People tell me i need an investor that is further up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

They see the social and environmental benefits of Jayride and say that I should find an investor to match.

Let me tell you a story...

In 2009 eBay issued a statement. It said “We never set out to be a green business, we realised it’s intrinsic.”

The only difference between Jayride and eBay is that Jayride realised it was green. We incorporated green into our brand at an early stage.

If you were to have been an early stage investor in eBay you might have been doing it because you identified the environmental benefits.

But you were probably doing it because you identified the massive pay day.

Jayride is the same.

And I'd encourage investors to be in it for the money.

Environmental sustainability will be short lived without economic sustainability. We are not a charity. There is no success for us in us being green without profit.

Without profit Jayride will die small. With profit comes investment. With investment, growth. With growth, benefits all around.

Yet there can be no conflict of interest. It is not possible to separate high occupancy transport from social and environmental benefit. No matter how much money we try to make.

With Jayride as with eBay, green is intrinsic and not at odds with profitability.

Lack of privacy online may be the best thing we’ve ever done for our environment.

Facebook has taken a lot of heat lately over privacy. You might not have heard through the uproar but in the eyes of environmental entrepreneurs like me, knowing your secrets is the best thing for the planet.

It may not seem like an environmentalist’s tool of choice but on websites like Jayride, Freecycle, Airbnb, Swap.com and others, this new technology is helping people to reduce their environmental impact, consumption and costs in a very old fashioned way: By sharing.

On Jayride, the carpool matching site, Facebook connects people who drive the same way. The costs of any car trip are mostly fixed. So, by filling those spare seats (read: sharing with more people), the cost per person is reduced.

The potential in sharing is huge. Consider that a carpool could save you five dollars each way on your commute to work. By carpooling you’ll save yourself $2,400 every year. That's $5 x2 (to work, and back) x5 (days per week) x48 (weeks of work per year).

It’s a surprising equation that applies not just to your dollar cost, but also to the cost of your carbon emissions.

This is just one example of sharing in action. In Rachel Botsman’s book What’s Mine is Yours on the topic of “collaborative consumption” she highlights the power drill; an item that many of us own, yet seldom use.

Purchasing a power drill creates waste in the production and ultimate disposal of the drill, and that waste is reflected in it’s cost. So wouldn’t it make sense to simply rent one when you need it, or share someone else’s, and not have to pay the full cost?

After all, rentals and sharing are used in other facets of our lives every day. Consider share flats, house or car and truck rentals. These items have always been sharable because of their high cost. The cost to own is so high that it justifies the transaction cost of renting one instead.

Consider that you’ll spend time hunting, queuing, filling out forms, providing references and ID to rent a house because the alternative, buying one, is just too expensive.

This has never been true of the drill, which explains why you’re probably never rented one. The cost in time and effort to rent has always been much higher than the cost of buying your own.

Until now. Enter Facebook, where freedom of information is removing the transaction costs of renting and sharing by placing everyone on the same page.

When plugged into websites like Jayride and others, Facebook creates online sharing and renting directories. It delivers the scale these directories need to ensure that there is always a home, a drill, or a carpool near you, when you need it.

Plus with Facebook’s lack of privacy comes increasing trust in strangers. Consider those proof-of-identity forms that you no longer need to complete. Facebook knows who you are, and who your friends are, so that with one click a potential sharer can learn everything they need to know to trust you.

The evidence from Jayride shows that despite the recent uproar, people value that trust higher than their privacy.

Expect to see this trend towards sharing take off as Facebook drives more connections and more availability of information. This environmentalist believes that old-fashioned sharing, enabled with new technology, will come to reduce the cost and environmental impact of everything we do.

Soon driving to work without saving $2,400 each year may be seen as an unnecessary luxury that’s no longer worth the cost.

