So we say we have no information deficits because the Verein knows everything. They can ask as much as they want. Every day they can come and say lets have some control here and investigate some numbers. But they can't interfere with decisions. Therefore management is very strong in STATTAUTO, and the firm grows a lot. We are the fastest pace firm. So, information must be available, but the decision-making process should not be with the clients. The clients want to buy a certain service. They like the service. They like .the idea that someone controls the management, that their money is safe and the profits allow us a little reserve for the years tha~ we make mistakes and lose money. You don't want to go bankrupt because of a little mistake. They see that point. Just two weeks ago, we had the annual meeting. So we increased the monthly membership fee and they didn't like that. Because they said we pay money monthly and we don't have any service for that as long as we don't book the cars. This isn't true, because they have the feeling that they can book the cars at the next corner. It costs a lot of money to have this possibility. So they finally saw the point and our proposal passed. So that's a little of how it works. Concerning finances we don't have a big problem because they'give us lOOODM per person. So we don't have any finance problems. In fact, we could have less money because the bigger the firm the easier it is to lease cars instead of buying them so sometimes we have too much money. In the beginning, when you are very small, you have the problem that you have 20 people and $20,000 and you want to buy the next car. Well, where do you have the next $20,000. You have to lease it. Nobody leases the car to you because you are very small. But when you have 100 cars then you can lease them. I can say give me 40 cars for the summer season; afterwards I'll give them back. Then I don't have the selling problem ... I don't want to sell cars. I want to rent them and administer them. We are specialists in carsharing, not dealing. I just sold some, but it is not our business in fact. DJ: How were the tasks divided in the beginning? 'MP: First ,I began alone. I wrote a dissertation with STATTAUTO as the experimental, empirical part. So I just bought one car and to administer one car is not that hard. Everyone does that with their private cars. I had the administration of the members too, but there were 20 members so it wasn't too bad. And then we had to invent all these things, especially for example the computer program, which is a very special carsharing program. And not only that, how to found the firm ... well we had to invent that like every employer. So the problem was not how to divide the work. The problem was and is always for STATTAUTO to get the normal work done daily, to pay everybody and on the other hand, do all of these development things, plus public relations. Carsten, for example, this morning, first had the national TV here for three hours. Wonderful for STATTAUTO, but three hours? Don't forget that. Because the daily process of the firm, he didn't do anything for it. He didn't get any members. Well, he gets members by TV but sometimes you have American or Finnish TV and you don't get any members. So the problem for STATTAUTO is always to develop things, and to present things. For such a small firm the' ratio of doing free work in relation to general revenues is very, very big ... We are much smaller or more famous than our revenues. DJ: ... we've run into that problem in the US. _The national media takes up too much time in relation to the small return that generates for us locally. MP: Yes, it takes too much energy. Yes, at this point we always say it is better to stop the media. Don't attend the phone for the media sometimes. Because, for example, ADAC, the German equivalent of AAA, after a year, the media went to them and said why don't you do carsharing, you are much bigger. ADAC said it doesn't work, it doesn't even exist! They are so powerful with the media that the media wrote, "STATTAUTO doesn't exist." This is obviously not the case. We had maybe 10 cars. We were a very small firm, but we existed ... So now, after 7 years, they say in Berlin, "STATTAUTO exists, but they are not professional, they are alternative, crazy guys... " So, in fact, it is very important to do media. If not, they will lose interest after a certain time and write you off as crazies. They will say that private cars are the only ones that work, it's been a hundred years and it works. So we always had these times when the media was pushing us, and sometimes we told the media to go away. DJ: You need time to grow the business. MP: Yes, it is very important to keep the business going. The media is not that important. It is very important to grow, but don't overdo it with the media, especially in the US! In Oregon you're not interested in members in Texas obviously. "So because the media power of Greenpeace is something, we had these 750 people within one month. " DJ: How do you handle this quick growth? Carsten said recently 430 people signed up at the Climate conference? MP: Yes, that was good. We did the same thing last Fall. We had 750 people in one month. They were "testers". They tested the firm. Most of them left the firm afterwards. 300 or 270 stayed. That was because they had to pay an entrance fee. At the last conference, the Climate Summit, we didn't have that problem because we waived the entrance fee. We said well, during the Summit conference, you don't have to pay the entrance fee. Therefore, we had RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 Page 53
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