Unfortunately for Uber, its aggressive behavior in bending legislative regulations and attitude towards competitors such as Lyft and Sidecar garnered bad press and nega-tive publicity. When entering a new market, Uber's approach was to dive in and deal with the legal consequences later. In Portland, Uber began operations without the for-mal approval of the city, then went ahead with an "unsanctioned launch party" where partygoers took photos of protest signs with the hashtag#WeWantUberPDX which led to a lawsuit and nes totaling $67K. On top of that, Portland residents felt Uber's aggres-sive tactics were \"icky." 15 Uber's attitude towards its competitors was even more aggressive and question-able. It was recently discovered that Uber employees ordered rides from Lyft then canceled them to decrease Lyft drivers' availability and increase demand for Uber services instead. Lyft claimed 177 Uber employees canceled more than 5,000 rides in a year, making Uber look like a company that fought dirty and sanctioned disreputable practices to gain advantage over competitors. Customer Loyalty As of late 2015, Uber had done little to differentiate itself from competitors such as Lyft and Sidecar (Sidecar went out of business on December 31, 2015), and Uber recognized that to gain more market share and increase customer loyalty, it needed to focus more on branding. To enhance its brand, Uber created UbeerP whereby frequent riders with more than 100 rides could qualify for elite status granting them better access to drivers with high ratings. However, it was not very effective, as most drivers were rated highly so VIP status didn't really garner anything tangible for riders, leaving Uber to face the chal-lenge of creating a better, more effective customer loyalty program to encourage riders to stick with Uber rather than switching back and forth between Uber and its competitors. Operations Uber started its ride-sharing operations in San Francisco in 2010. By the end of 2014, the company's U.S. driver base had grown to 160,000 active drivers and 1 million drivers worldwide.16 Uber also operated in 59 countries and 300 cities around the globe. By early 2016, it seemed as though Uber was expanding to a new city every other day. Political Lobbying To com bat the legal issues and challenges it faced, Uber built one of the largest and most successful lobbying groups in the United States with 250 lobbyists and 29 lobby-ing rms representing Uber's interests in major states throughout the United States.17 Rather than accepting the status quo or waiting for governments to change legislation incrementally, Uber aggressively challenged outdated regulations, oftentimes launching in a new city without approval from the local government as a way of pushing for its agenda to be addressed more quickly. Mobile App The intuitive simplicity of Uber's mobile app was one of Uber's greatest strengths, allowing riders to order a car with just two simple clicks and use GPS to see the physi-cal location of the car and the expected wait time with ease, adding utility and value for the customers. Further simplicities included knowing exactly how much the ride would cost ahead of time as pricing was transparent, and saving credit cards to accounts so riders did not have to worry about having cash or tipping. In addition, the app allowed riders to communicate directly with drivers