A brilliant idea that turned 2 million to 1 billion.
This is not a paid post. I just could not stop myself from writing this.
I love to read creative idea that make it into million and billions . One of my girlfriends shared with me about how we could benefit from this Southerning (Is there such English, ie going South) economy a week ago and I was very excited about it. Well, that is another topics for another day. But, today I want to blog about these 2 brilliant women,
who at in a cafe in the fall of 1999, excited about a concept they had seen in Berlin while on vacation. Cars were parked around the city for members to drive by the hour instead of owning their own vehicles. They had a Eureka! moment (or maybe it was more like, “Duh! What an obvious idea.”) They put an American spin on it – outfitting the cars with wireless technology, creating a hassle-free reservation system and strategically placing the cars around key cities and neighborhoods. In June of 2000 the first Zipcars were on the road. The masses could now drive cars by the hour or day – on their terms.
Picture courtesy of inc.com
The concept is very easy : too many car on the road, let’s share our car 
-. And it works.
Started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now With service in Seattle, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Oakland, San Francisco, Stanford University, Pittsburgh, Toronto, London, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Vancouver, Zipcar claims to be “the world’s largest car sharing and car club provider. And of course in the university town I live, Gainesville, zipcar services can be found
Picture courtesy here.
Inc.com wrote an excellent articles on 7 right things that the CEO Scott Griffith has done to bring zipcar from 2 million the forecast 1 billion.
If you are like me, who is excited and inspired about how people who had put their ideas into business, you might find these articles about zipcar very interesting :
1. Wikipedia gives a very good summary of what zipcar was about.
2. Zipcar.com about section gives a very good history of how it was founded.
3. Inc. com highlighted how the CEO turned a 2 million company into a billion.
Enjoy !
