PickupPal Blog

I have to set this up - so last weekend I went with some buddies out into the Canadian Wilderness, (Algonquin Park), to get away from things and to experience the great outdoors. The long and the short of it all is that it was at first sunny and warm and then turned cold, sometimes raining and windy. So cold and windy in fact on Monday morning I woke up in my tent after a nighttime of heavy winds and rain to hear my buddy Maher tell everyone that there was a trace of snow blowing. When you lay there in your sleeping bag with it zippered right up and your hat on your head but still cold you know that the day will be long. The trek back to Achray was a good four hours straight into the wind with a few portages along the way. The thing about paddling into the wind is that you are committed - you have to keep paddling - there is no other option but to keep digging in and slowly you get to your destination.

So you ask what does this have to do with a Startup? Well there is a many parallels to setting out on a journey and having to sometimes paddle into the wind. PickupPal started with a handshake between John and I on a sunny day in the fall. Having had a few startups in the past we both knew that saying yes to this challenge was one that you do not take lightly. I think if any of you out there reading this is interested in starting a company there are a few key things in my opinion you have to have to get it off the ground. So from my perspective this is what the key ingredients are:

1. Be passionate about what it is you are doing as a business - if you are doing it for money then I fear you will have a hard time of it all. NOTE: I even wrote a Manifesto for PickupPal at like 4:00 a.m. in the early days - here it is in all its glory - PickupPal Manifesto
2. Partner with someone in business who challenges you and pushes you out of your comfort zone;
3. Partner with someone in your personal life who believes in you and thinks you walk on water - even if you are really just treading water;
4. Conserve your cash on things that don’t matter like: fancy offices, stationary, new computers, box seats, a new car, marketing gimmicks - stuff that does not add to the bottom line;
5. Spend your cash on things that do matter like: an awesome tight team, good legal advice, targeted online advertising, good hosting services;
6. It is a startup not a Broadway Musical - hire only those that you absolutely need - not because you conserve your cash but because the team that you start with has to be tight, empowered, inspired, invested and your A team. Anyone who does not fit in or is not passionate about what you are doing - ditch them;
7. Treat every customer/member as if they are your best client - because they are - everyone wants to know that the organization they are dealing with really does care about what they have to say and if you treat them right they will in turn tell their friends and you can grow your business;
8. Have a vision and focus on it every day. I know that is so overplayed but really there are so many times when you think the road is turning when really it is just a Friday - stay the course - stay focussed - be really really good at what you are trying to do. A Family Doctor gets paid X, a Neurosurgeons gets paid 5X - both are doctors but one of them you pay for the focus and the specialization;
10. Read every one of Seth Godin’s books on marketing - seriously - if that guy does not inspire you then you should give up;
11. An the biggest one of all - Go with your Gut - your primal instinct of what you should do and really hang on to it.

So that is my advice - it is a lot like camping in the wilderness - you start out with a vision and a dream and you dig in and get it done. It is not always sunshine and it may not go the way you planned everyday but it you love what you do you will find yourself loving every minute of it even if it takes up every last minute of your day.

Good luck and go with your gut!

Cheers - Eric

NOTE: This is not groundbreaking news however it is pretty funny.

I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that PickupPal will be providing Ridesharing services for Virgin Festival Canada 2008 by Virgin Mobile in Calgary but we are also going to have a booth at the Eco-Village on site. As soon as it was decided to have the booth John Stewart, (CEO and co-founder of PickupPal), recalled that he had a display booth at his Brother’s office in Kingston. The challenge was, when was John going to come down to Ottawa some 3 hours away and drop off the booth?

We talked about going down to pick it up or possibly having it shipped but that was going to be a big hassle. Then it dawned on John – Ummm don’t we run a company that has the mantra “a global eco-friendly transportation revolution that connects drivers, passengers, and PACKAGES with the places they need to go”? Well after we laughed for a while John posted the Pickup request and sure enough the call was answered within hours and the display booth arrived safe and sound in Ottawa – right to my doorstep - safe and sound.

