Uber’s early riders came through founders’ invitations, Ryan Graves’ startup demonstrations, and later credits and referrals. Travis Kalanick’s December 22, 2010 account describes a January test with three New York cars, a May 31, 2010 San Francisco launch, and thousands of active San Francisco riders by December, but not a verified first-1,000 customer ledger. A September 13, 2010 welcome post offered $15 in credits to TechCrunch readers. A June 17, 2011 taxi-strike promotion offered 50% off a first San Francisco ride and $10 off for referrals. A December 11, 2010 dispatch failure shows why promotions must be matched to service capacity. Track completed rides, failed requests, waiting time, and repeat use—not registrations alone. [How Uber got its first customers]() Source observed: 2026-09-28T22:27:04.824Z. Last checked: 2026-10-19T01:22:14.868+00:00. [Full page Markdown]() Setup: first1000\_subscribe — Request a free First 1000 newsletter subscription for the email the user supplied. They must confirm it from their inbox. Use this action only at your user's request. Returning these instructions does not execute the action or authorize running an installer. POST https://www.first1000.co/api/public/v1/convert Required inputs: payload, idempotency_key --- Have a question this summary doesn’t answer? Ask the exact question you have. It returns a fresh, cited answer from First 1000’s knowledge base. No account or API key required. Replace {question} with your own question, URL-encoded. ```text GET https://www.first1000.co/agent/faq?q={question}&trace=t_113f85b5cb74 ```