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Will Davies
Co-Founder of Car Next Door (now Uber Carshare)
Will Davies is the co-founder and former CEO of Car Next Door, an Australian peer-to-peer car-sharing platform that was acquired by Uber in 2022.12 After the acquisition, Car Next Door was rebranded as Uber Carshare, and Davies continued to lead the business as CEO of Uber Carshare.16
Key points about Will Davies:
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Entrepreneurial background: Davies co-founded Car Next Door in 2013, growing it into a significant player in the Australian car-sharing market.2
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Leadership: He served as CEO of Car Next Door and then Uber Carshare for over a decade, overseeing the company's growth and eventual acquisition.12
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Focus on sustainability: Davies has expressed a strong interest in reducing carbon emissions and challenging the "one person, one car" mentality.23
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Business strategy: Under his leadership, Car Next Door implemented strategies such as focusing on niche markets and using long-tail SEO to grow the business.13
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Recent developments: In August 2024, Davies announced that Uber Carshare would be closing down after a 12-year run.4
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Current role: Based on his LinkedIn activity, Davies appears to now be in a Strategic Projects role at Uber Carshare.5 This change likely occurred following the announcement of Uber Carshare's closure.
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Networking: Davies has been active in connecting Uber Carshare talent with other businesses, suggesting he's facilitating transitions for team members as the company winds down.5
Will Davies' LinkedIn username is indeed willdavies11, as mentioned in the query.5
Highlights
Farewell, Car Next Door and Uber Carshare: Celebrating 12 Years of Disrupting Car Ownership.
Many of you will have seen the news that after a remarkable 12-year run, Uber Carshare (formerly Car Next Door) will be closing down next month. While this is really hard news, as I reflect on this journey, I’m immensely proud of what we have achieved over the last 12 years. What started as a simple idea to disrupt the “one-person, one-car” mentality became a grassroots movement that swept Australia, and ultimately captured the global spotlight with our acquisition by Uber in 2022.
While this wasn’t the ending we had imagined, I’m proud that the Car Next Door and then Uber Carshare teams made a lasting impact on the way Aussies think about personal car ownership and how they move about their cities.
This bittersweet conclusion also means that scores of driven, high-performing team members will begin looking for their next exciting job opportunity. Many in our team have opted in to join a list (with their job titles and Linkedin profiles) that I am going to share with other businesses looking to hire great people. If you want to see a copy of this list, reply below or message me.
As for me, I’ll be taking some time to consider what I’ll be doing next. Dave and I set up Car Next Door to play a part in the huge global job of helping humans reduce carbon emissions. Back in 2012 we viewed this as an existential threat, and in 2024 it is even more urgent. So, I suspect it will be something in that direction!
A free portable meeting room available to a scrappy startup who needs one
Back in 2019 my startup Car Next Door had a nice open plan office but unfortunately, it was lacking a meeting room. I investigated Building a meeting room into the corner of our office but that was going to cost in excess of $15,000. I also looked at these snazzy pods like this one https://lnkd.in/gvWxcwZ2, but again we're looking at $15,000.
So I got my stepfather to build us one. It cost him $4,500 in materials. As you can see it's not pretty, but it got the job done.
After Car Next Door got acquired by Uber, we moved into the Uber office and the meeting room has remained under my house for the last few years. I am keen for it to have another life in a scrappy start-up that needs it.
So it's free for the right home. The only thing you'll need to do is come and pick it up from my place at Berry. And then you'll have to work out how to put it together!
Some basic specs:
- about 1.5m wide X 2.5m long X 2.1m high (i think)
- Has a fan and a light (plug it into a powerpoint)
- Window on the door
- I dont really know what he made it out of - but it solid.
