Introduction
Robin Chase is known for her business model of Zipcar development. This company was created together with her partner Antje Danielson. Zipcar is considered to be a complex form of car sharing developed by two entrepreneurs, who wanted to help people in owning a car for some occasional purposes, not for constant usage or every day work. Chase and Danielson strived to provide people with “freedom to travel” without any limitations.
Main Text
Chase started the development of her project with the presentation of the business plan aimed at the attraction of the investors. In September 2000 Chase reached marvelous results in the promotion of her idea among investors and managed to increase funding in many US cities. She had to appoint a person to be the leader of the team and bring credibility to it. They found a man to be the president in order to bring expertise to the team. Zipcar faced great difficulties connected with:
- A great sum of money was spent for too detailed tasks, lunches and parking;
- The president put down to work only on the later-stage company putting no procedures to place.
Steps taken by Chase ran like following:
- She decided to cut losses with the help of the advisors meetings and legal counsels;
- Chase had to fire the president of the project who was unable to promote strategies and develop right analytical data.
In October 2000 the number of vehicles was completely increased and the cars were widely distributed which allowed to develop new technologies and get additional funding for the company.
The potential ventures and the progress made by Chase brought success to Zipcar. Chase managed to raise more than $1 million and began to promote her car sharing on the major markets. She collected all the necessary financial and business data which helped her to understand parameters and principles of company running and business success. Her venture forum was widely spread and Chase had to provide a company presentation at the Springboard conference.
1999 in the development of the company was devoted to the working out of the market research, creation of the business plan and establishing new methods of budget creation. The qualification and skills of Chase helped her to create the company at the beginning of 2000, developing her own web site to promote her company. Chase was familiar with car industry that is why she decided to concentrate on the car industry relationships. In 2000 Chase’s business model was put in practice and successfully worked in major cities of the state.
Robin Chase tried to attract more investors to support her project by means of Springboard forums and effective presentations. They had to involve funding for them to start building technology platform. Her main purpose was to direct potential consumers to her new company web site. She managed to prove that there was a great demand for her service especially talking about North American marketplace. Her presentations and forum showed the process of making smart money developing this technological sphere.
References
Zipcar: refining the business model (Havard Business School 9-803-096; 2005).