit mode but as a micro-mobility tool to enhance an existing system by solving the 'last 100 yards' problem.
A visionary founder must be willing to shelve their ultimate, long-term product vision if the market isn't ready. The pragmatic approach is to pivot to an immediate, tangible customer problem. This builds a foundational business and necessary ecosystem trust, paving the way to realize the grander vision in the future.