So the moral of this story is even if you don’t remember to use PickupPal all the time, don’t feel bad, we forget sometimes as well. I think it is because we are so conditioned to do things the old way that we sometimes forget that we now have more options available to us right under our noses!

Cheers - Eric

Eric has blogged about this issue: trust/stranger/feeling safe…In my mind, there is no way to be 100% sure that someone you are interacting with, who you have not known for a certain amount of time, is a “safe” person (for lack of a better word). At work, at the grocery store, at the park, at Uni, driving in the other car on the highway, sitting next to you on the bus, at the movies or at the symphony for that matter, we are surrounded by people we do not know. We all decide individually what we feel comfortable doing and who we feel comfortable interacting with, sometimes even talking to. We make choices everyday based on a whole series of individually-set criteria to go in one direction or another, or to do one thing and not another.

Ridesharing is not for everyone. But I think it works for a lot of people whose criteria for making the choice to share a ride with someone are met within the PickupPal community model. There are a series of tools that PickupPal provides to meet a number of these criteria (not all, but some)…
Tools such as:

• member profiles with photo
• gender preference matching
• in-system messaging
• post-ride feedback/evaluation
• five-star rating
• drive/ride statistics tracking
• community support with like-minded people
• people going to the same event/concert/festival

So with these tools to satisfy some criteria, and other personal decision-making criteria, that members may have, being met by such things as telephone conversations and /or pre-drive meetings, a lot of people (Pickuppal members) are perfectly comfortable to accept or offer rides with others members going the same way.

It is a challenge to support people to trust others and feel safe with others. And we at PickupPal, would never presume (or even try) to convince a person to trust another solely by virtue of the online community that we have created. What PickupPal does is offer a box of useful tools for its members that may (or may not) help inform their decision regarding sharing a ride/drive, it does not decide for them.

We are challenged as a society and at PickupPal to understand the trust relationship. To understand what makes another person a “stranger” (and strange/not trustworthy) and what needs to happen for someone to go from such a “stranger” to a person who you just may not know, but is worthy of your trust. What is our default position as a society? These are very interesting questions and to understand them and address them is, as I said, certainly challenging but also inspiring… At least to me.

-Suesan

I received an email today to sign a petition to put the polar bear on the US federal endangered species list. I signed it and I read on…the petition is sponsored by the We campaign (founded by Al Gore). The idea behind We is just that… “we” can make a difference. People are a force for change. We got us here, we can get us out. Yes, sign petitions for things you care about and yes, vote with your conscience. But the undercurrent of change is making personal choices to do things differently, and not necessarily a lot differently, sometimes just a little. “We” are the drops that fill the bucket.

On the We website, there is talk of turning down the heat, of turning off the lights, and of carpooling…this is what they write:

“Find a carpool buddy at least once a week. Sharing a ride to work is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on drive-time emissions. Ask around -odds are someone else is heading in the same direction already.”(source)

So say a person cannot ride with someone every day, they probably could once a week…and they could change it up, meet new people, help someone out. Because combating climate change it is as much about clean energy, renewables and leadership as it is about personal “choice”… A regular carpool may not offer enough of a choice but casual ridesharing sure does. Al Gore seems to understand that, and some people think he is a pretty smart guy.

-Suesan

Southern California…the car is king. Leading in number of cars but also in stringent vehicular emissions control, and in HOV lanes (High Occupancy meaning 2 here in Cali - not 3 like where i live). In December, Quebec decided to adopt the same emissions standards, the first territory outside of the US to do so. California is pushing the automakers, and it has some clout. No kidding!

