Zipcar Case Study: How to Build a Brilliant New Venture | Inc.com

Zipcar Case Study: How to Build a Brilliant New Venture | Inc.com: "Highly effective entrepreneurs like Zipcar founder Robin Chase tend to follow the same method. Here's a look at how it works."

The following excerpt is from the book Breakthrough Entrepreneurship, now available in paperback.

"This is the elevator pitch that I have given probably close to a thousand times," Robin Chase told an interviewer who asked her to describe Zipcar's business:

"Zipcar parks cars throughout dense metropolitan areas and university towns. You make a reservation online or by telephone for a very specific car in a specific location, and that reservation is sent wirelessly to the car. You hold your membership card on a spot in the windshield, and that unlocks the door, enables the ignition, and opens the billing record. People drive roundtrip and park back in that same reserved parking space. The billing record is closed, and you are all done."

That sounds pretty sensible now that it exists. But what steps did Chase take to go from a casual conversation about an interesting idea to building a real company? She had a few mentors and peers that she could turn to, which certainly helped--a classmate who had started a company, for example, and a professional investor she'd met at a social function. Beyond that, she was starting from scratch. How did she make it happen?

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