RelayRides is the world's first peer-to-peer carsharing service. Our revolutionary service provides the technology, infrastructure and marketplace for car owners to securely and conveniently rent out their vehicles when they are not using them personally. This provides people seeking convenient transportation with a new option, and makes it easier for urban dwellers to enjoy mobility without owning a car.
As the average US car is driven only 66 minutes a day, RelayRides represents the first opportunity for car owners to monetize this underused asset. By providing the infrastructure, technology and marketplace for car owners to rent out their vehicles, RelayRides gives current car owners the means to monetize a largely underused asset. By enrolling in RelayRides, owners turn a car from an expense into a cash machine, with average profit of approximately $3,550 annually (net of depreciation costs).
How RelayRides Works:
Car owners list their vehicle on the RelayRides website, designate availability, rental price, and who may rent the vehicle (via Facebook and other social networks). Car renters browse available vehicles on RelayRides.com, reserve a car by the hour or day, and swipe an issued card over a card reader sensor on the vehicle for access during rental.
To streamline the rental experience, gas and insurance are included.
Chief Executive Officer: Shelby Clark
Shelby first tried carsharing when his car died after a cross-country move to California in 2007, and he was forced to look for a new way to get around. He loved being able to live car-free, but thought that carsharing would work much better and grow much faster if it were "for the people, by the people," so he founded RelayRides in late 2008.
Shelby comes to us from Harvard Business School, where he cultivated his passion for entrepreneurship and social impact and was inspired to found RelayRides. Before Harvard, Shelby helped launch three socially-focused startups. Most notably, he was one of the earliest employees at Kiva.org, one of the fastest growing non-profits in history, where he provided strategic direction and built internal systems to scale the organization. Previously, Shelby worked at Oliver Wyman as a management consultant, where he advised Fortune 500 companies on Strategy and Operations. Shelby graduated Cum Laude with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.
Growing up in Colorado with the Rocky Mountains in his backyard, Shelby has a serious love affair with the outdoors. He enjoys camping, rock climbing, and biking, but his favorite way to spend a day is snowboarding on fresh, clean power. Protecting the environment so we can continue to enjoy the great outdoors is incredibly important to him, so he's thrilled to be doing his part for the environment as a part of RelayRides."
Chief Technology Officer: David Schairer
David is a highly experienced technologist and systems designer, with deep experience in large-scale infrastructure and security. As one of the first engineers at Concentric Network, he pioneered one of the first national ISP architectures and built it into a scalable virtual hosting and messaging platform for Concentric's successor, XO, where he served as CTO of the Concentric group. Along the way his software and service platforms ran core products for the likes of Netscape, Microsoft, and SBC/Pacbell (now AT&T).
Schairer holds a BA in Latin, Greek and Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan (Phi Beta Kappa) and collects books and dead languages in his spare time.
Chief Marketing Officer: Dave Gebala
Dave is a technology professional who spent the first half of his career in Operations Management at Motorola. After business school, he has focused on high tech Marketing at both venture-backed startups and publically owned, multinational corporations. He has extensive experience with using data and analytics to improve decision making. In his spare time, he consults to Bay Area non-profits who seek strategic management consulting. In fact that's how he was first exposed to carsharing helping pilot and launch the service in a few bay area cities.
Although he considers the Bay Area his home, his career has taken him to live and work around the country and around the globe, so he loves to travel off the beaten path. Dave has engineering and science degrees from MIT and engineering and business degrees from Stanford University.
Chief Operating Officer: David Brook
David Brook is commonly known as the "father of carsharing." He founded Carsharing Portland, the first US carsharing service, and was also the Co-founder of Flexcar, where he set up and ran their San Diego operation. Also, he is the author or Carsharing.us, a frequent contributor to other carsharing blogs, and is a carsharing and new mobility consultant.
VP of Corporate Development: Sterling Witzke
Sterling comes to us from Oliver Wyman, where she was previously a senior management consultant. She has extensive experience in the strategy and operations involved with launching new products and services in multiple industries, specifically in technology and transportation. Prior to Oliver Wyman, Sterling honed her passion for strategy and investing at Goldman Sachs.
Sterling graduated With Honors from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. In her free time, she volunteers extensively with the American Cancer Society and loves to cook and travel.
VP of Strategy: Nabeel Al-Kady
Nabeel Al-Kady comes to us from Harvard Business School. Prior to Harvard, Nabeel was a senior consultant in Booz & Co's strategy practice. Previously, Nabeel worked at Microsoft as Program Manager of the Windows graphic team where he managed a team of 30 developers. Nabeel also founded the Scala Program, Engineers Without Borders, and has advised and assisted two successful startups.
Our primary revenue stream will be a flat transaction fee per rental
All existing carsharing services employ a model where they own, clean, and maintain the vehicles, and pay for parking, which makes the model very capital intensive and difficult to run profitably. This leads to a lack of availability (as high utilization rates must be maintained) and high hourly rental rates, and makes the model very difficult to scale.
With extremely low fixed costs and a vast network of potential vehicles, RelayRides provides renters increased diversity and availability of cars with less expensive hourly rental rates than current rental options. Further, the capital efficiency of the model will allow us to operate profitably in less dense urban areas, and potentially even suburban areas, where traditional carsharing services could never operate, as they could never generate the necessary demand to maintain high utilization rates and reach profitability.
Sterling Witzke
