Flirt with carpool concept

With the founder of www.gomore.dk, Matias Dalsgaard, we have discussed if Rainmaking should join his project, and put full steam ahead to spread out this sympathetic and environmentally important project. The idea is that users can find a ride to the concert 100 miles away from home next Sunday – or reversed find someone to join the ride when you on Tuesday are driving 200 miles to visit your old aunt. That is, putting more people in the same number of cars. Both the car owner and the passenger save money, roads will be less worn down, and the environment also benefits.
 
The challenge is to find a credible revenue model – “where is the money?”. Banner ads are a poor reply for such a niche site, so we had a look at countries abroad for inspiration to stronger revenue models. In UK and Germany we found both subscription based models, BTB software licence sale and companies that make real money. However, a leading player in a big country like UK or Germany seems to be able to make less than one million EUR and employ a staff of 10-20 persons. The business potential in a small country like Denmark seems to be too small.
 
If we instead were to enter one of the big markets we would face another problem; our competitors have critical mass (which is crucial when you want to connect two groups online), and they offer their services at quite low prices. So they seem hard to beat green field. An interesting alternative could be to buy a big player in UK or Germany and then optimize the revenue model. But that is a completely other ball game, that demands teaming up with a capital fund. Anyway, a couple of days ago we agreed with Matias that he wants to focus on his PhD thesis and we will prioritize other projects. But it has been very interesting to get to know Matias, and we hope we can work together on another project some day.