The Strategy Behind Robin Chase's Zipcar a Car Sharing Start-up Essay

Zipcar was founded in 2000 in Boston by Robin Chase and Antje Danielson, although the majority of the start-up process was in the hands of Chase. Zipcar is a "short-term, on-demand private car service" (pg. 3) replicated from similar businesses in Western Europe, where users can rent cars in order to satisfy their everyday transportation needs. The current Harvard Business School case details the brief, but storied history of financing the start-up and proving the business model. Chase makes a number of assumptions (1) customers will be college-educated, web-connected individuals (2) Boston will be the ideal location due to insufficient parking and good public transportation and (3) the market will be entirely unsaturated due to few competitors. However, Chase was quickly forced to adjust and refine a number of her initial hypotheses as Zipcar began to take off, namely the pricing model. Glenn Urban gave Chase perhaps the best advice regarding Zipcar "you have to do this at twice the speed, and think twice as big" (pg. 2). Although the idea of organized car sharing was relatively new to the United States when Chase launched Zipcar, it was already a profitable business in countries like Switzerland, Germany and Netherlands. And, companies such as Cr-Sharing Inc. in Portland and Flexcar in Seattle or CommunAuto in Canada were also already operating and renting short-term cars to the public. Chase's timing was ideal and the eastern coast was still virtually untouched. Furthermore, competition was scarce. Traditional car rentals contained too much hassle in gaining access to a car and were too expensive. Zipcar fixed the problem by emphasizing convenience and cost effectiveness. All Chase had to do was offer the same service as traditional car rentals, but quicker and cheaper. I think the barriers for entry into the car-sharing industry are low. The biggest barrier for the start-up was building the technological base, by which users can book and access a car, and in turn the company...

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