What is it about?
Think of Lyft as on-demand ridesharing application that lets you order a car ride from one point to another and an affordable alternative to a cab. “It’s your friend with a car on demand,” says John Zimmer, co-founder of the San Francisco startup. In fact Lyft is a mobile app that uses real-time location data on your phone to let you find a background-checked driver in your area in minutes
How it works?
Imagine a situation that you are running late for a meeting, desperate for a ride. But no buses or cabs were in sight. Then you remember for an application you heard that lets regular people act as chauffeurs for a fee. You quickly download the application and you tap to request a ride. Immediately the app shows you the driver that is closer to your location with complete description. Your driver’s name, his rating by past passengers (out of five stars) and photos of him and his car. He will probably greet you with a friendly fist-bump; like when your best friend picks you up. You sit in the front seat, you chat during the route and probably you just met your best friend!
There’s more of a community-powered feel to what Lyft is doing. 80 percent of their passengers sit in the front seat when they get in the Lyft. The concept they’re going after is “your friend with a car, on demand.” They have a community and culture—they have pink mustaches on every car. That’s part of that community experience, you smile when you see it, the passenger smiles, the driver smiles, it breaks the ice. The drivers often do a fist bump as part of welcoming someone into the culture. They’re encouraged by the company to express themselves.
As for the pament, Lyft suggests a donation amount for passengers to pay their driver and then takes a 20% cut of that amount. Threw that drivers can make some money to recoup the cost of their auto bills.
Lyft has more of a community aspect, focusing on regular car owners who want to help their friends and meet new people.
Thus the basic idea is: if people have a few extra hours in their days and they want to help others out in the community, they can fill their time and make some money using Lyft.
This platform is demonstrating the power of peer-to-peer ridesharing. More than anything, they believe in the power of community to solve the biggest problems that our generation faces from the economy, to the environment, to how we interact with our city and the people around us.Members using Lyft as a platform for their creativity, and giving back to their neighbors and cities.
A nice online article about the company and the idea behind it
Dimosthenis Kefallonitis (387019)
Sources:
Consumer Value Creation 