Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#2HN - this was a project I built for a class at HBS (Online Economies). The class covered strategies for solving the network effects problem of a lot of online businesses. I thought it would be great to actually build one of these platforms and then try to apply the strategies discussed in class.
Looking for feedback on the app but happy to discuss strategies for cracking the chicken and egg problem....
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#3i think its a great idea... any ideas on monetizing?
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#4HN - this was a project I built for a class at HBS (Online Economies). The class covered strategies for solving the network effects problem of a lot of online businesses. I thought it would be great to actually build one of these platforms and then try to apply the strategies discussed in class. Looking for feedback on the app but happy to discuss strategies for cracking the chicken and egg problem....
thanks for sharing. out of curiosity, since you mention you are at HBS, are you a programmer as well? if not, what strategies did you use for building out the site?
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#5HN - this was a project I built for a class at HBS (Online Economies). The class covered strategies for solving the network effects problem of a lot of online businesses. I thought it would be great to actually build one of these platforms and then try to apply the strategies discussed in class. Looking for feedback on the app but happy to discuss strategies for cracking the chicken and egg problem....
The chicken and egg problem would seem to be the obvious problem with something like this. Can you broadly explain what you have in mind? I assume you're only pairing people with other Gobicab users, right?
You have the following testimonial displayed prominently: "GobiCab is so easy to use. As soon as I get off my flight, I enter in my destination and have a match by the time I arrive at the cab stand." Is that experience a fluke or is that what I'd expect to find if I used Gobicab at an airport in a random city of a million people?
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#6Looks great and it was nice to see Kimball's testimonial on the homepage (I got to Wharton and met him through his cousin who is a close friend).
Would love to see learn more about how you plan to solve chicken and egg problem.
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#7HN - this was a project I built for a class at HBS (Online Economies). The class covered strategies for solving the network effects problem of a lot of online businesses. I thought it would be great to actually build one of these platforms and then try to apply the strategies discussed in class. Looking for feedback on the app but happy to discuss strategies for cracking the chicken and egg problem....
thanks for sharing. out of curiosity, since you mention you are at HBS, are you a programmer as well? if not, what strategies did you use for building out the site?
Yes, my undergrad degree was in computer science/software engineering - so fairly easy for me to pick up iOS programming
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#8HN - this was a project I built for a class at HBS (Online Economies). The class covered strategies for solving the network effects problem of a lot of online businesses. I thought it would be great to actually build one of these platforms and then try to apply the strategies discussed in class. Looking for feedback on the app but happy to discuss strategies for cracking the chicken and egg problem....
The chicken and egg problem would seem to be the obvious problem with something like this. Can you broadly explain what you have in mind? I assume you're only pairing people with other Gobicab users, right? You have the following testimonial displayed prominently: "GobiCab is so easy to use. As soon as I get off my flight, I enter in my destination and have a match by the time I arrive at the cab stand." Is that expe…
Presumably the testimonial is part of solving the chicken-and-egg problem.
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#9i think its a great idea... any ideas on monetizing?
I mainly built it because I wanted to exist so monetization wasn't a top priority for me. That being said, I've thought of a few possibilities:
- clearly can't charge for downloading the app as its success is so network effect driven and you don't want to limit the number of users. However, you could charge for usage after some free quota. I.e. your first 10 matches are free but you pay after that per match
- provide lead generation for black cars and taxi cab associations
- targeted advertising (you know where and when someone will be, targeted local deals, etc). This seems like the least likely to work, you would need serious adoption, sales force, high CPM's, etc.
Love to hear other ideas though.
Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The chicken and egg problem would seem to be the obvious problem with something like this. Can you broadly explain what you have in mind? I assume you're only pairing people with other Gobicab users, right? You have the following testimonial displayed prominently: "GobiCab is so easy to use. As soon as I get off my flight, I enter in my destination and have a match by the time I arrive at the cab stand." Is that expe…
Presumably the testimonial is part of solving the chicken-and-egg problem.
This could be managed as an exercise in expectation management. Perhaps GobiCab could do a some sort of beta at a particular airport for a particular conference? This could actually be presented as an exclusive perk for conference goers. This exercise could generate testimonials.