{"id":12780,"date":"2016-04-22T08:28:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T08:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.francinebeleyi.com\/?p=12780"},"modified":"2025-04-23T19:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:09:56","slug":"how-to-create-exponential-growth-with-dreams-like-blablacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/francinebeleyi.com\/how-to-create-exponential-growth-with-dreams-like-blablacar\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create Exponential Growth with DREAMS like BlaBlaCar?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have an empty car, why travel alone when you can make money and potentially new friends?<\/p>\n

You share a trip, you split the cost and you have a good time.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSuch a simple but powerful idea,\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

says Philippe Cayrol, Growth Manager at BlaBlaCar<\/a>, the French Unicorn, that connects drivers with empty seats to people travelling the same way.<\/p>\n

Speaking this week at Entrepreneur Country forum 2016,<\/a> Philippe admits that this is not a new idea and other companies in different countries have tried to do this many years ago.<\/p>\n

So how the ride sharing company managed to pull things off and connect 25 million users in 2016 across 22 countries?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t as simple as it sounds\u00a0and they have tried and tested several business models like freemium, subscription, etc. for four\u00a0years before the business took off in 2012. Why?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They finally got the right combination of criteria to match people on a car journey: Departure location, arrival location, date and time and social comfort. But for the business to take off, Philippe says, you need scale, a lot of supply and demand and a platform which is easy to use and is built around trust.<\/p>\n

And to create trust<\/a> at scale, the team has honed their DREAMS model, which means that users of the platform have to be:<\/p>\n