Inside Upway: Leading Upway’s New York Operations Team
Written by: Dan Korman | May 8, 2025 | Time to read 5 min
What makes Upway’s great e-Bike team tick? Behind every smooth ride is an operations crew fueled by culture, clarity, and relentless drive.
More about the Author: Dan Korman, Operations Lead for NY
Dan has global roots— born in Belgium, and raised across Israel, Belgium, Spain, and the US. Before joining Upway, he spent over six years at Uber, where he started in sales, became City Manager for Uber Eats in NYC, and later led Uber Direct’s Specialized Delivery team across North America. Now, he’s helping scale Upway’s US operations as the Operations Lead for NY. Outside of work, you’ll probably find him on a soccer field, going for a run, or squeezing in a workout.
Positive culture is essential
Team expectations keep us motivated
As they say, rules are meant to be broken. Expectations, however, are something to always strive for. As the Operations Lead, I set up certain expectations that are designed to support our work and keep the team motivated and organized. There are a few things that are non-negotiable: show up on time, be respectful, pay attention to detail, keep things clean and organized, and work safely. That is the baseline and additional expectations grow them there.
We run a physical flow business, meaning that if people aren’t focused, we’ll fall behind fast. It can be easy to get caught up in the speed and constant motion of the work, but the biggest thing, however, is mindset. We say that every bike in the warehouse counts. It’s like a team sport. We fight for every point— score more points, and we win.
At Upway, we deeply care about each other and understand the importance of strong teamwork. Combined with the motivation to settle and to always keep improving, we’re always striving for more together.
Establish strong systems and habits
I know firsthand the importance of creating integrated systems and strong habits to provide structure for the team. We run daily stand-up meetings, which are quick, focused, and actionable. We also use live dashboards for productivity and efficiency metrics, so numbers are always visible and real. Each role has a checklist, and we structure the days so that it flows from one zone to the next. We also have leads for specific functions— they're in the nitty gritty every day, making sure we’re staying on track and following the process, keeping the standard high.
Clarity and learning from mistakes
At one point, we also struggled with being clear enough on targets— not enough daily goals and not enough live metrics. And if we’re calling our hard work a team sport, but no one knows the score, that’s a problem. To me, a big part of culture is training people well, holding them to a high standard, and keeping them accountable for output. It’s less about being strict and more about being clear. That’s when things start to click in the team, and you notice big gains.
When culture’s working, people push without being told and there’s pride in doing things right. It’s counterintuitive, but I think that with more clarity and discipline, days are much less tense rather than more strained. Team members step in to train a new hire without being prompted, and they’ll go above and beyond on quality inspections— these small examples make you feel proud, and you know that the team is working at its best.
My advice for running an OPs team
- Don’t ask someone to do something you don’t understand or wouldn’t do yourself. Unboxing bikes, cleaning bikes, packing bikes, and every task of the warehouse.
- Little things aren’t little. Details such as where people stand, how tools are set up, and how you start the morning are part of our structure and habits— it all compounds.
- Never assume people know what “good” looks like. You have to show them. Set a good example and help them understand the high standard that we are aiming for.
- Don’t be afraid of structure. Rules don’t hold people back— they free them up from confusion or unclear goals. When the expectations are clear, people move faster and with more pride.
Final Thoughts
In the end, we all know that there’s no magic formula. What we do every day at the UpCenter is simple on paper but far from easy. Even though Upway customers rarely see how we work, they can feel it because how we operate shows up in the final product.
“Operations” is invisible until it fails. When it’s working, it’s one of the strongest muscles in the company. But when even something small goes wrong, you feel it immediately. Positive culture, strong habits, and clear expectations keep our team running as the powerful engine behind the scenes.
