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Pioneers & Protagonists

Drummond Gilbert, founder of goCarShare

goCarShare aims to…
fill millions of empty car seats, reduce carbon dioxide emissions and make travelling by car fun again.

The idea came from …
seeing miserable people sitting alone in stationary cars. What would happen if those people travelled together? The traffic would move faster, congestion and pollution would be reduced, and everyone would save money and have more fun. And if you build the site around Facebook, members have real profiles and you can see if you share friends and interests, that gets around peoples’ reservation of sharing with strangers.

I believe it’s the right moment for goCarShare to take off because …
people want to act more responsibility, they enjoy helping others out, and increased fuel prices are squeezing people so that for the first time, it is starting to become a financial necessity to consider sharing car journeys.

The easiest way to explain goCarShare is…
a market place for empty car seats, a ‘social’ journey sharing website that is built around Facebook.

The biggest misperception about goCarShare is…
that we are a ZipCar or Street Car clone. We help people share car journeys, we don’t own a fleet of cars.

The biggest challenge to overcome is …
without a doubt, people like the idea, but actually getting people to open up and share what they consider to be a very personal space, their car, is difficult. It is seems logical for us to focus on getting ‘the young at heart’ on board, once we have got these people on board, others will follow.

The best moment so far was…
giving my first ‘goCarSharer’ a ride in our electric Mini - we ran out of electricity and spent two hours in a service station café, but despite this we became good friends, she kept in touch and even offered to help out on the marketing of goCarShare too!.

Another example of Collaborative Consumption I admire is …
Crashpadder.com is a great way to find a good value place to stay with a nice local when you are on your travels. Housebites.com is a totally new way to dine, it allows you to turn your house into a restaurant, guests can search for dinner parties with different types of cuisine in their neighbourhood.

In the future for goCarShare is …
We would love to be considered a way of travelling. People will ask … ‘shall we take the bus? the train? or shall we goCarShare?’

Archive of Pioneers & Protagonists Interviews

  10 Questions for Benita Matofska, founder of The People Who Share

  10 questions for Marta Nowinska, founder of Swapsity

  10 questions for Ryan Rzepecki, founder of SocialBicycles

  10 questions for Jamie Wong, founder of Vayable

  10 questions for Theo Kitchener, founder of The ShareHood

  10 questions for Kelly Scales, founder of Bid & Borrow

  10 questions for Campbell McKellar, Founder of Loosecubes

  10 questions for Marcio Nigro, founder of Caronetas

  10 questions for Jess Ratcliffe, founder of GaBoom

  10 questions for Philipp Rogge, founder of frents

  10 questions for Tim Hyer, founder of Rentcycle

  10 questions for Barbara Pantuso, founder of Hey, Neighbor!

  Ella T. Gorgla, Founder of I-ELLA

  Cathy Tao, co-founder of Tourboarding

  Mike Karnjanaprakorn, cofounder of Skillshare

  Juha Koponen, Founder of Netcycler

  Michelle Shearer, Founder of MamaBake

  Leah Busque, Founder and CEO of TaskRabbit

  Ron J. Williams, founder of SnapGoods

  Stephen Rapoport, founder of Crashpadder

  Anthony Eskinazi, founder of ParkatmyHouse

  Drummond Gilbert, founder of goCarShare

  David Mahfouda, Founder of Weeels

  Andreas Randow, Founder of StudioShare.org

  Emma Jamvold, Founder of SwapItBaby

  Dave Llorens, CEO of One Block Off The Grid

  Orli Cotel, co-founder of Swap for Good

  Owen Rees-Hayward, Co-founder of Thingloop

  Juliette Anich, Co-founder of The Clothing Exchange

  Keara Schwartz, Founder of Share Some Sugar

  Hans Schoenburg, co-founder of GiftFlow

  Meriel Lenfestey, Co-founder of Ecomodo

  Steve Sammartino, Founder of rentoid.com

  Micki Krimmel, Founder of NeighborGoods

  Shelby Clark, Founder of RelayRides

  James Reinhart, Founder of thredUp

For a complete archive of Pioneers & Protagonists Interviews click HERE.