Tag Archives: zimride

Zimride Shout Out – Eva

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Meet Eva. She’s a student at Washington State University. She sent us an incredible story about her first experience using Zimride and the moment she realized it really is a small world after all.

I posted on Zimride because I needed a ride from Pullman, WA to the Spokane Airport to fly home to California for Thanksgiving Break. A University of Idaho student named Ethan responded and drove me and another young woman to the airport.

On the ride to Spokane, Ethan and I got to talking. It turns out he is from a town about an hour away from my hometown in California, and he was headed to the airport to pick up his dad. We were talking about the differences between California, Washington, and Idaho, and I told him that my grandparents have a cabin in Idaho.

Turns out that Ethan had spent the summer backpacking around there with some friends. I was supposed to go with my family over the summer, but had to work while the rest of my family went up. Ethan started to tell me about how he and his friends ran out of food and decided to hitchhike back to their cars.

I smiled and said to him, “if my grandpa had seen you, he would have picked you up because he has an affinity for hitchhikers and loves hearing their stories.” When Ethan started to describe the nice man that picked them up, I was shocked. It turns out, the man who was kind enough to give them a ride WAS my grandpa. In fact, my grandpa brought Ethan and his friends back to our cabin for dinner and they met my whole family. After hearing this, I immediately called my grandpa and he was astonished and delighted to hear who I was sitting next to.

Thank you Eva for sharing your amazing story! Your Zimride experience is the kind that inspires us to grow the Zimride community to help make the world more connected.

If you have a story that you want to share, please send your Zimride Shout Out to community@zimride.com!

-Your Zimride Crew

Zimride Shout Out – Jessica

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I split my time between LA and SF, driving from one to the other about every three weeks. Before I discovered Zimride, I’d try to carpool with friends, but our schedules hardly ever lined up. So I was spending lots of money on gas, feeling like an environmental disaster, and driving alone most of the time.

Zimride has made my commute so much better. It’s such a user-friendly and efficient system. I hardly have to spend time finding riders, and I can always find people whose schedules match mine. Plus most of the people are friendly, interesting, and care about the world. Really, I’ve been surprised and pleased that almost everyone has been fun, creative, and interesting to talk to.

I once drove with a young art student who was as excited as I was to nerd out about performance-art theory and how the art world works. Recently, I had a great time driving this guy who was into a lot of the same music as me. And another rider turned me on to the podcast “How Did This Get Made?”, which is ridiculous and hilarious. I’ve had so many memorable rides and met so many cool people thanks to Zimride — it has truly made my life better.

A big thank you to Jessica for her Zimride Shout Out. Make sure to read our previous Zimride Shout Outs from Harmony, Jane, and Julianna. If you have a story you want to share, please send your Zimride Shout Out to community@zimride.com!

- Your Zimride Crew

Zimride Profiles Get a Makeover

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While you were home enjoying the holidays with friends and family, we cooked up new and improved Zimride profiles. They’re packed with awesome features to help you put your best face forward and get a better look at what your fellow Zimriders are all about.

Facebook Integration
Too busy to fill out your profile? Sign into Zimride through Facebook and get instant profile personalization. And don’t worry, you can always modify what people see, and we’ll never share your Facebook information with third parties.

Verified Affiliations
Build trust by letting the community know what networks you’re a member of. Your new profile will show a list of your verified networks so other Zimriders know you’re who you say you are.

Pictures
Not only have we made profile pics larger to better show off your pretty smile, we’ve now made it possible for drivers to share a pic of their sweet rides.

More Personal Info
Now you can share more personal info so you have a better chance at finding like-minded and compatible Zimriders. In addition to personal details like work, hometown and favorite music, now you can show your age, education, and interests.

As Zimride continues to grow, we are committed to empowering our community to make the best choices for them. The more ridesharers the merrier, and the more info on a profile the easier it is to choose the best ride for you! Have feedback about our profile makeover? Please let us know at support@zimride.com.

