force Robin out. Antje left Zipcar in January of 2001.
The competition heats up
With Boston taking to Zipcar, Robin turned her attention to the first expansion market, Washington, DC. It turned out to be a tough market to crack. Timing was bad: the launch came two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, which sent the capitol into a media maelstrom and a psychological depression. Three months later, rival Flexcar entered the market, making DC the first US city with competing car sharing companies.
Worse, Flexcar won key car sharing parking spots in an open-bid contract with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Robin recalls it as “the first bad thing that ever happened” to Zipcar. While DC had ample parking and Zipcar easily found spaces, the Washington Metro also gave Flexcar valuable free marketing on the subway in addition to the parking spaces. The two competitors would duke it out in DC and other markets for years.
Robin continued to run Zipcar as it expanded into its third market, New York, in early 2002 and began to pilot relationships with universities in towns outside major cities. In September, after having spent grueling months setting up a $7 million funding round, Robin saw the deal fall apart at the final hour. She spent that fall regrouping in order to successfully raise $4 million. By the end of it, Robin was “100 percent wrecked. I didn’t have an ounce of energy left.” The board wanted fresh blood, and named former Boeing executive Scott Griffith the company’s new CEO.
When she departed in February 2003, Robin recalls, the company’s run rate was $2.5 million, and it had grown into the largest car sharing company in North America. Under Griffith’s leadership, Zipcar would continue its rapid expansion, forgoing profits in order to reinvest in the business to reach more markets ahead of its competitors. Sales shot from nearly $31 million in 2006 to more than $186 million in 2010.
“The interesting thing to me is that Zipcar is an idea someone else had,” Robin says, reflecting on the company’s success. “We just executed it better. My goal was to be the dominant nationwide and global player and to transform transportation and urban life. In fact, we did.”
A Zipcar car pictured against the NYC skyline.
Where are they now?
In 2007, Zipcar acquired archrival Flexcar for an undisclosed sum.
Today, Zipcar is the car sharing industry leader. The company went public in April 2011 in a $200 million IPO, of which Zipcar netted $117 million. By early 2012, it operated more than 9,000 cars and had over 650,000 members. The company has programs that help large corporations and governments meet energy reduction goals by using Zipcar. In all, the company raised over $61 million in private funding prior to its IPO.
The company continues to be unprofitable on a full-year basis, though it had a profitable third quarter in 2011. In 2010 Zipcar acquired London car sharing firm Streetcar Limited and in 2011 exercised rights to buy Spain’s Avancar.
After leaving Zipcar at the end of 2000, Antje became a principal in the environmental consulting business Ecochange. She is the administrative director of Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE). She also serves on the sustainability advisory board of GreenerU, a Massachusetts company that helps college campuses use less energy.
Since leaving Zipcar, Robin has founded two other companies (GoLoco and Buzzcar) and serves on several advisory boards for the US government, the International Transport Forum and the World Resources Institute.
eBay
Buying power
Founder: Pierre Omidyar
Age of founder: 28
Background: Software engineer
Founded in: 1995
Headquarters: San Jose, California
Business type: Online auction site
Fifteen dollars might seem an insignificant amount, but it was the sum of money that sparked the business known today as eBay, the global auction site with $11.7 billion in revenue.
Founder Pierre
The competition heats up
With Boston taking to Zipcar, Robin turned her attention to the first expansion market, Washington, DC. It turned out to be a tough market to crack. Timing was bad: the launch came two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, which sent the capitol into a media maelstrom and a psychological depression. Three months later, rival Flexcar entered the market, making DC the first US city with competing car sharing companies.
Worse, Flexcar won key car sharing parking spots in an open-bid contract with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Robin recalls it as “the first bad thing that ever happened” to Zipcar. While DC had ample parking and Zipcar easily found spaces, the Washington Metro also gave Flexcar valuable free marketing on the subway in addition to the parking spaces. The two competitors would duke it out in DC and other markets for years.
Robin continued to run Zipcar as it expanded into its third market, New York, in early 2002 and began to pilot relationships with universities in towns outside major cities. In September, after having spent grueling months setting up a $7 million funding round, Robin saw the deal fall apart at the final hour. She spent that fall regrouping in order to successfully raise $4 million. By the end of it, Robin was “100 percent wrecked. I didn’t have an ounce of energy left.” The board wanted fresh blood, and named former Boeing executive Scott Griffith the company’s new CEO.
When she departed in February 2003, Robin recalls, the company’s run rate was $2.5 million, and it had grown into the largest car sharing company in North America. Under Griffith’s leadership, Zipcar would continue its rapid expansion, forgoing profits in order to reinvest in the business to reach more markets ahead of its competitors. Sales shot from nearly $31 million in 2006 to more than $186 million in 2010.
“The interesting thing to me is that Zipcar is an idea someone else had,” Robin says, reflecting on the company’s success. “We just executed it better. My goal was to be the dominant nationwide and global player and to transform transportation and urban life. In fact, we did.”
A Zipcar car pictured against the NYC skyline.
Where are they now?
In 2007, Zipcar acquired archrival Flexcar for an undisclosed sum.
Today, Zipcar is the car sharing industry leader. The company went public in April 2011 in a $200 million IPO, of which Zipcar netted $117 million. By early 2012, it operated more than 9,000 cars and had over 650,000 members. The company has programs that help large corporations and governments meet energy reduction goals by using Zipcar. In all, the company raised over $61 million in private funding prior to its IPO.
The company continues to be unprofitable on a full-year basis, though it had a profitable third quarter in 2011. In 2010 Zipcar acquired London car sharing firm Streetcar Limited and in 2011 exercised rights to buy Spain’s Avancar.
After leaving Zipcar at the end of 2000, Antje became a principal in the environmental consulting business Ecochange. She is the administrative director of Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE). She also serves on the sustainability advisory board of GreenerU, a Massachusetts company that helps college campuses use less energy.
Since leaving Zipcar, Robin has founded two other companies (GoLoco and Buzzcar) and serves on several advisory boards for the US government, the International Transport Forum and the World Resources Institute.
eBay
Buying power
Founder: Pierre Omidyar
Age of founder: 28
Background: Software engineer
Founded in: 1995
Headquarters: San Jose, California
Business type: Online auction site
Fifteen dollars might seem an insignificant amount, but it was the sum of money that sparked the business known today as eBay, the global auction site with $11.7 billion in revenue.
Founder Pierre
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