Millenium Marketer

Zipcar, a web-based car rental company, went public on Thursday, and the company valuation crossed the $1B mark!

Although Zipcar is not quite making a profit, I like their business model. I was a member last year for about 6 months, and used it several times during that time period.

So, what’s so different about Zipcar?

1) Membership system
As a member, you get an all-inclusive per hour rental. The membership includes gas, insurance, rental, so basically everything when you need to get from point A to point B. There is no additional insurance, no necessary add-ons, no extra frills. Dead simple. You pay per hour, and that’s it.

To contrast this, I’ll share one of my personal experiences as an example. Last time I rented a car (in Europe), I booked and pre-paid a week-long car rental online. Little did I know! When I returned the car, I got a receipt that listed many other surcharges and fees that doubled the original cost of the rental! And that was without the insurance…

2) Web-based system
Zipcar’s cars are parked in various random locations, and you find them out through the web. Once the car is reserved, you just show up, swipe your card and start driving. You don’t talk to anyone. There’s no one around. It’s that simple.

Now, imagine the typical car rental agency, with offices and a private parking lot in an urban setting, where real estate is priced at a premium. They usually have a private gate, where a clerk lets you through. The guy at the counter shows you a combination of 26 different cost options for insurance and gadgets. Any value added? No, and in addition, there is a high real estate cost that is tagged on to the price of your rental ticket.

***

Zipcar started out in college campuses, where the density of potential drivers is high, and people don’t necessarily have a car. At Stanford, I suppose they were received like celebrities on the red carpet, as Stanford strongly supports alternative commutes than car. Those who take the train, then have to go run a quick errand off-campus can easily just pick up one of those Zipcars.

Then Zipcars started appearing in dense urban areas, e.g. SF / NYC, where drivers don’t necessarily want to own a car. At this point, it seems like their members are strong converts to the Zipcar business model, and that number is growing. Although they may face competition from the older companies such as Avis or Enterprise, the membership model may help them retain more customers.

Overall, I think they have an interesting model. It’s not a business travel rental car company. It’s about letting people drive without having to own and maintain a car. In an urban setting, it’s perfect. No need to find a parking spot or rent a garage spot.

As Zipcar will increase their presence, they may be able to convert more people to adopt their model. I personally stopped using it some time ago, because 1) cars weren’t close enough; I would have to drive to the nearest zipcar, so 2) I didn’t want to pay for membership if I could only seldom use it.

Looking forward, their low-cost structure may help them move past their competitors. Who knows, we may even see the Netflix /Blockbuster story repeat itself again with Zipcar…

Your opinion?

Contributed by Dany

Recently, I’ve been writing more for TriplePundit. It’s forcing me to think really critically about business and sustainability. I love the feeling of talking to people about the subjects that matter, too.

If you want to find my old articles you can go to the Triple Pundit website and click my name. but before that check out this article I wrote about Starbucks.

I wrote about Starbucks just a few weeks ago, questioning whether America’s best loved coffeehouse is greenwashing. My opinion is a little more middle of the road now.

“We’re aggressively pursuing strategies that address this problem to mitigate and reduce the impact of our global environmental footprint,” Hanna tells TriplePundit, (because climate change poses a threat to their coffee business.) While I admire Starbucks for being so vocal about what they are doing…no one can deny that Starbucks is the 800 pound gorilla in the room…The Cup Summit was a fascinating case study with lots of academic talk about “systems thinking,” but let’s get serious: a company like Starbucks with so much power has huge potential to do better.

4/29/2010 UPDATE: The article was featured on the Starbucks Gossip blog. One comment on the subject: “Just from purely financial and stocking point of view this is a waste, How often in the summer do you call around to find Iced Venti cups?”
Also interesting: some baristas point out that baristas are also partly responsible for this waste because their free drinks on breaks are also in paper and plastic.

3P got 24 tweets on this particular subject. That’s a lot of eyeballs and I’m humbled to be part of such a network.

Also: interesting perspective FOR Starbucks on a blog about accountability and profitability.

OK I admit it.

I’ve been kind of out of it. There should have been fresh posts here since January 1st. Well, the truth is, while blogging isn’t perfect, the perfectionist in me doesn’t want you to see half-baked ideas randomly thrown on a page. I am thinking strategy, so if I am quiet, that’s a good thing because you probably don’t want to see what it looks like in my head.

So, apparently I can’t write as fast as I can think.

Even though the inauguration is tomorrow, I’ve had my mind on other issues, mainly cows, pigs, chickens and manure.
Yes, you’ve read that correctly: manure. I’ve been working on an event to appease a different part of my brain and stomach: the culinary arts, business and the environment.

I’ve recently learned that manure is causing a huge economic problem, called “externalities” where local communities in the US are suffering because of excessive quantities of manure due to dairy cows and mass meat production. And no, cows do not sing happily in green pastures.

