Investors the world over will flock to an Uber IPO, there is little doubt of that. Ride sharing is shaping up to be the way many people use cars in the future, especially in cities and poorer countries where owning a car just doesn’t make financial sense. What has yet to be determined though, is whether the ride sharing model and companies like Lyft and Uber can actually make money at it. Right now, both companies are speeding towards an IPO and trying to iron out all the kinks that need to be taken care of before going public. That includes dealing with the many legal hurdles that cities, states, jurisdictions, and countries are putting before them which have proven to be quite formidable in some instances. Lyft is about one tenth the size of Uber and that it gets very little press compared to its bigger competitor. When you think of ride sharing, chances are you think of Uber and NOT Lyft. That is a problem and why I think Lyft should be working hard to make sure it is the first of the two to go public. Investors want desperately to buy into the “sharing” way of doing business and there aren’t any companies that they can buy stock in yet with that business model. If Lyft can find a way to be the first to IPO, they will get a tremendous amount of publicity they might not get if they go second. Being so far behind Uber in both size and reach, Lyft needs that extra boost of hype and would do wonders to drive up Lyft stock's price on that first day. Of course, it needs to be said that a rushed IPO won’t do either company any good and that might be why they are both moving a bit cautiously. Both companies would like to be profitable first and have things running as smoothly as possible which might still be a year away. Meanwhile though, investors wait with open wallets for that day in either late 2016 or 2017 when one of these two companies feels ready to make the jump.