0:00:30 Amanda Stassen: Welcome to Builders and Believers, the show about what it really takes to build a business that moves people and makes a difference. I'm Amanda Stassen, strategic growth advisor and founder of Business Innovation, where I help leaders scale with clarity, conviction and courage. Here, we're going to go beyond business as usual to unpack the strategy, mindset and leadership it takes to build companies that perform with purpose and lead with heart.

Because building something that matters takes both the builder and the believer. When was the last time you were stuck in traffic on a major highway? At 7 a.m. in the morning. For me, that was just the other day, and this wouldn't have been anything extraordinary. I live about an hour north of downtown Toronto in Canada, so normally this would faze me, except for some reason.

In between sips of coffee that morning, I happened to glance around and some of the other vehicles and realized that, like me, the driver was the only person in that vehicle, and it struck me that that was actually pretty bizarre. Like, how many of us own a vehicle? Maybe even two. And how often is that vehicle actually utilized to capacity, let alone how often do we use our vehicles?

So it got me curious and I did a little bit of digging. Now, did you know that in Canada, according to stats, can almost 90% of commuters who drive a vehicle to work, they do it alone. That's a ton of single person vehicles stuck in traffic on a daily basis. But where it gets even weirder and crazier with all of us owning all of these vehicles, you think that we use them quite a bit.

I mean, we spend a lot of money on our vehicles. Would you be surprised if I told you that studies have found that private passenger vehicles are parked around 90%, 95% of the time? Is there a better way? There has to be a better way. Now, a lot of people are betting on shared mobility as the answer to more sustainable, convenient and cost effective travel.

In fact, according to McKinsey, by 2030 shared mobility could generate up to 1 trillion in consumer spending. To learn more about this and the future of mobility, we've got Sandra Phillips, CEO of modo, a car sharing co-op out of Vancouver, Canada, whose purpose it is to transform communities by connecting people with places in a way that is affordable, convenient, inclusive and sustainable.

She's a TEDx alumni speaker and also the founder and now chairwoman of Move Me, a shared mobility architecture consultancy that's been part of over 70 shared mobility projects worldwide from the US and Canada to Luxembourg and UAE. Let's get into it. Sandra, thank you so much for joining me today. I love having conversations about the future of things, and I'm super excited to chat about all things mobility with you.

So thank you so much for joining.

0:03:24 Sandra Phillips: Thank you so much for having me, Amanda.

0:03:27 Amanda Stassen: Oh, awesome. So you've been in the world of transportation for a long time, but I remember from our last conversation that your background is actually in natural language processing. Can I I don't even know what that is. So for I want to know what that is, but maybe connect the dots for me a little bit, share a little bit about your background and how you got into this whole area of mobility.

From from there.

0:03:53 Sandra Phillips: Okay. Very good question. Very interesting journey I would say. Maybe let me start with this is obviously a purpose driven, purpose powered brand podcast. Let's start with what's actually powering me and okay. Okay. I figured that out by now. It's change making. Okay. Okay. Especially when it's it's around improving communities. I had always a very strong compass.

Yeah, but my actual background to your question is quite eclectic. Yes. I started in, like, you can detect maybe a bit of an accent. I'm Swiss. Yeah, I have, what in Canada would be considered a bachelor in business administration first? Then I did a master's combining natural language processing, sociology, and English. Oh, wow. And then I added a project management certification to wrap things up.

Okay. Very eclectic. And really, what I thought would happen is I would work on natural language processing. I was always very compact or very interested in how do we communicate amongst different communities. And so that was a great fit. And my a lot of my work during university was around chat bots and large search large language databases. Kind of what ChatGPT now uses for us.

Yeah, it was very like it's over 25 years ago. So, you know, things have changed a lot. Quite when I moved to Canada. The only opportunities in the natural language processing space were tied to military activities. In 2010, there was a lot of, like, you know, the Iraq war influenced some of that, and it just did not align with what I wanted, or who I wanted to be.

Right. So I pivoted. Okay. And I was like, what else can I do with all this background that I was. And Vancouver was building out its greener city workforce. And I came across this very interesting and very cryptic job posting. That said, launching a new mobility service and all my Canadian friends were like, this is telco.

And I'm like, no, it's tied to an automotive company. It says at the bottom, large automotive company. And I think it's car share. Anyway, I walked into the interview basically saying, I think you wanting to build a car share. And here is how this works. I've been using it all my life in Switzerland and that's how I got the job.

I think I was the only person who walked in who actually knew what it was. And that shifted my path was I have been in share mobility and the transportation space since then for the last 15 years, and I have not gotten bored, at all. And it is really like, how do you combine all these new, highly technical services, which is where actually my natural language processing background helped a lot because I understand technology.

