¶ … Scott Griffith, the brains behind Zipcar. Zipcar is a company that is engaged, basically, in the automobile rental business. The premise is that people join Zipcar, giving it membership-based revenue, and then they pay when they want to use the car. Zipcars are located in neighborhoods, so that people can walk to the nearest car after they have booked it, and just take it. The target market for Zipcar is mainly urbanites who generally do not need to maintain a full-time automobile but who might need one for temporary purposes -- a run to Costco, or a short trip -- where a Zipcar will be cheaper and more convenient than a conventional rental car option.
Historical Background
Griffith was educated in mechanical engineering, not running a car-sharing business. Griffith has stated on many occasions that his engineering background was critical to developing the traits needed to succeed as an entrepreneur (Levitt, 2014). While there is nothing academic that he learned that helped him, his engineering background gave him some of the mental preparation, especially in terms of ways of thinking, that allowed him to succeed with this entrepreneurial venture. This corresponds well with the material in the text.
The first thing is that it is his thinking that he credits to his success, which highlights the first myth of entrepreneurship, that entrepreneurs are doers and not thinkers. While no doubt entrepreneurs need to "do" a lot of things, they must first and foremost have a good idea and then be able to think their way through a lot of problems. The text highlights that there is a need for commitment and determination in entrepreneurs, and that is something that Griffith was able to demonstrate in the way that he learned how to think. He notes that "engineers take a situation, pick it apart, examine the pieces, and then put them back together in a better way. Looking at business problems this way gave Griffith a fresh perspective from many of his peers" (Levitt, 2014).
The idea for Zipcar came about from Griffith' passions for cities, transportation and technology. The text points out that creativity and innovation are critical elements to entrepreneurship because the entrepreneur needs to be able to identify gaps in the market and to be able to implement an idea to address that gap. In the case of Zipcar, Griffith was able to identify that an increasing number of urban-dwellers were turning their backs on the version of the American dream that included car ownership (Kilcrease, 2011). There were still certain things for which people wanted cars, and they would rent them or borrow them to fulfill these needs. However, consumers who lived a near-car-free lifestyle had trouble implementing this plan and wanted a new solution.
Griffith was able to recognize at an early stage that "the future of transportation and car ownership is changing now and will continue to change." This was simple application of the creative process. Demographic changes were occurring -- people were being drawn back into cities, and this was creating a market niche of people who did not own vehicles. This combined with increasing attractiveness of urban living, new urban residential construction, rising fuel costs, lower real incomes that demanded sacrifices to the American dream for many, and greater environmental consciousness. These trends, being numerous, were set to accelerate with the coming of the Generation Y or millennial generation. Thus, Griffith was able to identify a large unserved market and devised a creative solution to addressing this market's needs in the form of the car-sharing program (Kilcrease, 2011).
Description of the Approach
As noted, one of the key components of the success of Zipcar's is the engineering mindset that Griffith had towards problem-solving. He did not have a lot of managerial experience, but was able to build his company with managerial principles in mind. This is something that often does not happen when a company reaches the venture capital stage in particular. The entrepreneur is often sidelined at that stage in favor of professional management, but Griffith was not only retained but later found himself in the venture capital business (Rao, 2014).
The professional approach that Griffith brought to Zipcar was evident from the beginning. He grew the company by instituting effective management processes, to turn what was a promising idea into a profitable company. He was able to make several mergers that grew the company more rapidly than it perhaps would...
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