Market Sizing + Attitude: Carpool and Campus Heatmap App

[1] Pooling Trips and Hitching Rides

At places like Stanford, and other areas that are spread out and have limited public transportation, it can be quite hard to get around without a car. Running errands like grocery shopping or even going on trips to places like San Francisco can be very time consuming and expensive. Let’s say person A is going to Costco and owns a car. What if person A was willing to take additional people (ex. Person B, C who also want to grab things from Costco) along? In theory, person B, C will pay person A (and the app) a small fee for hitching a ride and for gas fees. This alternative may be much better than Ubering places (due to costs) or taking public transport (ex. Inconvenient if you have a lot of things with you or time-consuming) for the rider. Furthermore, the driver will be compensated a bit for a trip that they were planning on making in the first place! Also a win for energy and environmentalism purposes! [Can be extended to hobbies or general trips/activities too]

[1] Interview Questions

1. Before we begin, would you mind telling me a bit about yourself?
2. Do you go off campus often? Walk me through reasons you go off campus? 
3. How do you get off campus? [ie bike, car, walk, bus, etc]
4. Can you tell me about a time you went off campus and what it was like getting to your destination? 
   1. How did you get off campus?
   2. How long did it take?
   3. How far? 
   4. How much did it cost? 
   5. What was the occasion?
5. If there’s one thing you could change that would make it easier to get off campus what would it be? 
6. What if questions about the product:
   1. What do you think about a service where you could let other people carpool with you to your driving destinations in exchange for money?
   2. How much money do you think you would want from giving them a ride to Target from campus, for example?
   3. Would you want any way to control who you would let hitch a ride with you?
   4. Would you use this product to try to hitch a ride for someone else?
   5. How much would you pay for a trip to Target from campus, for example?
   6. Do you foresee any issues with this product?
   7. Do you have any hopes for the product
7. Do you have anything else you’d like to share about this topic?

[1] Interview 1 Response –  Rafael Basto

1. Sophomore
2. I usually don’t go off campus. When I go off campus, it’s usually to eat with friends (eg. restaurant). To be honest, that’s basically it – hang out with friends, maybe go on some hikes as well. I don’t shop off campus, order through Amazon.
3. Rent a zipcar or we have a friend that also has a car. If in Palo Alto, sometimes we bike or Marg.
4. Time off campus:
   1. I have a friend with a car, we’re always going out off campus to eat.
   2. Takes at most 2-hours the whole trip (just Palo Alto, or some place close, sometimes Santana Row)
   3. Pay him for gas only for long trips, $5 average every month.
5. You can always rent a zipcar. I think it’s pretty easy already to get off campus. Sometimes zipcar availability is a problem.
6. Product Questions:
   1. Safety concerns; who is this person that’s taking me, did they go through a background check. Would be wonderful if it worked. Another concern; what are the chances someone also want to go to Walmart in a x-mile radius. If you can wait one or two days maybe you could schedule, but that’s probably infeasible.
   2. Half of the price of gas (this includes hassle)
   3. Wants control on who he let’s in his car (anonymous but rating or sth).
   4. If I were very sure about the safety feature, I would. Depending on how it’s made, I think it might be more of a hassle than just getting a zipcar. For $8 I get a zipcar for an hour with unlimited gas but get to carpool with a random person $5 – not worth the hassle.

[1] Interview 2 Response –  Ellie F.

1. Sophomore, no bike or car.
2. Don’t, it’s hard to. Occasionally if others drive me to see family friends or food. Sometimes have to Uber to campus which is very expensive, depends on the time of day.
3. Car with friends.
4. Time of campus
   1. Family friends picks me up
   2. Didn’t cost anything
   3. 10 mins away from here
   4. Spending time with them is the occasion
5. Make public transport better. Nothing is walkable, the margarite doesn’t go very far.?
6. Product Questions
   1. In theory, that would be good. If someone is willing to have random people. Issue coordinating with other people to take them back, coordinate with passengers. Better for younger people.
   2. No idea. Don’t ask more than the price of gas.
   3. You should have the option to accept rides or not, in case you know someone you don’t like.
   4. Half the price of gas.
   5. Has to be a way to say trip duration after you reach destination is going to be X hours.
   6. Sounds like a good idea.

