20140923 good travel company_prof simon walsh

Corporate Partnership and Knowledge Exchange 23rd September 2014

Prof. Simon Wilson

CSO, Good Travel Software Head of Statistics Discipline, TCD

WHIPCAR

Show a picture of a truck loaded up with cars.

MANAGEMENT TEAM BIOS

Peter Soutter leads the team at Good Travel Software. Peter’s background is the business side of the film and television industries, having worked in script and programme acquisitions for companies including RTE Television, Polygram Film International, Universal Pictures and Propaganda Films in London, Dublin and Sydney. He is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.

Simon Wilson is the Chief Scientific Officer with Good Travel Software. He holds a PhD in stochastic modelling from the George Washington University, and is currently Professor and Head of the Statistics Discipline in the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin.

Brian is Good Travel Software’s Chief Technical Officer. Brian has 7 years of professional web development experience working primarily with PHP, Zend Framework, Java, and Spring.

Paul has recently joined the team at Good Travel Software and brings extensive experience and knowledge of the Motor Industry. He has worked in the commercial management area holding positions in sales, marketing and general management, most recently as general manager of independent Citroen National Importer Gallic Distributors.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

A brief history

• I was approached in May 2012 by Peter Soutter (CEO):

– He saw an opportunity with the problem of fleet balancing;

– He had already worked with TCD on dynamic pricing in 2011;

– He had data from a floating car sharing provider and wanted to build out a prediction model;

– We worked through an EI Innovation Voucher.

A brief history

• By May 2013, we had produced a proof of concept;

• Started to pitch to VCs;

• Funding round closed in December 2013:

– All Irish investors;

• Mix of private individuals and consortia

– Matching funding from EI;

A brief history

• Since January 2014:

– Hired sales and development team;

– Gone from proof of concept to working product;

– Talked to lots and lots of customers!

How did the TCD connection help?

• Over the years done a variety of industrial collaborations that started through TCD:

– Large research projects (EU, SFI);

– TCD based consulting;

– Personal consulting.

• In the last 3 years I have seen a lot of queries around Innovation Vouchers;

How did the TCD connection help?

• Innovation Voucher scheme a great way to get started; – Negotiated through TCD; – It’s free for the company; – It’s a “loss leader” for the academic but good experience for the

PhD student

• TCD allows up to 20% of your time on such external activities as long as they have an academic benefit or contribution to your discipline;

• For larger commitments it can negotiate full or partial career breaks;

• The statistical problem was challenging: – Worked on solution with my research group;

• TCD led credibility when pitching

Final thoughts

• My first foray into the (tech) start up world:

– TCD’s default position it to be supportive and flexible on the commitment;

– The academic part of product development was only 10% of the task!

– Combination of a hard intellectual challenge and a lot of learning on the business side.

Backup slides

Growth in short term car rental

What we do

• The short-term car rental business: – GoCar, ZipCar (Avis), Car2Go (Daimler Benz);

• Moving to a floating car sharing model: – Rental by the minute. – No booking required; – Increasingly entirely app based; – Pick up / drop off car in any (legal) parking space;

• Two logistical problems with the floating model: – Parking; – Fleet balancing.

What we do

• Software for implementing car rental: – Focus on short term and floating;

– Webpage, booking systems, app, etc.

• Dropcar fleet balancing system: – Uses predictive analytics to identify journeys that will

balance fleet;

– Dynamic pricing to increase demand for those journeys;

– Increases car usage, reduces fleet balancing costs.