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ZipCar has competition

Cambridge Day reports on a marketing blitz for Cambridge-based RelayRides, which, instead of its own fleet of cars, matches up people in need of a ride with people who have a car they're not driving right then.

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This is just another so so idea from the people at DogPatch labs that have money they'd rather waste on 20 somethings with no experience and a rehashed idea (this was tried 2-3 times here and in the UK) - it is just going to implode like many other niche ideas that the Boston tech community will coddle then flee when the money doesn't come in. Here's the progress of the next 12-18 months:

-More staff
-More funding
-Real executives are hired
-Original people leave
-product declines as they miss revenue targets for six months
-Layoffs and annoyed investors

They will probably move out of the cheap space into privey space and waste money on overpriced mac laptops and buying servers when they should have rented them. It is business 101 people - keep spending low until profits catch up. Of course, that means the founding team needs to be at 'bread and water' salaries at most.

Good luck, and see you at the job fair next year!

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lending your car to a stranger in Boston - what could go wrong?

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This is a big part of why the Boston area is mostly dead for high-tech startups.

I blame Paul Graham's cynical penny-pinching, exploitive shotgun approach school of thought. Pull enough kids out of college, who'll be slave-labor and do what you tell them, and throw them at enough rehashed mundane ideas, and the element of chance will have an occasional one give a modest payout when you cash out. No need to actually invest in real innovation and experience.

People are fleeing to the Bay Area or NY if they still want to do high-tech, or taking their talent back to their home countries rather than building value in Boston and the US. Or they're simply getting jobs at existing companies whose days are numbered, while the innovation they would've done eventually happens elsewhere.

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Other than to e-mail your friend that is. I know people who have been doing this for years, but in tight informal groups. One or two people hold the registration and the others pay per use and chip in on repairs.

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Another moronic idea of a company which will delight every scammer and thief which discovers it. I imagine the lawsuits from customers would also turn into some sort of epic payday for the Sokoloves at some point.

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What are you saying exactly? That 20-something shouldn't try their hand at innovation, that aren't trying to be innovative?

I don't know if this new startup have the idea that can succeed or not, but WTH are you saying about inexperienced 20-somethings? I'm a 20-something and sooner or later, I'm going to try my hand at start-ups. Ideally, I would try and go into the chosen industry to get some experience, but sooner or later, the only way to learn the ropes is the school of hard knocks with all the mistakes and failures. The great majority of starups fail, finding an original idea with proper execution is not easy. Every success story always have extreme number of doubters. One man's story even had his mom kick out of his home and forced to live in a car until his business finally turn up enough profit to live on his own (he is now very well off, though his relations with his mom will never recover).

Granted, a large part of the reason startups fail is poor research, drive, execution and/or all the above. I'm not sure many are willing to live in a car like that guy did. However, luck plays a huge role too. You can easily say when Facebook started, it was a rehash of Xanga, MySpace, LiveJournal, etc. but with the right timing and a few tweaks, he is now a billionaire.

So tell me again, what should investors put money in? Perhaps a better idea could be chosen. To be honest, I wouldn't have went for this idea because I feel doubtful of the idea that a system of lending cars to strangers would work well. It have to rely on the idea that the users would be responsible enough that they would trash the lender's cars. Then again, Zipcar kinda faced the same problem, can their users be responsible enough that they won't return their car trashed. Hell, remember Pet Rocks? That was a horrible idea, yet, it sold enough to make him a rich man before people wised up.

Hopefully, these guys did study the 2-3 failed companies and addressed the causes of their failures. Perhaps what made those startups failed was not endemic of the idea, but poor execution or bad luck. Still, I just help but notice that this is another regular naysayer that every startup received and of of the time, the naysayers will be vindicated. However, I won't just read such writing disparaging 20-somethings form Dogpatch Labs without firing back that what should such people do instead?

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Well, good luck with your startup. Once your parents finish paying off your degree, you can ask them to be your angel investors. Seriously though, maybe if Boston were as filled as SF is with sycophants and people who want to rebel against 'the man' more people would stay? Maybe?

1 in 15,000 startups will make in.

3 in 5 posting bloggers are full of them selves.

Guess which one you'll end up in, junior?

I've been at several startups (some made money, some did not) the biggest problems were hubris and inexperienced management, as if no one over the age of 35 understood the Internet and how to code HTML in an orange t-shirt on a 4000$ macbook.

Now go fix me my latte.

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I am willing to discuss civilly if you are willing too. I do not need your condescension or your attitude. If you have been in several startups, then I would love to learn from your experiences and wisdom. It seems that you are much older than me that likely seen a lot of kids fitting to the SWPL (Google it if you not familiar)/hipster crowd of smugness and spending large amount of money for status than utility. Still, I do not appreciate that even if you are twice my age and have a justified reason from experience, especially since I'm only inferring that.

I am aware that I am quite lucky in comparison to many, but so many are almost oblivious to their fortune as you insinuated by your line of "parents finish paying off your degree" (though I am funded by a combination of work, scholarships, and family) is meant to say, despite your condescension and rudeness. I will not attempt to say where I will end up, I will not disparage myself to you nor say I'll be the one that will make it. Funny though that no matter how I answer to "hubris," it will always come off as hubris. I do know that when I make my attempt, I will go in with as much preparedness as possible and hope that I will not be blinded by my own ego. I have read that many startups have failed because of ego and I will attempt to keep humility and perseverance, but that's a paradoxical goal, is it not?

BTW, some of the people I hope to work with in the future, one of them is well above 35. I do not intend to be one of the people who smugly to someone above 35 and idiotically spend 4k of the investment money on a macbook to write code. I know I'll avoid that at least, though I know there's no way I can be perfect. To many, I may still come across the wrong way, but I'll do what I can. Still, if you willing to not tell me to go get your latte that is spoken in derision, I am willing to listen to your experience.

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With all due civility, I get the sense that you don't re-read your posts and check for some basic grammar conventions that help with making things comprehensible. I don't really care about this thread or capital investment in wanky start-ups but googling SWPL as you suggested (I had no clue what it meant) quickly got me onto a message board with some wonderful rationalizing of racist themes. Had I been thinking of investing my millions (that will quickly start rolling in once dey get dat dere slot-pahlah going at Suffolk Downs) in something you were peddling I would be hoping for better grammar and less nasty references. Just some nibbles for thought.

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Yes, I'm quite aware of my atrocious grammar. I'm near blind to it and no matter how much I write, it doesn't seem to get better. The only option I do have is writing it and returning to reread it a day later, but even that doesn't seem to be fully effective.

Googling swpl now, it seems some new links have creeped up, but the blog is still the humorous blog poking fun (it is also published as a book now) at some behavior patterns of young, moderately affluent people of popular culture. For example, many can notice that many people of that demographic love paying for super expensive Macs. Unlike the subsequent blogs on google, it is told in just, but joke can hold a lot of truth and I noticed that when he talked mentioned the 3,000 Macs and fighting "the Man." An older equivalent of the term is yuppie, but that have become a negative stereotype with none of the humor.

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