There are a lot of cars in So Cal, Peter and I experienced our first Californian “gridlock” at the Enterprise counter at LAX: a 45 minute human traffic jam. When you see a 20+ seating area with a movie playing on the large hanging TV above the seats and 4 machine snack dispensers - that’s a pretty good sign that this place is busy! The man serving us assured us that this was the busiest Enterprise in the world. I would argue that LAX car rental agencies are the busiest in the world, that they rent more cars than anywhere and by a long shot. In Southern California you can’t get anywhere without a car - those bike lanes and wide sidewalks be damned.

At the Amusement Park we visited, the parking lots were impressive, and extensive. If you have a Volvo, you get to park in a preferred lot - nice joint advertising! It is the off season, and a Monday, so we aren’t greeted with a sea of cars driving in, and parking is a breeze. I can only imagine what it is like on a long weekend. One funny thing, the overflow parking was full..not with Park visitors whose cars did not pass muster but with brand new SUV’s - looks like a local car dealership rents space from the Park to store their cars…based on what is happening with gas prices, those SUV’s may be there a long time ( ref. Eric’s Times they are a-changing post).

If casual ridesharing is going to work, it has to work here. There are more people, more cars, more traffic and congestion, more air pollution, less public transportation than anywhere. There is a lot of carpooling but it has reached a peak, and the HOV lanes are still underused. Nobody stands to benefit more from a working casual ridesharing system than Californians. And we need it to work for Californians, cause if it works here, other places will follow.

-Suesan

It happens every second Tuesday - I take our minivan and drive my kids to Gymnastics and since I don’t normally drive the minivan when I get into it I find that it is running on fumes, [not passing judgment - just stating the facts ]. So I go and I fill it up and today I was floored by the price - $107.45 - regular Sunoco 87 gas! And as I drive away it dawns on me that at a minimum it is going to cost $2,800 a year for me to put fuel into a vehicle I don’t even enjoy driving.

There was a great article today on how the price of gas is changing the way people live. The article talks about how commuters are giving up on the extras just so they can buy gas to get to work. Transportation to many is not a luxury but a necessity and you need to get to work to make money to buy gas - something just is not right!

One final note/anecdote - my wife is going on a business trip and needs to rent a vehicle - the cheapest available vehicle is a SUV - now that is definitely a sign that “The times they are a changing”!

Cheers - Eric

As news comes in of the devastation in Burma caused by a deadly cyclone all of us here at PickupPal are deeply sadden. The current death count is estimated at 22,000 with 41,000 missing and hundreds of thousands homeless. This after trying to rebuild from the tsunami that struck the day after Christmas in 2004, how does one find the courage. Climate change and pressures from increased population are putting massive amounts of strain on our already fragile eco-system. As I sit here in my comfy chair, with my children safe at school and my Starbucks coffee I wonder how much will it take before we stand up and say enough – perhaps it has to come to my neighbourhood. The same can be said about the devastation in New Orleans – closer to home yet clouded in discussion of poor response by the government, inadequate levy design, poor emergency planning – however the real issue is what is happening to our climate.

Getting on my soap box is truly hypocritical – I know that PickupPal and ride sharing is not going to solve the climate crisis – however I do know that all of you that have joined see our environment as a priority and are taking the steps necessary to change. I applaud all of you that have gotten out of your comfy chairs and joined in for change.

On behalf of all of us at PickupPal I would like to convey our deepest sadness for the families devastated by this deadly cyclone – I encourage all of you donate to the Red Cross or any of the other organizations working to help fund the relief effort.

Respectfully - Eric

When we were in the early planning stages of PickupPal we always had the idea of having member profiles and encouraging members to post their photo. Having your photo along with your profile is actually way more important than you think. I have some statistics to back this up - of the Drivers that get accepted offers, 94% post their photos. The number of Drivers within PickupPal that have photos is currently at 41% and the number of Passengers that have photos is at 36%. So I am not a math wizard but there is a high correlation between having your photo as a Driver and having your offer accepted. It stands to reason - if you are going to accept a ride from someone you want to know what they look like first.

