A Lean Startup methodology was first proposed by Eric Ries. It is based on a business-hypothesis-driven experimentation model supported by iterative product releases to meet customer needs and reduce market risks, funding, and failures. One such Lean startup is OpenRide. It is a social experience and community -based ridesharing for long distance commutes. Their value proposition is that they make the journey better by matching like-minded travelers and reshape how people can get around the country. The founders of this start-up bonded over their technical backgrounds and love of travel and adventure. The idea first emerged from the lack of long distance ridesharing options that they experienced themselves. Further exploration revealed similar frustrations amongst peers, friends, and family. This was followed by a more comprehensive research, both primary and secondary. Based on their rich technical expertise, scarce available resource, collaboration with a third founder, and other potential connections, they decided to go lean in mid-2015. The design for a minimal viable product was thus initiated to come up with a business model canvas for an untapped potential in the long distance ridesharing industry. In a lean startup methodology, Blank suggests that customer feedback matters more than secrecy and that constant feedback yields better results than cadence unveilings.
I volunteered with the OpenRide team as a marketing intern from January-March 2015 and contributed to their first round of customer development by promoting the usefulness amongst campus students and at the same time getting their feedback. It was a great platform for my career transition as well. The first live version with basic features of ride searching and posting was promoted in Bay Area university campuses, local businesses off campus, online social networks, etc. The focus was to clearly communicate the value proposition and the vision that differentiated us and to achieve this at negligible or minimum cost structure. The first few months of its operation tasted some success, some setbacks and revealed several other iterative ideas. The last one was particularly useful. The active users steadily grew.
The very first setback was that of a deadlock situation where a demand for the ride could not be fulfilled at a time when it was searched for and later on the same ride was posted but there were no taker or search actions triggered. This was resolved by introducing a wait list option where the user gets notified when the wait listed demand is being fulfilled by any ride poster or ride taker. A set of common concerns that emerged frequently during customer development were answered by incorporating a simple and easy to understand FAQs section on the website. The other new and interesting ideas that surfaced and was gradually implemented were rides based on popular festivals or concerts, freedom for a user to create their own group page for a mini network within OpenRide network, alignment of frequent rides such as the Bay Area to SoCal, NY to Chicago, etc.
The major breakthrough was when they realized the potential of the Pokemon Go phase and gave their solution model a whole new angle by developing Pokemapper. Instead of randomly walking the street, players could now play smart using this tool. The founders employed their expertise in mapping, data logging and location records to create a solution which in turn converted their side project into a big content marketing launch resulting in one million miles of ride inventory in just the first six months of their operation.
Recently, one of my colleague shared with me his experience of ridesharing on another emerging platform. He ended up identifying a great job opportunity for his brother. I believe that it will be interesting for OpenRide to expand their positioning from social network to a career network. With exciting things happening in the industry such as self-driven cars, a long term positioning plan in sync with these technologies will be an interesting angle to further explore.