– Rod Bishop is co-founder of Jayride. This article has been republished with permission on GreenTimes

• Not very status-oriented
• Doesn’t follow rules very well and questions authority
• Can handle high degrees of ambiguity or uncertainty
• Can handle rejection, being told “no” often and yet still have the confidence in your idea
• Very decisive.  A bias toward making decisions – even when only right 70% of the time – moving forward & correcting what doesn’t work
• A high level of confidence in your own ideas and ability to execute
• Not highly susceptible to stress
• Have a high risk tolerance
• Not scared or ashamed of failure
• Can handle long hours, travel, lack of sleep and the trade-offs of having less time for hobbies & other stuff

When I read that post headline I was hesitant to click on it. Like a test in a woman's magazine "what if we're not a match!?".

Actually, it reads like a bio. In fact, I'm re-writing my Linkedin shortly. I'll probably use a lot of these words.

Poker is a good analogy for a lot of things.

Especially start-up business.

I have a hand of cards. You might know what they are.

But I have only guesses about what I'm up against.

I have a stack of hard earned chips. And if I don't put them on the table I can't win anything.

And so I have to decide.

Are my cards good enough that I'm willing to stake everything I've earned on the value of the cards, even though I have only best guesses about how it will all turn out?

I've decided "Yes".

I've only got pocket Queens, but I reckon the world's got 2,7.

Expect this blog to get a lot busier shortly.

I talk a lot about "good" ideas. I say some ideas are good, some are bad. Here's how I think you tell the difference.

A good idea:
- achieves what you want to achieve.
- starts from where you are able to start.

Consider an example:

A man works for a perfume company. He wants a revolutionary new perfume product. He has this idea - "what about a pill you take that makes your sweat smell like perfume".

That would sell millions. It achieves his outcome (new perfume product). But it is still a bad idea. Why?

Because the company is not a biochemical company. It would have no way to begin to design such a product.

Like how if you don't have a tech founder, you shouldn't start a tech business.

This is why blue sky brainstorming does not yield good ideas. This is why good ideas must come from a process.

You must pay attention to your start point (and your end point).

These will be different for everyone. And so first, you must work out what these points are for you.

Be restrictive. Work out how to get from only a to only b. Be ruthless. Kill ideas that go to c instead, kill ideas that do not start at a.

The result will not be just any idea. It will be an idea that you can act on.

To me this is the major prerequisite for "good".

Full credit: See Jonar Nader for more how how to actually achieve innovation.

The thing about bad customer service is that it can quickly become endemic.

Organisations must work to avoid this. But as a poorly treated customer take solace that complaining has an impact.

Here's a case study about Australia Post.

Over seven months ago Australia Post destroyed an Amplifier I shipped from NZ to Australia. It was insured. I still await payment.

Today I called again to check up on this. I have yet to have a good experience with their call centre. I called ready for a bad experience. The operator, Effie, tells me that the case has been closed. She cannot access my details. She cannot pass me on to anyone. No one can call me back because the case is closed.

I say "the case is clearly not closed because I am not yet satisfied". She cannot help.

Lesson 1: The case is not closed until the customer is satisfied. Give your support people the tools they need to go satisfy the customer.

I was pre-readied for a bad experience. The destruction of my Amplifier and seven months of bad service finally get to me. I get angry.  She gets angry. We have a ten minute shouting match. We hang up. We each, I'm certain, have a terrible day where every little problem gets Amplified.

Lesson 2: customers who expect a bad experience will HAVE a bad experience.

Lesson 3: support people who field a bad call will expect more bad calls, and HAVE more bad calls.

And here's the endemic part:

Lesson 4: as an actively dissatisfied customer I relish the opportunity to tell everyone that You Should Expect A Bad Experience From Australia Post.

See the terrible spiral?

Go call Australia Post. Expect the worst. See what happens.

For the customer this is the solace (even against monopolies). Being angry when justified will decrease call centre satisfaction, increase staff turnover, increase the costs of hiring and training, and cost the company lots and lots of money.

For the organisation the solution is simple. Learn lesson one.

Time short, so we recycle. An oldie and goodie for what is currently on my mind.

At present I am launching http://www.jayride.com.au - a carpool and rideshare travel community.

I'm thinking about how to get a community off the ground. We have some good leverage: 4000 members and relationships in New Zealand, good market knowledge, great localisation. Now to get started.

Today we got our first (non-crew) member and ride share in Australia.

