Why Alan Frei Became an Uber Eats Driver

Yes, I am a freelance Uber Eats driver.

People often think this is a joke. It is not.

When I started training for the Olympics, I quickly realized that being an athlete costs a lot of money. Trainers, gear, gym fees, travel, recovery, nutrition. Everything adds up.

As someone who runs his own business, I kept thinking: It would be great if someone paid me for my workouts.

Then it hit me. Delivering food on a bike is basically getting paid to exercise.

How I Became an Uber Eats Driver

I signed up as an Uber Eats courier, went through the paperwork, and started riding around Zurich with a backpack full of someone else’s dinner.

I make about CHF 7–8 per trip and usually around three trips per hour. That is roughly CHF 21–24 per hour for cycling through the city.

Not bad.

Of course, I probably spend too much money on coffee breaks between deliveries. So the net income is debatable.

But that was never really the point.

The point was to find a way to combine training, movement and work. Instead of paying for every workout, I found a way to get paid while moving.

Getting Paid to Exercise

For me, Uber Eats became more than a side gig.

It became a simple life hack.

I was cycling through Zurich, getting cardio, spending time outside and earning money at the same time. No complicated system. No productivity app. No optimization dashboard.

Just a bike, a backpack and an address.

Sometimes the best hacks are not complicated. They are just obvious once you see them.

What Uber Eats Taught Me About Perception

The first big lesson I learned from Uber Eats was about perception.

I once delivered food to an agency we had worked with in the past. As a client, I was important. People knew who I was. They paid attention.

As an Uber Eats driver, they did not even recognize me.

Same person. Different backpack. That was a useful reminder.

How people treat you often has nothing to do with who you are. It has a lot to do with the context they see you in.

The second lesson was about simplicity.

There is something genuinely freeing about doing simple, physical work. No emails. No calls. No meetings.

Just you, a bike and the next delivery.

I would recommend it to any founder who is overthinking everything, which is probably most founders.

Sometimes physical work clears your head better than another productivity system.

Did I Qualify for the Olympics?

No, unfortunately, I did not make it to the Olympics. You can find the whole story about it here.

But I still drive whenever the weather is good. If it is warm, not raining and I feel like moving, it is Uber Eats season.

For me, it is still one of the simplest ways to turn a workout into something useful.