So this brings me to another part of this post which is that when we first designed PickupPal we thought - “Ohh we better have some way of reviewing the photos to make sure there are no offensive ones” - so we built an administration tool to do just that. To be honest before we launched we thought this might be a big issue to deal with so we built and administration tool to review all the profile pictures that are posted. Well having done it for a few months now I can truthfully say that there are very very few questionable photos. The funny thing is that I love reviewing them and approving them but so too does Suesan - our fanatical Customer Support Lead and Community Builder Super Star here at PickupPal. So I log in early in the morning to review the ones that came in over night before she gets to them - she however does it throughout the day so she sees more of you than I do. In any event - each one of them I think are great! When you are helping to build a great community like PickupPal it is such a privilege to see who is joining - as if to say welcome. I know that probably sounds really crazy but I am serious it is great to see you as you join in.

So please post your profile picture - it greatly improves your chances of getting offers and having your offers accepted, also Suesan and I really like meeting you.

Cheers - Eric

This is some general musing about being online and how to define some boundaries between ones private and public persona - it is not 100% related to PickupPal but hear me out.

For any of you that belong to a social networking site like Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Linkedin …. this list goes on, and you are over 25 then there is a real sense of trying to understand what the rules of engagement are. I read a wonderful piece called “Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics” by dannah boyd. For anyone who is interested in learning about the Social Networking psychology dannah boyd is a person you just have to follow. The reference quoted above are the notes from a talk she gave regarding the reality of today’s teenagers and how online social activity is completely integrated with their offline social activity. One of the most interesting things about all this and something that I never really grasped was how teenagers now are socializing in a completely different manner to how I socialized as a teen. With parents increased fear of the world around them at an all time high - todays teenagers are kept in doors more and if they do get out they do it under the banner of shopping or organized activities. So for teenagers the need for online social networks is huge and the rules of engagement are pretty complex. Back when I was a teenager you had your circle of friends and you hung out together and learned how to be social. The beauty was you could make a mistake - you could ask someone out or share how you felt about someone and although the word go out - it was only that - just words. Fast forward to today - if teenagers are forced to socialize online and all of their interactions are stored then the record of failure stays online for a long time and so the embarrassment has a chance to linger. So being online and having your information out there has repercussions - how profound is that really? - I am not sure but it is something to think about. All I do know is that the closest glimpse my parents ever got of what my school life was like was if they ever read the comments in my yearbook - however that was a securely hidden artifact. Today parents can check up on their children’s socializing and analyze their friends and the friends of their friends. I am a parent and I want to protect my children and make sure they are not doing anything wrong however where is the line?

To tie this back to PickupPal - Privacy and setting boundaries regarding the storage of personal information is one of those things that we struggle with and have done so since the beginning. We have been often asked that we provide the ability to let members browse around and see all the available rides out there instead of PickupPal making the selection and then contacting the driver. Some fairly angry people who believe that we are just trying to control everything and that members should be allowed to do what they want. I can understand how feeling like you are being controlled is not a great feeling - however we are trying to balance the other side of this. We ask members to sign up - provide some basic information, post a picture and specify if they choose to ride with a man or a woman or if they have no preference at all. Then we ask that they tell us where they would like to travel to. Fairly benign information - however that is my perspective and I cannot speak on behalf of all members of PickupPal and to do so I think is not my place. So for now we have some rules of engagement - such as we do the matching based on what you said you are looking for and we act on your behalf to provide you with good potential matches. However we are not here to broadcast you, your profile or your ride requests to the entire world. If someone is “on your way” then yes we make an introduction but if they are not then we hold off. Perhaps this is being too conservative on our part - I am not sure - however it seems to be a fair balance between what we said we would do and how we go about doing it.

As an aside I thought I would post this funny Facebook related video - if you use Facebook you will understand it right away. In any case it is on the edge and probably not safe for viewing at work - not for nudity or anything like that - just perhaps the language used.

Cheers - Eric