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Andy Hibbert
Advisor | Investor | Experienced CEO | Founder (Car & Away / Karshare)
Andy Hibbert is the CEO and Founder of Karshare, a community-based car-sharing platform designed to enhance accessibility and sustainability in vehicle usage. Launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, Karshare aims to support frontline workers and charities by providing an innovative solution for car sharing, likened to Airbnb but for vehicles.235
Hibbert's entrepreneurial journey began with a vision to create a more efficient way for people to access cars without the burdens of ownership. His commitment to fostering a people-led experience is evident in the platform's community-oriented approach, which encourages users to share their vehicles while ensuring safety and reliability.23
In addition to Karshare, Hibbert is also associated with Car & Away, further showcasing his dedication to transforming transportation through shared economy models.13 His insights and experiences have been featured in various media, highlighting the challenges and innovations within the car-sharing industry.45
Highlights
There is no failure… only feedback
Why Karshare Didn’t "Fail"
Rishi Sunak said he wants to make the UK more like Silicon Valley, so "People are unafraid to give up the security of a regular pay cheque to start a business - and be comfortable with failure.” I love this sentiment, which was famously championed by the prolific inventor Thomas Edison who once wrote, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
But, I believe that the narrative around and our attitude to failure needs to change. Recently, many of us witnessed Elon Musk’s Starship experience which was termed “a rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
Disappointingly, many British media reported this along the simplistic lines of: “SpaceX Starship launch failed minutes after reaching space”.
But, was it a failure, or was it simply a key step towards success? Despite the early ending, the eight-minute flight lasted twice as long as a test in April. At nearly 400 feet (121 metres), Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. And this time, the entire rocket system got into space, with Starship successfully detaching from the ‘Super Heavy’ boosters. SpaceX now has so much more data which can be used to make improvements for the 3rd test. You simply cannot get it all right, first time.
Building anything new is challenging. Anyone who has ever tried will know. There are things you don’t know, things you don’t expect and there’s definitely things you don’t know that you don’t know! In every journey you have to be ready for this and be able to take it on the chin, learn and adapt quickly. For Karshare, part of what we learned is that we had to focus significantly more effort on identifying who we didn’t want on our platform, and how to prevent what was a criminal element using us – alongside growing a strong community of honest and valued members.
Towards the end, we had adapted and thought very differently, identifying new methods to overcome many of these challenges. Sadly, time was not on our side, but that does not mean that the lessons learned are lost forever.
Thanks to forward-thinking journalists like Dougal Shaw from the BBC News, our lessons are now being shared and used to help different businesses that face similar issues. Being part of the sharing economy, we’re proud to discuss these learnings openly with others to help them avoid similar situations, to think differently and help drive them towards success.
Failure is not something to fear. Rather, it’s something to embrace. It’s through failure that we learn and grow. Thomas Edison and Elon Musk are perfect reminders that failure is not the end. It is just the beginning of a journey toward success. After all, there is no failure, only feedback.
#sharing #feedback #learning #fearlessjourney #fearoffailure #entrepreneurship #overcomingchallenges #onwardsandupwards
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It is with a heavy heart that, despite all the tremendous support and the mighty efforts of our team, I am writing to say that Karshare is ceasing operations.
The idea was to enable car owners to rent their cars out to other people to earn some extra money and make better use of an asset that is used only 4% of the time 🚘. We started in 2016 as ‘Car & Away’, we finished as Karshare, but the principle was the same - sharing cars meant fewer would be needed on our planet – a genuinely innovative idea to support the drive to Net Zero.
Like every bold idea, it needed a strong belief system - one that would be embraced by all of our partners. One that convinced Britain’s 2nd largest airport to allow people to rent out their parked car while they were away; a major insurance partner to provide cover and a leading car rental market place to include private cars in their search results. Since the start, Karshare has had unbelievable support. If it wasn’t for these established, yet forward-thinking partners, start-ups like Karshare could never get started. Thank you London Gatwick, Rentalcars.com, WTW, Allianz, Octo Telematics and RAC for getting us going and for every partner that became a part of our sharing eco-system including QBE Insurance, Continental, and The Floow.
The same phenomenal support came from every investor and advisor, all of whom believed in us, and our purpose, to make this possible. Every day this inspired us to do even more with less. Every conversation / connection / piece of advice was given with an intention to help drive us further. We will be forever thankful.
To see our sharing community grow has been equally inspirational. Every owner who took the decision to share was a pioneer who literally set our wheels in motion. Likewise, our progressive renter community who chose to temporarily access cars over owning one. Those choices drove a more sustainable travel option, leading to less cars on our streets.
Even though we did not reach our destination, the journey was incredible. Working with a team so capable, so agile and so adaptable has been an absolute privilege. Their determination to solve, collaborate and deliver, enabled Karshare to get as far as it did. 20,000 rentals enabled through a mobile phone app, using keyless technology, is something we are really proud of.
Ultimately, the end of the road was down to a combination of factors. Some of these were significant macro-economic forces that we could not have foreseen or controlled. In short, we gave it our best shot with every resource that we had.
Together we achieved a huge amount and it couldn’t have been done without you all - our team, suppliers, partners, advisors and investors. We’re proud to have helped challenge and change established mind sets by advancing peer-to-peer car sharing in the UK.
So, a sincere final ‘thank-you’ from me to everyone who has been involved in Car & Away and Karshare.
Andy #sharingeconomy #sustainability #partnerships
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Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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