daasKnowledge

Last night  my whole family abandoned me! My wife was in Rhinebeck, #1 son Miami, #2 son, the OTHER Miami (Ohio), #3 son, the world's loudest Sweet 16 party. So, conditions were perfect for my next rideshare experiment. Friday night is allegedly high demand time. I started at 7pm after dropping my son off. I chose Uber because I didn't want to end in in NYC or my son would have to call an Uber to get him home! I'm not going to bother with the math. Suffice to say, again, I didn't make any money. 6 trips. Almost 3 hours of driving. $36.52 gross revs. In addition, I ended up 20+ miles from my home. But I did uncover some interesting nuggets... Number One, Uber is simply too cheap. It's confirmd. I have read about the complaints from drivers and seen the infamous Kalanick video shouting match. But it's true. Number Two. I drove 51 miles with the meter on but just under 30 miles WITH passengers. So, the distance you must drive to pick someone up, in my c...

Yesterday, I spoke to a group of juniors at a NJ Magnet High School. Roughly 35 kids in both the Computer Science and Business tracks. It's one of those public schools that you have to apply to, 800 kids strong. When I speak, I avoid what I call the 'show up and throw up'. No deck, no slides, just me and my brain. I like the give and take although sometimes with teenagers, it's like pulling teeth - having raised three I know a bit about it! But they were great, courteous, thoughtful. I spoke for nearly two hours punctuated by an unexpected fire drill at the half way point. My topic was entrepreneurship but the conversation ping-ponged around, everything from why did I start my first business to the current state of politics to climate change. At one point I asked how many of them wanted to someday own their own business. I was surprise that so few raised their hands. When I asked the few who did, the answer was universally 'to make a lot of money'. I bel...

There's an old saying - once is a mistake, twice is a problem. Well... Yesterday was another nice spring day in Northern NJ so I decided to take another crack at ridesharing. This time I made a plan! Friday evening I received an email from Lyft showing revised peak hours - when pricing is higher. Saturday from 11am to 1pm was noted so I decided I would target that time frame. I gassed up at 10:45am paying $2.40 (regular). Nice thing about the BMW that it runs fine on regular even though they suggest 93. According a BMW engineer I met, the on board computer will compensate for the lower octane and albeit you might get slightly lower mileage, the cost of premium being what it is, you save money with 87. And it won't hurt the engine. Once the fill up was complete, I waited. Turned off the engine, I might add, and waited. Right at the station. Ten full minutes passed before I got my first ride. Guess what? Four nice Millennials heading to - YANKEE STADIUM! After my trip to ...

A friend read my post on my first ride share driving experience and ask me a simple question. Do drivers take into account the $.575 wear and tear when calculating the COGS? My answer was, I don't know but I will poll some folks on my next few rides as a passenger. But you know as well as I do that there has to be SOME accumulated cost other than gas and tolls. Question is, how much? For the sake of argument, let's assume $0. Silly, I know, but let's see what happens. My total payout was $112.65. Gas and tolls were $38.33 so my total 'take' was $74.22. Divided by the 6.5 hours drive time yields an hourly wage of $11.42. Now I take all this with a grain of salt as the sample size was so small and I made two substantial empty trips. So, for now, I will consider this the low water mark assuming no operational cost of the vehicle (which is ludicrous). Other things I learned, quite by happenstance - I got an email from Uber - is (a) you DO need a TLC license to pic...

As a serial entrepreneur and Coach Approach Strategic Adviser, I am fascinated by the 'Gig' economy. Sites like Fiverr and Upwork allow anyone to be a entrepreneur! Pretty awesome... A few years ago my eldest son asked if if he could drive for Uber while he was away at college. I did some research and returned a verdict - No. My reasoning was simple. At that time, the prevailing policy at Uber was if you had accident while ride sharing - 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. I found it astonishing that a company could base their business model on something so dubious. Two years ago, in fact, when I had a tiny fender bender, the FIRST WORDS out of the Geico agent's mouth were 'were you ride sharing'? No was my reply and I immediately decided, after 26 years, to find a new insurance provider. Which I did and saved myself $2500! The insurance situation has improved albeit it is still far from perfect. There are some gaps but at least the insurance companies ha...

First off, let's talk about the elephant in the room. This post is ENORMOUSLY self serving for no other reason than I am a COACH! Whew, I feel better... Having coached entrepreneurs of various stripe, I think I can speak - or write - authoritatively about what ails them. Throw in that I have been an entrepreneur for over 25 years and you can assume that I may know a thing or two... So here goes - 1. Burnout - 'Number one with a bullet' as they say on the Billboard charts. Entrepreneur years are like dog years - one year as an entrepreneur is equivalent to seven years working in a cubicle. Perhaps a tad hyperbolic but it sure feels that way sometimes. I have spent many a session talking folks off the ledge. My friends Keith, a very successful entrepreneur in his own right, coined a wonderful term - Unemployee-able. The notion that once your walk through that door to entrepreneurship, you can never go back. Kind of like when James P. Sullivan ends up in the Himalayas ...