It was great to see Alec Dent, Partnership and PR Manager of BlaBlaCar at our last Sharing Economy startups dinner. Here’s a bit more about him and the business he is working for.

What’s the elevator pitch for your startup?

BlaBlaCar connects people looking to travel long distance with drivers already going so that they can share the cost of the journey.

What were Blablacar’s founder doing before he launched his startup?

Prior to founding BlaBlaCar, Frédéric worked for 5 years as a scientific researcher, at NASA, as well as other places. He studied at INSEAD where he gained an MBA and studied a degree in computer science at Stanford.

What will 2014 bring?

2014 will see the release of our new app (in the next few days!) and the deployment of our online booking system across a number of other countries outside of France and Spain where it already exists. We are also always looking for the next country to expand into and we will making some progress on this front also as well as continuing to grow our current member base.

1 piece of advice for someone starting a business in the sector?

We have a number of internal motos at BlaBlaCar that were derived from our experiences, mistakes and successes in getting to where we are now and these would be the best advice we could give. For the tech minded out there, ‘Think it, Build it, Use it’ and ‘Done is better than perfect’ and a good overarching one is ‘The Member is Boss’!

Convince someone to use your product/service in under 50 words.

BlaBlaCar saves you money. As a driver, you can fully cover your fuel costs when you take three passengers with you on your long journeys. As a passenger, it’s on average 75% cheaper than trains. On top of that, BlaBlaCar is also a green and social travel solution.

What’s your favourite startup in the sector (not including your own)?

EasyCar Club. Someone needs to get peer to peer car rentals right – it makes so much sense! Whether you call them a startup is a bit of a different question however.

What’s your favourite London restaurant?

Rossella in Kentish Town. A very small Italian owned and run by a young guy in his early twenties. Unassuming, cheap and it’s in the top 100 restaurants on Tripadvisor out of 12000 in London!

It was great to see TableCrowd regular Alec and we hope to see him again at a future TableCrowd dinner!