I'm a terrible developer, would never hire me as a developer, but I have an understanding of how it all fits together and what you need to make a create product that's easy and people understand. So anyway, I that's part of it, right? So I got into it, I haven't looked back. And I think the one thing that really cemented my I'm committed to this space is I was hired for car to go.

That was this cryptic, job posting and initially just for a project coordinator role to kind of figure out, they say even a business case in Vancouver, it doesn't make sense outside of Europe. And it did. And my role changed to launch it. And when the first 250 cars hit and I would go to a party and all of a sudden, you know, you, Amanda would say, hey, car to go to here and not to me, but to another friend.

Yeah. I was like, that is so powerful. Yeah. And so I think, yeah, I have a look back and part of me just thinks when I was and I have been sharing this story with a few of my, my team members change making at the core. When I was a teenager, I was and say angry punk rock kid.

0:08:07 Amanda Stassen: Okay, what was it that was not happy? What was your favorite band? Let me just go there for a minute.

0:08:15 Sandra Phillips: Every German band. So I'm not like, I don't think anybody would know there, but it was more like I was just they angry with everything. Okay, that didn't work. And so I don't I think I'm using that energy still, but maybe in a more constructive form.

Yes. Yes. And then way back when, yeah. Anyway, that's how I ended up here.

0:08:41 Amanda Stassen: So, so there's so many pieces to that. I'm thinking about the natural language processing. When you say that, it makes me think of the ability to connect maybe disparate things, the ability to see the, synergies between different things and to help translate them.

So how do you translate movement? How do you get people from one place to another? I'm trying to see, you know, the the way that you were able to translate technology into movement and to making it easier for people. When did it when did you feel that it was a passion of yours? So like you describe, change making is your purpose.

Was it that you saw something in the in the world around you that you got really frustrated by and you were like, I'm going to do something about this. So when you say change making, what does that mean to you?

0:09:39 Sandra Phillips: I'm going to give you a very personal story. So I moved to Canada in 2010. And I had never owned a car.

Okay. And I moved out, with my, like, because of love. So that's my then partner. Yeah. And his family was telling me, you're going to have a car within a year. And I'm like, absolutely not. I can make this work. I'm in Vancouver. Having said that, I arrived in 2000, actually arrived at the end of 2008. And, Canada Line hadn't been built.

Right? It was built for the Olympics, so there wasn't even a Skytrain out to the airport. And so his family picked this up at the airport. But I, I'm very, very stubborn. And so we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we make this work? We lived, we moved down town. We have bikes. I sign up for the local, car club, which, by the way, now I'm heading up Moto.

Yes. Oh, interesting. So. So I did all of that, but it was still challenging. A lot more challenging than I was used to from Switzerland, where I really like as a teenager, I could go to Zurich without my parents having to drive me there. I took my bike, I took the train, I took the tram on the other side and it was fine and it was safe and it was okay.

So and I will say car to go really change that because any change the face of of the city, I don't know if you know about Vancouver is the largest car share city in North America with two providers, about 3500 cars. And so having that plus, at the time, mayor, Gregor Robertson was really investing in active transportation infrastructure.

Plus we haven't really actually for North America, a very strong public transit system. All of that together. Now all of a sudden allow me to live what I had very stubbornly said I would do. Yeah. But probably a little bit this where I'm like, how how how interesting that that I basically made the change happen. Because to be very honest, I don't know that I would have stayed car free in Vancouver if cargo hadn't launched in the market and then even later, building up these alternative because you really need multiple options.

And I think, you also asked when did you realize that you really passion about transportation is I think when I really understood that you need a puzzle piece where you need the different, so you need the different pieces for the puzzle to lift car free. Our cars allow us to do so much, but we also buy them for, you know, the one time we go camping we get.

Right? It's possible the car right. Just for that one time. Yeah. Where this is like you have to stitch the things together and I'm. Yeah. I like bringing the different pieces together and the different community is, is, I think maybe the other part where my, where I started out, right was around language. And how do you use language to build bridges?

And how do you use technology to maybe make those, language barriers reduce? I think that's where also my natural inclination is, how do we build those bridges? How do we build the bridges between the different modes to then build like a cohesive, ecosystem?

0:13:03 Amanda Stassen: Right. And so you at some point, I think it was like in 2014, you started an agency to solve this problem.

So you started to move me talking about that entrepreneurship journeys where you were seeing a gap in the market and you, you started with an agency model.

0:13:20 Sandra Phillips: Yes. So I think a car to go to a certain degree I was an entrepreneur, you know that fancy term. Yes. But really like I was sitting I was employee number one, I was sitting here with no blueprint how to get this right to market.

