Marc-Olivier Vachon and Edith Bisson are the Notable Young Entrepreneurs behind Kangaride, a ridesharing service that currently boasts 150,000 members and was recently featured on CBC’s Dragons’ Den. What advice to they have for other young professionals? Read on to find out…
Elevator Pitch: Describe your business in a nutshell.
Kangaride is a community of over 150,000 members who use inter-city ridesharing, which means ridesharing on an occasional basis between, for example, Toronto and Montreal or Edmonton and Calgary.
In a nutshell the value we deliver is that passengers can travel for less and drivers get help paying for gas. What makes us truly unique is the level of professional monitoring we provide. Our platform contains a cutting-edge rating system, where passengers and drivers can evaluate their experiences, and a customer service centre that is open seven days a week, 365 days a year (we’re at 25 employees and counting!). We place great emphasis on security, and validate our drivers’ licenses with the proper authorities in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. In other words, we care.
Why did you start your business, what was the inspiration?
We thought, why not enable people to share something they don’t often think of as a resource, like seats in their car? Sharing fuel costs these days is becoming more necessary, and it provides very inexpensive transportation to passengers. Ridesharing was especially useful to me when I was a student, and I met lots of amazing individuals on the road. I had many pleasant long conversations while travelling.
However, when you ask people about ridesharing, you’ll almost invariably hear concerns about safety or reliability. People say, “I can’t see myself traveling with people I don’t even know! And how can I be sure my driver/passenger is going to show up?” That’s certainly a concern I had when first hitchhiking around the country, and later when trying to hook up with passengers through classified ads websites. From this emerged the desire to create a community where members could rate each other and where professional support and dedicated customer service would be offered, making ridesharing an option that is as logical as a bus service because it is both safe and reliable.
On a more personal note, I think we’ve always been entrepreneurs at heart, but we needed a great idea to get things going. It happened later in life for both us. I was finishing my masters degree in musical composition when I decided to quit everything and build this company all by myself, in September 2004. Edith joined Kangaride officially in 2008, leaving behind a burgeoning career in aeronautical engineering. Being a couple, we were initially concerned about working together, but we quickly found out that it enriches both the professional and personal aspects of our lives. Not saying it’s not a challenge occasionally, but we’ve never looked back.
What is the best part of what you do on a day-to-day basis? The most challenging part?
Definitely working with amazing people. From the very beginning, we knew we had to surround ourselves with world-class talents (that’s why I asked Edith to join me!), and we did just that in the last few years. Going to work is never an effort because the nature of what we do and the people we collaborate with make us want to immerse ourselves completely in Kangaride. And that’s probably the cause of one of our major challenges, which is striking a balance between work and personal life. But we’re getting much better at it, especially when we discovered that our productivity and inspiration go through the roof when we focus on our well-being first.
Where do you see your business going in 5 years?
Talking about your business’ future is a little bit like talking about your kid…you don’t want to force a given set of milestones on her, you just want her to be all that she can be and enjoy life. Kangaride’s growth is impressive in terms of numbers (we have more than 21,000 seats, or the equivalent of 500 buses, available every week to inter-city travellers), but that growth has never been forced though advertising, it just happened organically. We just want to continue on that route and see where it leads us. As long as we love what we do, the journey is the destination.
What does success look like to you?
A joyful moment now.
What is the most memorable milestone in your career?
Definitely our performance on Dragons’ Den, which aired last week on CBC as the very last pitch of the season finale. We went way out of our comfort zone on this one, because we both prefer to work behind the scenes with our team to serve customers. Being in the spotlight like that was definitely something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives!
Do you have any advice for other young professionals?
As entrepreneurs, we are often tempted to bang things into place with lots of effort and strain, but there’s not much power in that compared to truly inspired action, which is more focused and way more enjoyable. We’ve learned to seek joy and well-being first, even if it means taking a break from work to breathe, go on a short (or long) vacation and enjoy the ocean and the sunlight. From that centered place, great ideas always flow. True inspiration is key in mastering the 80/20 rule.
Do you support any charities? If so, which one(s) and why is that important to you?
Edith and I are big believers in solidarity and we’ll go out of our way to buy from businesses and entrepreneurs who are already making this world a better place, especially in the world of organic produce. “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” We think this famous quote by William Gibson could very well apply to the future we’d like to see for all of us, and to that we might add: “And it needs more sales!” And not only that, it needs to be talked about. Last year, we had to opportunity to give talks about entrepreneurship, which we believe can be a mighty force for good in the world, and we loved it. Entrepreneurship is a road less travelled because it’s almost never presented as a viable path when you’re at school (we learned about it much later in life). Awakening the entrepreneurial spirit is definitely something we want to do more of, especially in front young people.
What is Notable to you?
People who completely ignore the peanut gallery while doing what they do best, always striving to be true to themselves. Add to that a little bit of love, and a great masterpiece is on its way. Also, people who understand that it’s all for fun.
Blackberry, iPhone, Android, or Other?
iPhones. Both of us. We really enjoy our Kindles too.
How do you keep active, energetic, and vibrant?
We recently discovered the Paleo lifestyle and it’s safe to say that our energy levels have almost doubled since we’ve started to apply it. Check it out. Authors Mark Sisson and Robb Wolf are a good place to start.
