Joanna McFarland bought the concept for HopSkipDrive in 2014 as a result of she wanted an answer to an issue that many working mother and father like herself face: How do you persistently get your youngsters the place they must be on time?
The concept was sparked at a birthday celebration she attended with one in all her kids. The subject of shifting youngsters round got here up and each mother there had their very own story of a state of affairs the place they felt they needed to let their little one down as a result of they’d no option to get them to regardless of the vacation spot was.
McFarland launched HopSkipDrive with Carolyn Yashari Becher and Janelle McGlothlin — the three have eight youngsters amongst them — as a option to attempt to safely deal with this concern by hiring secure third-party drivers to get their youngsters round.
HopSkipDrive didn’t know on the time that it was getting into an area the place there would quickly be fairly just a few startups elevating enterprise capital to attempt to deal with the issue, too. Newton, Massachusetts-based Sheprd regarded to resolve the issue by carting kiddos round in tricked-out Land Rovers geared up with snacks and iPads. Los Angeles-based Shuddle seemed to be extra of an Uber for teenagers by providing on-demand rides.
A lot of these startups have since gone out of enterprise. HopSkipDrive hasn’t. Why? As a result of an early pivot away from simply specializing in mother and father as the only real clients opened up a brand new income stream and set the corporate as much as progress previous most of the firms that failed.