So, what’s a girl to do about it?

In the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to learn more about where food comes from. The seed of thought was planted by CleanFish CEO Tim O’Shea months ago during an impassioned interview on TriplePundit.com. It took me a while to convince the President of Net Impact Silicon Valley to move on this issue, but we’re finally there!

If you are local to the SF Bay Area, come meet us at Bistro 413 on Emerson Street on January 28 for a deep look at entrepreneurship, food ethics and eating local.

I think you will be shocked by the origins of your food, but I would hope that would not stop you from having a good appetite–there will be hors d’oeuvres!

Until this event comes to fruition, social media and technology as a journalist’s beat is on hold. Business and management will take the front seat soon, but just hang tight….

If there are two problems that I can’t stand, it is the environmental crisis and human crisis that many are facing worldwide on so many complex levels. It affects everyone spanning North America, South America to Asia. That is why we as individuals and businesses are more responsible as ever for doing what we can to drive change in ways that may not have been thought possible.

Recently, I went up to Redwood Shores Cinemas to see a “rockumentary” that was being considered by the UN, titled “Call + Response.” (Find the movie in your area here.)

I will argue that art can inspire business ideas. In other words, if you’re not familiar with any of these issues and you are an entrepreneur looking for a cause or a new problem to solve, this movie could be one springboard for you. (It hasn’t been too long ago since the SoCap08 Conference.)

We need solutions to one of the most massive and overwhelming problems out there. None of us would want these kinds of things to happen to our children. So, if you have a business that is attempting to address problems in human trafficking or unjust supply chain, I would like to know about it.

Of course, human trafficking is not a new issue. You can never be sure if the piece of clothing you are wearing was made by a slave who works in small, confined space and forced or coerced into labor. That’s why we need transparency in the supply chain, and clarity to truly run businesses that have triple the value and a strong, humane bottom line.

Imagine, if there was a small way to buy these children an education. Send them a tutor and buy their time so that they may open their eyes to more possibility. A strong education to become better critical thinkers and why not social and environmental stewards as well?

Here are a just a few links to known (non-profit) organizations that deal with these issues, listed as resources for potential entrepreneurs and if you know of others please add them:

• Invisible Children
• End Human Trafficking
• ECPAT International

[Reposted to: TriplePundit.com]

One of the big themes from the West Coast Green conference last week is the idea that sustainability practices shouldn’t be separate from the goals of a business. Instead, businesses have to find innovative ways to identify a smarter business strategy which includes considerations for the environment and their communities if they want to thrive in this age of many crises political and financial.

This is a relatively new idea. Business strategists have been building business models to optimize everything, and to add yet another aspect to the already complex model can seem overwhelming.

The Creative Process
At the conference, I was intrigued by IDEO’s approach to this problem, where they make the creative process exclusively their proprietary model. This is very smart, because there have been studies done that show you cannot be in an analytical mode and move directly into creative. It takes a little bit of “warming up” before you can move into the creative line of thinking. You can read about that process on a story I wrote for TriplePundit.com called “IDEO’s Approach to the Demand Side of Sustainability.”

Politics, Economics and Renewable Energy
I was also surprised to find that the sentiment by eco-conscious politicians, particularly Al Gore and Jerry Brown at the West Coast Green closing keynotes, was that sustainable practices echoed thoughts by many that sustainability is simply a fundamental part of business that many start-ups and companies have forgotten in the mad rush for more money and short term growth.

If we are to rely on the Earth’s natural resources to create our products and support the services that we offer, then it makes a lot of sense to find resources that are renewable if we want to support ourselves in the long term and drive down the costs for our customers.

Typically, I try to keep costs (and save time!) by taking public transportation into San Francisco, Calif. when it is required. Also, face-to-face meetings with clients are limited to the most important and most crucial, and other communications is done mainly over phone and e-mail to keep communications running.

Aligning Branding Promises with Practices
The most intriguing of all the ideas to become more sustainable to me was the communication of a brand. The fundamental idea is to offer a promise to the customer where you will follow through. In these days, there is too much hype and it then becomes more and more important to set expectations for what you will do and will not do. We are in the information age where transparency is extremely important. Just as blogs need constant updating, any practices or commitments your company is making to become more eco-conscious and socially aware should be communicated to others.

In a nutshell, the business landscape has become much more complex and intertwined with politics, especially at the height of a financial crisis. It takes much more versatility for each individual to set aside time for creativity to be more productive.

The one thing human beings have not yet realized is that we are not separate from the rest of the world, which means we have to work towards understanding the complexities of the interconnections we have in business strategy, its relationship with nature and aligning our brand efforts with marketing communications.

Customers also have the right to know your internal business practices and by seeing a human side of the company, where it is not invincible or intimidating makes it much more approachable for them to ask questions and show interest.

This is the latest on TriplePundit.com: a use case for social media use in corporate social responsible organizations. Hope you like it!

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