Here it is: A carpool in Perth, WA.

Now I have to do this:

I'm going to put as much effort as I can into making my first members into heroes. That as heroes they have bragging rights that they want to share. That their word of mouth encourages others to be heroes. That we together start a movement.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Those with the right answer, and those with the wrong one.

The wrong answer is that they come in a flash. That one day you are sitting in a bath tub and yell "eureka". Or that a few beers in the pub will generate the next big thing.

Lots of people think this way. For instance people I know. People with career paths that involve working for other people.

You hear them talk about it. "Their" idea. It came down in a flash one day. They cling to it hard. It proves that they could do it if they wanted but they, you know, just prefer job security.

They're fooling themselves. Their idea is crap. They will never make it happen. And the proof is that they haven't made it happen.

Good ideas come from a process. That process is called ideation.

The people above do not have a process. They use "blue sky" ideation. Or "dreaming".

What constitutes ideation depends on who you ask. Ad Agency Limited will have Brand Widget ™. This will be "better than other types of ideation" ™.

What constitutes your process depends on you. The important part is to know that having ideas is a process.

The last step may well be "blue sky". You could even plan towards that.

But if you do, then a very early step must be "learn the shit out of it".

Back to Archimedes: He may indeed have yelled "Eureka" in a bath tub. But not before he spent his entire life learning and writing on volumes and density.

So, save the blue sky. First, learn the shit of it. I recommend it.

Today I have begun a new ideation process. Which is going back a bit. I'll explain in a later post.

PS: As for the people whose ideas I just trashed. I really want you to prove me wrong. The world would be better for it :)

The first thing I learned about starting a website, I learned the hard way.

And I have to be sure to re-learn it each time, because I always expect it to be different.

In 2006 I launched my first web community, called "Hitch" it was a ride-sharing website designed to help travelers meet each other and travel together. I built it simple and put it out there. No one used it for weeks, then along came Nathan. My first ever user, Nathan shared a ride - despite sharing it in the internet equivalent of a ghost town.

From then growth was gradual. No big bang. Moving slowly was forced on me by incremental growth in user-base - But it afforded me the ability to test and add new features.

In 2008 Hitch relaunched as Jayride New Zealand. A more elaborate carpool and rideshare site, it also had an established audience of green travelers. We rushed to meet end of year busy season, then Bang. Launch. Press play, go, run, and ... fall down.

The technology was not flawless. People came, met a broken site, and left. Shortly later the email system went down for two weeks and no one noticed. Effort and money wasted.

Slow growth was not forced on me, and so I chose to run. I should have chosen slow growth.

Today I slow launched Jayride Australia. The best carpool and rideshare travel website Australia has ever seen.

It's counter-intuitive. Rushing to meet a release deadline then... nothing.

But it's worth it.

As they say, good things take time. And it is better to have a small audience, receive feedback and find errors before they matter. Better then, than when you're knee deep in Adwords, promotion stunts and press releases.

So, no big bangs. Start slow. Get it right up front. And you'll find you get maximum return all on your investments when you do start moving.

Why should you read this blog?

Because you'll get insight on how to start and run your own web business, and the inspiration to make it happen for real.

You'll get great web and marketing tips to help you build better sites, promote them better and at low cost.

You'll learn how to make money online, build passive revenue, and retire early.

And you'll get great advice like today's lesson.

Today's lesson is WIIFM.

WIIFM is a style of writing designed to succinctly communicate benefits. It tells the reader, up front, without preamble or extraneous adjectives what's in it for them.

WIIFM stands for "what's in it for me".

But the key is to not think about you. It's to think about the reader. This post is an example.

I could have said:
"This blog exists to give insight to it's readers..."

Instead I said:
"You get insight."

I could say:
"I write short sentences because writing less words makes it easier to read."

But so what? Instead I say:
"I save you time."

One makes you engage. The other just makes you shrug.

The problem is people don't always think like this. Try asking a software developer what his latest release does.

He'll tell you about new features.

We want to hear about new benefits.

So start there. And skip the first part. Or come back to it later. I recommend it.