Yeah. And I loved it. It pushed my creative thinking to the max. Yes. And then after a while it, it it became a large, global operation. It really was about how to optimize. And I don't think I'm the right person. You need a different kind of personality for that, right? Yes. But I also started I really wanted to push this ecosystem, like, how do we bring public transport closer together?

And I obviously ran into a bit of a challenge in an automotive company at the time. Yeah, in North America to do that. So I started moved me as an agency partly. And your question is why an agency model? Partly because I'm like, I have to be independent. As an operator, you obviously have a stake in the game.

Yeah, but I'm independent. I can bring the different operators together. I can bring public transport in, I can bring the cars here and the bikeshare, and I can facilitate the like. Let's build the network that works for the consumers. So that's how like that was the initial idea, to be very honest. Yeah. And then I went on, the first three months I went on a business development trip in Europe.

And a bit of money saved and I kind of invested that in like, let's go to Europe and see what they're doing. So I understand what we could bring back. And during that journey I was very lucky. And I got our very first project in Dubai of all places, bringing a car share to a very specific use case, which obviously was an natural fit.

Right? I had done that, and it was the first project, the first large international project. And that kick this off or that put us on a good start to then build from there, bring in other people, to actually get to that public transport bike and Carshare integration project in Metro Vancouver took me another three years, and it actually took me, I won, next visionary, contest that was put on by Ted and BMW.

That's cool. And I got a Ted talk and I got to talk about, you know, ecosystem approach. And that's what then kicked off an actual project with TransLink, which is the, Public Transportation Authority, Metro Vancouver, to then build this integration. And it's, yeah, there's a number of different iterations of pilots that have happened and moves me has been basically involved the entire time.

In fact, it's still involved even though I sit now model as a CEO. So I step back out of the agency model, went back to operational service provider. Yeah I have hand it over. Moved me to my number two move me and he's running it now and he's still involved. He's still kind of the the glue, I would say the independent glue that can hold the space for all of these competitors, basically.

0:16:33 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, yeah. I want to ask about, you know, the whole with this shared mobility, you know, dive into that. But before you mentioned something about entrepreneurship and I just want to pause there for a second. Tell me what you feel the differences between entrepreneurship entrepreneurship and operator ship. You know what I mean. So each partnership within that larger organization, entrepreneurship on your own, and then being an operator, in another organization, those are three stages of kind of your, your journey.

Tell me the tell me your differences between each of those.

0:17:15 Sandra Phillips: I don't come from a family with any entrepreneurship background okay. Okay. So I had no no idea what that even means. What that is how you, how are you an entrepreneur? Can I even like. I didn't even have thought that. That's something I would be interested in.

Yeah. So the entrepreneurship I think really allowed me to like essentially build the services and the company and the structure around it without me really knowing that that was thing. It was a very, it had a very clear framework. There was very clear expectations. I had a support network, and I had people who knew how to launch these new services.

So it was almost like an a budget and a budget and a budget. I had a budget and, I had a very clear direction of what we wanted to achieve. So it was a, I would say, probably a very safe way for me to learn what you needed to put in place. You need to hire people. You need to, like, have a forecast.

You need to figure out where, in this case, workers school. You need to have partnerships and relations with relevant stakeholders like municipalities. All of this I got a little blueprint and then I just like in their head it was a project. Yes. And I had done that project manager certification. Yeah. But in my head it really prepared me very well for what I then started on my own because I learned how and many times because I, I launched Vancouver, I launched Toronto, I launched, Calgary with them, and I set the foundation for the Montreal launch, which then somebody else executed.

But I had done it three times over three and a half times over. Yeah. So it was like, okay, I need all these pieces in place for me to launch a business. Yeah. So it's a very I think it was a very protected school for me. Yeah. Somebody who had never thought of being an entrepreneur. Yeah. And then entrepreneurship is obviously more challenging because all of a sudden you don't going back to your thing.

I didn't have a budget. I bootstrapped, with me to where it is now. Which is a very different funding model. But I was also very intentional. Very early on people were like, well, you could build some technology to, you know, instead of an agency, you could be a technology provider that connects all the dots.

Right. And then you could get some VC funding or angel investment as just like, I think I just gotta do it on my own. I gotta learn the hard way. Yeah. How to finance and build something. Yes. And possibly I still didn't fully trust myself that I really was an entrepreneur that could just go and get funding.

I think that's the other part. So yeah, then I did that and I again, similar to when I at some point the critical I realized, I think we're moving into a different stage of the company. I need to leave because this is not where my strengths is. Similar with me. I've been building it for the last ten years bootstrapping is way slower and consulting a very niche.

