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Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

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Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#11

Post by stcredzero »

alooPotato wrote: post #2

HN - 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....

alooP, a perfect way to crack the chicken/egg problem would be to offer a "beta" of this service at particular conferences as an exclusive conference perk. This provides you with a high population of people arriving in the same time period, all going to the same place. The fact that it's a beta can be used to manage the expectations. It could also be used to generate a lot of testimonials.

I have been talking to a startup which is targeting such conferences. Send my username email at gmail dot com.

--SCZ

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#14

Post by ajju »

alooPotato wrote: post #13
ajju wrote: post #12

Looks great. Did you also do the design work?

I did the UI design myself but paid ~$300 for the actual graphics (image buttons, icons, backgrounds, logo, etc.).

It is excellent work, both the UI and the graphics.

If you don't mind recommending the designer, I'd love to know who did it.

With regards to getting more users, you should at least look into how much it would cost to buy keywords such as "cab sharing" that are targeted to iOS devices. This is a purely anecdotal datum but I don't see any ads when I search for cab sharing on Google so there may not be much competition.

The key question is how you can make enough revenue per user to justify acquisition costs.

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#15

Post by oostevo »

alooPotato wrote: post #13
ajju wrote: post #12

Looks great. Did you also do the design work?

I did the UI design myself but paid ~$300 for the actual graphics (image buttons, icons, backgrounds, logo, etc.).

I'll second the call to hear who the designer is, if you don't mind sharing.

Actually... could you outline your process of finding the designer? What was the workflow like? Did you send him your .nib files and let him go to town, or did you send him screenshots, or what?

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#16

Post by alooPotato »

stcredzero wrote: post #11
alooPotato wrote: post #2

HN - 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....

alooP, a perfect way to crack the chicken/egg problem would be to offer a "beta" of this service at particular conferences as an exclusive conference perk. This provides you with a high population of people arriving in the same time period, all going to the same place. The fact that it's a beta can be used to manage the expectations. It could also be used to generate a lot of testimonials. I have been talking to a st…

Yes this is one class of mobilization of a network effect business - exploit irregular network topologies. In our case that means targeting areas with high trip density (defined as locations where people are all leaving by cab to nearby destinations).

So not only do we want to try and target specific cities, but also specific landmarks within those cities where this will be ultimately useful. We've identified two of these - airports and college campuses. We are working with Boston Logan airport to see if we can do some co-marketing with them and advertise to all the passengers arriving on flights and in the cab stand. As for colleges, there are a lot here in Boston! Its just a matter of reaching out to the right student associations and newspapers who can recommend the service to their students. Any connections here would be greatly appreciated!

I've never thought of the conference idea before, I wonder if cabs a re a primary mode of transportation there or not. I'll contact you offline for more info....

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#17

Post by stcredzero »

alooPotato wrote: post #16
stcredzero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

alooP, a perfect way to crack the chicken/egg problem would be to offer a "beta" of this service at particular conferences as an exclusive conference perk. This provides you with a high population of people arriving in the same time period, all going to the same place. The fact that it's a beta can be used to manage the expectations. It could also be used to generate a lot of testimonials. I have been talking to a st…

Yes this is one class of mobilization of a network effect business - exploit irregular network topologies. In our case that means targeting areas with high trip density (defined as locations where people are all leaving by cab to nearby destinations). So not only do we want to try and target specific cities, but also specific landmarks within those cities where this will be ultimately useful. We've identified two of…

One thing I'll point out: co-incidence in time alone is going to have a greater effect on user-populations and the ability to effect a match than location alone, though both are important, naturally. (Gedankenexperiment -- which is more of a stretch, time match being a stretch or location match being a stretch?) By targeting events, you have high densities of coincidence for both.

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#18

Post by alooPotato »

oostevo wrote: post #15
alooPotato wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the UI design myself but paid ~$300 for the actual graphics (image buttons, icons, backgrounds, logo, etc.).

I'll second the call to hear who the designer is, if you don't mind sharing. Actually... could you outline your process of finding the designer? What was the workflow like? Did you send him your .nib files and let him go to town, or did you send him screenshots, or what?

I actually think I got fairly lucky on the designer front. I think I it was successful because:

1) I already had the general UI layout I wanted 2) I was very specific on what I wanted (from color schemes to font sizes, etc) 3) Iterated very quickly - since I outsourced the work and they were in India, I would stay up late to be on the same schedule as they were and give them sub 5 min feedback whenever they sent out a design

Here was my general process:

1) Wrote the server code, agnostic of client

2) Started writing UI code in in Objective C. This was a mix of programmatic UI code and interface builder. But I designed the UI from scratch, didn't really do mockups just coded directly and refined by testing on device (imagining where I would have pretty graphics in place).

3) Recruited a designer on elance based on their portfolio. I would send you the link but they no longer seem to be active on eLance.

4) Sent them screenshots of my current ugly design plus detailed spec of exactly what I needed on each screen (i.e. background, a logo, buttons, icons, etc). If you are interested I can send you the spec I sent them (aleem.mawani at g m a i l)

5) Made sure they sent me high rez PSD files of the screens they designed.

6) Used photoshop to export individually the layers I needed. This was the most painful part.

7) Plugged those images into IB or code directly.

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#19

Post by cme »

Solving the chicken an egg problem could be difficult, you may try partnering up with car services or cab companies

You could look into car services instead of cabs..some times these types of services will have specific routes/destinations planned..making it easier to match people up..a possible problem is people not wanting to share a car service though.

You could also look into partnering up with cab services that constantly service airports. you could set it up where someone could use your app to set up a cab ride prior to taking off at another airport. That way cabbies will have passengers set up, instead of having to sit and wait. you could pair people up who are coming in at similar times to share the cabs.

Just thinking out loud. I'd love to talk to you more about the app, I've been looking into developing an idea that involves pairing people up to share cost. (not related to your idea)

Re: Show HN: My "semester" project: cab sharing made easy

#20

Post by alooPotato »

cherif wrote: post #6

Looks 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.

Another way we have discussed solving the mobilization challenge in addition to the one I listed above, is to proved so e standalone value of the app in the absence of having critical mass.

For example, a primary benefit of the app is that it saves users money. One thing to do is offer users discounted cab fares if they dont get a match. In order to do this you would partner with cab/black car companies and charge them a lead gen fee for customers using gobicab. Instead of collecting that fee though, you pass it onto consumers in the form of savings or a discounted ride. So either way, if the user finds a match or not, they will receive a cheaper cab ride.

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