[1] Market Sizing

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[2]  Tailored, dynamic, and centralized heat-map for opportunities, activities, and events on campus

There’s always a lot going on around campus – clubs, career fairs, classes, socials, parties, study sessions, trips, mixers, and much more. To keep track of all this, you’re subscribed to numerous mailing lists, overwhelmed with slack channels, tracking word of mouth, inundated with flyers, and frantically texting your group chats. That is, out of the dozens of things going on every day, you’re left on your own to figure out what really matters to you and how to most productively spend your time.

TLDR;

• Heatmap to see people with similar interests
• Can build relationships with companies on campus with your demonstrated interests
• Meet like-minded people with similar interests/identities, easily plan a meal/coffee
• Connect with students that are in the same classes to form study groups

Instead of going back and forth to find what’s worth your time and curiosity, imagine if all this information was centralized on a heatmap. Think Snapchat heatmap, but tailored for your interests and availability. You can see what’s going on at any given time (or what is scheduled to happen in the future) on campus. The red shows a physical congregation of people with similar interests or a predefined activity (class, party, etc.). Incidentally, non-Stanford members – like companies on campus – can securely access student engagement/activity data for a fee (much like companies pay Stanford to be present at a career fair) and target specific opportunities based on students’ previously demonstrated interest in similarly-aligned activities on campus. Based on student participation at certain events, they receive karma points for being an active member of the community, and can redeem them for certain opportunities, events, etc. Apart from general interests, another adjacent feature is connecting with students that share certain classes that you’re taking this quarter.

[2] Interview Questions

1. Before we begin, would you mind telling me a bit about yourself?
2. How do you discover all the events going on campus right now?
3. How often do you go to “events” (can be almost anything like a sports game, mixer, fair, etc.) and what events do you visit the most?
4. When do you plan your week and what does it look like? Or are you more instinctive?
5. Are you content with the activities you attend and organizations you’re a part of?
6. What if questions about the product:
   1. Would you use a centralized platform to see what’s going on? Or are you happy with your current habits?
   2. What if there was a map you could see that has a heat map of the activities/interests that were important to you e.g. finding a tech job, certain classes, wall climbing, jazz, etc
   3. How do you think you would use this product?
   4. Do you foresee any issues with this product?
   5. Any hopes for features for this product?
7. Do you have anything else you’d like to share about this topic?

[2] Interview 1 Response – Rafael Basto

1. Sophomore
2. Email lists (academic events, arts), Parties (mostly through Fizz and talking through other people). But also to be honest, I don’t go a lot to campus events, mainly just go to parties.
3. Mostly parties and concerts. Parties every week, concerts usually once a month.
4. More instinctive.
5. Yes, I am content with activities.
6. Product questions:
   1. I would like a centralized platform. Because there was this day there was this music playing somewhere and I had no idea. Posted on fizz what’s going on and no one replied. Specially if it also has live information.
   2. That would be nice.
   3. I would definitely use the heatmap of what’s going on campus. Not interested in tech things personally, so I would not use the networking features. Just use for events and parties and concerts and activities going on live.
   4. No issues, but one question is: would you disclose private events (eg. invite only party on campus, friends of the house). But that’s something specific, but would you disclose it.
   5. Being able to see and easily access everything going on on campus. Having the ability to filter what you want to see (parties, concerts, networking, study sessions, etc.).
7. Nothing else to share.

[2] Interview 2 Response – Ellie F.

1. Sophomore
2. Emails, Word of mouth, dorm channels, groupme, slack
3. Every day, doing something (club or dorm event or major event)
4. I like to have things planned out in advance. Scheduled heatmap feature is helpful for you to match according to your own schedule.
5. I’m fine with my organizations, I don’t like going out and seeing people.
6. Product questions
   1. Emails are always there, this would be helpful as an add-on.
   2. Sometimes going there and your the only person there so this would be interesting, knowing when things are happening according to you interests are helpful. Eg. Club fair is a lot, getting on email lists is time-consuming
   3. Mostly use this as a calendar, pick and choose.
   4. Weary of data tracking, very limited social media usage.
   5. Would be really useful not to get 10k emails a day from different groups and being able to filter events on campus by what you want and what you can go to is really helpful personally. Look at CampusEngage, I think this would be a better version

[2] Market Sizing (Refined)