Laurent Kretz

I’ve been writing more and more about CabEasy.com (new name for ShareMyCab.net), and there is a reason to that: over the last month, I’ve spent a lot of week-ends and evenings working on it. I should be able to release a first version soon.

I started moonlighting on it this summer and released an alpha version for my friends (a form and with a database behind, really) on August 15th. In October, I started coding the v1 (that I should release early November), taking into account all the feedback I have received during the first 2 months (thanks to all of you!).

However, even if I didn’t work on it at all in September, the idea and concept continued to grow in my mind, and I started to form a plan. A plan to what ? A plan to make a business out of what started as an exercise to get familiar with the Google Maps API. Yes, I (soon should) have a plan. It’s not clear yet, but I will detail as soon as it becomes.

Saul Klein, from Index Ventures, made a great presentation at Web2Expo in Berlin. The slideshare is below. His presentation was “Thoughts on European Start Ups” in general, and this slide resonated more than the others, as I might be able to apply each single step of it to CabEasy.com :

 Basically his advice for startups during the current crisis (but would make sense all the time):

1. Focus on product
2. Keep costs low, bootstrap
3. Make something that people want
4. Get your first customers
5. Try to break even
6. Raise capital, and raise enough of it.

It’s kinda of the 101 common sense for the entrepreneur I have always been … inside. The first “outside” attempt is not really a success … but didn’t respect that easy plan at all. Let’s try to make it more simple now, and less sophisticated.

101 concept, 101 revenue model, 101 growth plan, 101 dream.

Here is the slide show:

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