Happy Travels,
The Zimride Crew

Zimride Shout Out – Harmony

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Welcome to 2012 Zimriders, did you have a good break? We’ve already heard some great stories from you about your ridesharing adventures over the holidays; we’re so glad we could be a part of it. Here’s one story from a student at University of Wisconsin La Crosse who uses Zimride whenever she gets a break from school:

Zimride has been the best way for me to come home to friends and family. It has been really wonderful to have a reliable place to search for rides in order to be able to visit the people I care about. It makes the hard work at school that much more manageable to be able to travel whenever I get a break.

Also, I’ve noticed that more people are using Zimride regularly, including many students from my school. It has been exciting to see so many more ride options and potential road trips I could take. Now I can always find the rides I need and at a fair price, and I regularly meet new and interesting people along the way.

A big thank you to Harmony for her Zimride Shout Out. Make sure to read our previous Zimride Shout Outs from Jane and Julianna. If you have a story you want to share, please send your Zimride Shout Out to community@zimride.com!

- Your Zimride Crew

Zimride Tip #1: Attract More Matches

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Sharing a ride through Zimride can be like online dating. It’s important to find the best match for you, but that can be tough when you’re dealing with so many fish in the sea. Luckily, Zimride has created a ridesharing system that takes the awkward out of booking a ride with a stranger. But it’s up to you to put your best face forward and that means personalizing your profile so you can catch more ridesharers. The following are a few tips to improve your profile to get the most out of the Zimride network:

1. Upload a profile photo:
Come on, show us your pretty mug. A smile goes a long way to let people know you’re real and friendly. And users are more likely to book a ride with someone they can see than with a mystery person.

2. Personalize Your Page:
If you share your pic, your interests, and other personal info, other users will be more likely to share with you. Share your story to share more rides.

3. Connect via Facebook:
This is the quickest way to fill out your profile with all the juicy details that will make your page more appealing to other users. Zimriders can also see that you are part of a verified network and display your mutual friends.

Stay tuned for more useful tips from Zimride on this blog or ask us for help directly at support@zimride.com.

Happy Travels,
Your Zimride Crew

Partner Showcase – Associated Students of Stanford University

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Eileen is a Zimride administrator at Stanford University. The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) implemented the Zimride Shuttle Program at Stanford this year to make transportation for students more convenient and affordable. Check out what she has to say about Zimride:

A couple of years ago, we had a shuttle service for students going to the airport, but we found the service to be expensive and generally unsustainable.

This year, we decided to use Zimride because the interface was super user-friendly and efficient. It’s so easy because of the exportable rosters, detailed maps, and instructions which are essential features to effectively address a huge number of students, especially during peak travel times like winter break.

Students have also been saying that they enjoy Zimride because of it’s well-designed interface and helpful features, such as the quick and secure payment system. The system makes it clear how many rides are left on shuttles, which makes it easier for students and the administrators to coordinate shuttles.

Thank you Eileen for your feedback! We love that you’re able to make students lives better through Zimride.

-Your Zimride Crew

And the Winner Is…

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iPad - Zimride Style
…Jenn, a college student from Appalachian State University! Jenn was kind enough to share with us why she started using Zimride:

I live 6 hours away from school so I thought it’d be a cool way to meet people and give them a ride if they needed one since it’s such a long drive. And being able to have people help with gas saves everyone in the long run because for me it’s $100 minimum one way.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the Zimride Thanksgiving contest for a free iPad! We had an amazing response with over 16,000 rides posted between Oct. 15th and Thanksgiving. Special thanks to the Zimride driver community for helping thousands of passengers get home to celebrate Thanksgiving with their friends and family.

Zimride is Full Speed Ahead with $6 million

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We are incredibly excited to announce that we have closed a $6 million Series A round led by Mayfield Fund with participation from our existing investors Floodgate and K9 Ventures. This is a huge milestone that will allow us to improve and expand the Zimride experience while attracting the talent that we need to grow. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, as we recently reached 100 university/corporate networks and 100 million miles driven within the Zimride network.

It’s hard to believe that less than two years ago we were working out of a cramped apartment, fueled primarily by an obsessive need to reinvent transportation and a scrappy determination to see our vision through. Now we have a nicer office, but we’re still scrappy, and yes, we’re still obsessed.

