Today we’d like to introduce you to Rock Robinson.
Rock, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
A few years back, I was working a corporate job and was unsatisfied with the way things were going. More so, internally with me. I knew that I needed to build something that mattered, so I left that company to work on it. Before that job, I had previously owned a company in the car industry and knew that industry well.
Kevin Shea, our co-founder, came to me with an idea called RideBrand. From there, it just evolved and naturally progressed. We saw many of the problems that the world was facing and didn’t want to create another company that would contribute to the massive amount of waste and pollution fueling dying industries. In looking at the rideshare and transportation space there were a lot of gaps that needed to be filled and there weren’t any companies that were using their platform to make an impact.
We asked ourselves; how can we build a platform that would reflect the type of world that we want to build?
We knew that electric and eventually autonomous vehicles were the way of the future, but the technology didn’t exist to support that kind of platform. So we built it. We started testing the market renting Teslas and getting rides. By way of social media, eCarra was effectively born. Founded on the idea of using business as a force of good, a way to leave people, places, and things better than they found them.
The beta platform launched in January 2019 and our first year, we have brought on almost 2,000 founding members, planted thousands of trees, and saved millions of grams of carbon from ever hitting our atmosphere.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been anything but a smooth road. One of the biggest struggles has been getting people, whether they be investors, partners, or clients, to understand and adapt to these newer technologies. That has been interesting. Too many of our early adopters, it was an obvious ‘YES’. Now, as we are growing and getting exposed to larger communities, it’s been more of a challenge. We know that we have to head in this cleaner, more sustainable direction but it’s not comfortable because there are a lot of unknowns. We’re going to have to get uncomfortable and do things in a new way to bring about the significant changes that we need to see.
Another challenge has been finding the right people to come on board. Being a part of a startup is hard enough as it is. Add being a very impact-driven organization and that makes finding the right people a heftier challenge. It’s incredibly important that our team is aligned with our company’s values and lives those values every day. We know that what we’re building at eCarra is bigger than just luxury, electric rides. We’re moving people through the experiences that matter most and doing it in a way that allows them to make an impact; just by doing something they would already do. That’s powerful.
To that point, we now have the right people in place and it has made a world of a difference.
Please tell us about eCarra.
eCarra is an excessively sustainable eco-luxe car service, providing custom-tailored, zero-emissions experiences in all-electric vehicles (currently all Teslas). While other services offer last minute, impersonal solutions, the eCarra app allows clients to customize every aspect of their ride, down to the desired mood, music and stops along the way. You can also track your individual emissions savings in our app-and we’ll even plant a tree for every ride.
We focus on partnerships with companies like RealPage, EarthX, Nexus PMG, StreetLights, and Visit Dallas. Corporate travel and helping companies with their sustainability initiatives is a big piece for us, but anyone can ride with us. Just download the app, set up your profile, and feel good about your next ride.
We are most proud of doing something that is bigger than us. There were many other platforms that we could have built that would have been easier. We chose this route because we saw the need, socially and environmentally. We wanted to fix the experience piece of the ride-share and transportation industry, but in a way that is future conscious and allows individuals to make an impact.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I have a vivid memory of the time that my aunt and uncle took me to Niagra Falls. I was maybe 6 or 7 and I remember being in awe of the rushing water and the sounds. When you see something that big and powerful, it’s hard to not feel incredibly small. Even though I was young then, I still carry that smallness. It was the first time that I truly understood how big the world is and how I fit in it. It was a humbling experience.
Before that experience, I had no concept of myself compared to the universe. It was terrifying and empowering at the same time.
I could imagine it’s like what Carl Sagan talked about, astronauts in space looking back to Earth. He described it like this, “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
That perfectly encompasses what it was like standing next to Niagra Falls for me.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2707 Realty Rd
Carrollton, TX 75006 - Website: www.ecarra.com
- Phone: 9728857884
- Email: ridesthatmatter@ecarra.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ridesthatmatter
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ridesthatmatter
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/ridesthatmatter
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/company/ecarra
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