The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [5]
learning to conjugate Zip.
Zipcar’s founding wasn’t always a smooth ride. First, the pair had to face down the doubters. When they pointed to the runaway success of car sharing in Switzerland, potential funders were dismissive. “Now car sharing seems commonplace,” Robin says. “But at the time the venture capitalists told us, ‘Well, that’s the Swiss, but it will never work here.’” Ironically, many years later she would hear from a business group in Paris: “Sure, that works fine in America, but it will never take off in France.”
Zipcar’s first car was a brand-new VW Beetle, a model that had just reentered the market. The company founders deliberately picked brands different from those the rental car companies supplied, and gave each car a name. They dubbed that first Beetle “Betsy.” The name was practical for identifying an individual vehicle, and helped bond the customers with the car and brand. They called their customers “Zipsters” and gave each a membership “Zipcard,” a hip-looking, wallet-size plastic card. They made sure the cars were clean, well maintained, well located, and in every way reliable. And from early on, Zipcar grew at a brisk pace, and acquired competitors. It invested in Avancar in Spain, and took over Streetcar in the U.K., to become the fastest-growing car-sharing network in Europe. Zipcar based this success on a simple formula: Create an easy and efficient way for people to share cars rather than own them. The service is convenient, fast, and affordable.
it’s about information, not transport.
The company’s founding team included Roy Russell, who is Robin’s husband, as the tech lead. Russell designed the IT infrastructure, which was built to scale up, yet excruciatingly attentive to every detail of marketing, technology, and operations. The details included things like how and when the cars would be washed, finding and negotiating just the right parking spots at the right cost, and figuring out the basic rules that drivers would find reasonable, and honor. The robust information platform and focus on building the brand distinguished Zipcar from early car-sharing companies that were merely long on good intentions, many of which failed.
In fact, Zipcar is primarily an information business that happens to share cars. The company collects information about who is using the car, and when, how, and where it’s being used. That data makes the business work and generates the greatest value. As the number of people using Zipcar grows, the collected data enables the company to better know specific groups of customers, defined by demographics or location. That in turn creates opportunities to extend the brand to, say, bikes or clothes. Other services can be offered directly by the car-sharing company or its partners. Over time, Zipcar has developed partnerships with food and wine, hotel, fitness, and even ink cartridge recycling companies. Ancillary services might include traffic and transit advice, restaurant reservations, suggested local events, or help in finding gear for your journey. In Portland, Zipcar has outfitted a couple dozen of their cars with bike racks, and partnered with state and national parks to offer free passes.
Each new service creates opportunities to grow with like-minded business partners. As this “ecosystem” of businesses grows, the network delivers better, more personalized services to customers. And when customers appreciate the service, they tell their friends. Zipcar has built a brand, challenged formerly entrenched business models, and helped create a new category in personal transportation. A measure of its success is that Hertz, Enterprise, and Daimler have all launched car-sharing services. But Zipcar remains the largest car-sharing company, and recently filed an initial public offering for raising additional funds to scale the service.
my date with mini mucho.
Although Zipcar appealed to me as an entrepreneur, I always want to understand a business from the perspective of a customer. What will it take to win me over and keep me