We have a dream of a world where getting a ride- whether it’s in a car, plane, train, or space shuttle- is simple, affordable, and fun. Humans are social beings and thrive on connecting with others. And as humans, we spend way too much time getting from point A to point B, often alone. We want to make life better by making travel an accessible experience where you can make new friends. Everyone should have the opportunity to travel, and no one should have to travel alone.

And no one should have to grow a company alone. Zimride is getting to where it needs to go because of the support of users like you, our ridiculously talented team, and our passionate investors.  Thank you for giving us a chance, giving us feedback, and sharing your inspiring stories of how Zimride has improved your lives. This has been an incredible ride, and we’ve only just begun. Thanks for joining us on this journey and helping prove that life is better when you share the ride.

- Logan & John

P.S. to join our team, check out our jobs page and drop us a line.

Heading to LA? There’s a route for that

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SF to LAWe launched Zimride with the vision of building a new form of transportation by creating a community marketplace for drivers to monetize the empty seats in their cars. Today we are excited to announce the launch of our new public platform focused on popular routes.

Over the last four years, we’ve successfully launched Zimride communities at over 100 universities and companies across 30 states in the U.S. In each of these communities we’ve built up an active base of users sharing rides, whether it has been students sharing rides home on the weekend or people carpooling to work every day. In all, Zimride users have logged over 100,000,000 miles traveled.

But Zimride still hasn’t been for everyone. Today that changes. We are launching our first promoted route dubbed “the Sunshine Route”: San Francisco to Los Angeles. Over the last couple weeks, we have jump-started the route with an incredible team of route builders, so users will have options from Day One. So far during our week of testing, more than 50 seats have been booked and we currently have an inventory of 100 seats available. Seats are selling fast, so if you want a ride to LA book one today before they sell out:

Find a Zimride to LA

And for everyone who is driving to LA, you’ll receive a $20 driver bonus payout along with the money you charge for your seats by posting your SF > LA ride in the month of August:

Be a Zimride driver

SF to LA is just our first route and we’ll be launching more within the next few months. Let us know what you think and what route you want to see us launch next. For users who are part of private networks, nothing changes. You will still have access to your organization’s network to share rides with others in your trusted community or organization. However, private networks will be seeing several interface and functionality improvements over the next few months.

We have a lot more exciting news in store in the coming weeks, so make sure to stay tuned!

American Road Trip (and commute) Reborn with Zimride

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Today marks the day 100 million miles have been traveled among users in the Zimride network. This massive milestone demonstrates the beginning of a reborn American road trip and commute. This comes at a time when AAA is reporting a decrease in July 4th travel due to high gas prices. Consumers are looking for easy ways to cut down their gas costs and sharing the ride is the simplest ways reduce this expense. Over the last 3 years, Zimride drivers and passengers have saved $50 million in vehicle operating expenses.

The 100 millionth mile was driven by Lauren Vargas, a student at UCSC on her way to Los Angeles. Zimride is awarding Lauren free gas money for the month of July. We notified Lauren today over the phone and she told us, “I’ve had 8 really great Zimride experiences getting paid more than $600 driving down to LA and back to school. In fact, the cost effectiveness made it possible for me to maintain a relationship in LA. Additionally, I re-connected with a friend from middle school and now hang out with him on a regular basis thanks to our Zimride!”

Today we are also excited to announce our 100th client network. Zimride networks now include all 10 schools in the University of California system, Stanford, Harvard, Facebook and Intuit. These milestones brings us one step closer to creating a nationwide marketplace for drivers to monetize the empty seats in their vehicles by selling them to passengers who are traveling along the same route. Check out the sweet infographic below that our designer Marc put together to celebrate the occasion.

Here are a few more details on the recent milestones:

  • 100 clients / networks
  • 100 million miles shared
  • $50 million in vehicle operating expenses
  • 26,706 carpools formed
    • 44% are commutes that result in an avg. of 200 daily round trips
    • 56% are long distance trips that average 175 miles each way
  • Zimride has also partnered with several artists including Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews Band and Sheryl Crow to provide ridesharing to their events

To join our team in creating a transportation revolution, check out our jobs page and drop us a line.

A variation of this post was also featured on TechCrunch Friday, July 1.

Zimride 100 Infographic