I’ve found the meetups hosted by Antler VC in Austin to be useful. My confidence in using AI grows everyday.

I want to tackle the brutal commute in Austin and bring back affordable peer-to-peer carpooling with a social element. Uber and Lyft have commercialized this and given livelihoods to millions. Waymo is disrupting this model altogether. Fetii of Austin offers group-based rideshare vans. None of these options are affordable for the frequent commuter. There are countless rideshare and carpool sites online with people fed up with their commutes.

What makes this idea unique? This is a service that gets enabled by event organizers with a single button added to their event marketing. Attrition is high to most events and hardly half the people show up. Even spiritual places like Churches and Temples in Austin lament the commute their followers experience, especially seniors. Carpooling also lowers the carbon footprint.

My idea promotes on-demand carpooling to events (tech, social, spiritual) and work. The concept is nothing new and a startup called Scoop already tried it a decade ago. Scoop’s rides were relatively cheap (under $10) and people were glad to drive with peers in order to use the carpool lane. This offset their costs for driving and parking. Also, it was easy to make a friend or two doing this based on shared destinations. Peace of mind was experienced by those eco-conscious.

Take Scoop

The now defunct Scoop missed the boat on one of my features. The key feature is a button that can be clicked from an event website or an event aggregator like Meetup or Luma—- enabling peer to peer communication and the formation of a carpooling network based on mutual interest. Simple concept, but there’s a ton of work to foster security and privacy. Safety and affordability are top of mind.

I vibe-coded my MVP and it’s showing signs of promise…