After the surprising feeling of disappointment at my last promotion, I quit my job of 5 years to start my own business and complete my master's at NYU - focusing on "Technologies of Cooperation."  I am creating a service that will unite my unhealthy obsessions of live music and roadtrips. It would be great to hear some feedback on this service and meet some technically savvy people to help guide my next steps. 

I'm creating a reward-based ridesharing network that uses preexisting communities to garner critical mass.  Traditional rideshare sites have struggled to achieve an extensive user base.  The major barriers to ridesharing include coordination of routes and schedules, safety risks, social discomfort with sharing what are currently private spaces, and an imbalance of costs and benefits among the affected parties.  This site will solve the coordination problem by connecting an already-established community traveling to the same event and following similar/identical schedules.  It addresses the safety problem not only by connecting users who already share similar interests, but also by posting profiles and user-generated feedback. Drivers and riders will now also have incentives to share a ride in the form of retail rewards.

 The service will consist of two components:

1)  A Facebook application for affinity-oriented events such as music festivals and industry conferences.  These groups (i.e. SF Tech Meetup group and Coachella Music Festival) already have a Facebook presence with hundreds/thousands of members who are already interacting.

2)  A standalone website which includes a section dedicated to commuters/professionals.  Partnering with various businesses will take considerable business development resources but will provide a regular user base – unlike the finite events above.

 The service will be free for individuals to use, with revenues being generated from corporate sponsors who use our unique cause-marketing sponsorships to reach highly targeted groups of consumers in a meaningful and measurable way.

This business taps into two themes:

1)    The tremendous unused capacity in private vehicles

2)    The 'green' initiatives of the events industry that, among other things, help reduce waste, offset carbon dioxide emissions, promote eco-friendly merchandise and encourage recycling.  In fact, over 80% of a concert's CO2 footprint is from fans commuting back and forth.

Looking forward to meeting you all soon.  Feel free to drop a line and say hello.

-Vikas

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