Consulting is also very slow. You have to build a reputation. It took a long time to get the reputation with me now has, but at some point I realized, okay, we have the reputation. People recognize us. We have a blueprint for a number of different projects, like the integration on the physical side, the digital growing, helping, you know, existing providers, how do they grow?

How do we make it more profitable? We have all those blueprints. I have people in the team who've done it now a number of times with me. I think it's time for somebody else who can really operationalize them rather than me, who would like to go, you know, Taylor Swift, who has a new era kind of going after her new era.

I think that's maybe not the right thing because it's a really valuable service. And while I've been in the space since 2010, a lot of municipalities or other organizations have only started thinking about shared mobility, maybe five years ago. Right.

0:21:30 Amanda Stassen: So then now your question is oh but you're now way back to an operator. Doesn't that like and they've been around for 28 years.

Like how does that shape with what you just told me.

0:21:43 Sandra Phillips: Well I think most legacy legacy organizations and I really mean this lovingly. At some point you gotta figure out how you still fit in in this world, in this current iteration of the world. Yes. Like you build it. You perfected it. You've had people that are not me, that are stewards of gardeners who make it perfect, and then at some point to stay relevant and to keep up with the times you need another Sandra or changemaker that comes in and is like, okay, we have the foundation now.

It's it's almost like level up. How do you level up now from here? Yes. Yeah. And that's why this is really interesting because it's still making that change. And I think one of the things that is pushing my growth is it's leveling up, not from a blank slate from from an existing slate. And how do you do that in a respectful and mindful and, collaborative way with what is is there?

And that's a very strong foundation. How do you do that. And so that's basically leveling up my own game, to be very honest.

0:22:58 Amanda Stassen: Yes, yes. And it's, it's, it's it's a lot of, work that we do, which is, you know, working with organizations that have been around for a while and need to, as you put it, which is really great, find their their value proposition in the world today.

So what got them here isn't what's going to get them there. It's sort of that reinvention that has to happen, which is is so wonderful because you've you've actually been along the journey, you've seen the you've been on the big organization side where you've created something net new within the organization. As an entrepreneur, you've had the backing of your organization, you had the budget.

So it was it was like a safe launch pad for somebody who's entrepreneurial spirited. And then you moved into the entrepreneur ship space proper, launching your own agency, and now you're taking both of those learnings and you're bringing them into, an organization that's been around for a while and needs kind of the next leveling up, as you put it.

So it's it's a beautiful it's to me, it's there's beautiful continuity to it, which is very exciting. So let's now dive into shared mobility, which is what does. And I've heard this, this term used. And I think that, you know, even move me as an agency has used the terminology of being a shared mobility. Architecture. What does that actually even.

0:24:27 Sandra Phillips: Issue is a good question and is it's really like a move me term coined Chevrolet architecture. And part of it had to do with really if you think about it, if you're bringing in whether that's Corsair or Micromobility Scooter Share, you're bringing in a whole new system into an existing transportation ecosystem. So you can also think of it as system design.

But that was didn't quite resonate with a lot of people because system design, often people think, well, either it's social, you know, kind of systems or then it's like software, but share mobility. And transportation has a very physical component anchored in the physical space. So the best way I could describe is like an architect, right. And an architect builds a house like a, let's say, a house for, seniors or older adults, very differently than if he's focused on building a mixed use residential tower or with some shops and, you know, a yoga studio at the bottom, you start with, where are the users?

Who is going to live in here, and what do we need for them to do what they want to do and to live their best life? Now, the difference, obviously, is you have one building that they're building and then that's not it's not moving around in the physical space constantly. But that was the best way of describing what I really think, how we need to think about shared mobility in the broader context.

It's not an individual thing. It impacts the entire transportation system that's already there. The second thing why it was really helpful is because a lot of architects or people understand that architects have a focus on design, and designing is a way of also influencing how people live in those houses. Right? You make the house very km's and like then most likely the residents are more calm in that house versus if you have saying like all the walls are pink and red, it's a different energy.

And so people understood that analogy really well. And that's the same thing. When we bring in shared public services, we basically influence how people move around in good or in bad ways. I can give you a bad example, right? You have all the kick scooter companies that at some point came in and there was no rules around where you could leave or not leave, right?

And so all of a sudden US sidewalks cluttered, which became a tripping hazard for older adults, people with, you know, visual impairments like. So that's maybe a bad example where all of a sudden we influence the community. Positive example is that we all of a sudden had a lot more people that would never go on a bike, but they all of a sudden we're on a kick scooter exploring a city without their car.

So like, we influence what we're doing. That's why, we started using share mobility architecture because it allows us to talk about those aspects of it's not just about I have these kinds of vehicles, I have this tech. It's like, what are we actually doing in the community? And we're really impacting the community and how it moves around.

0:27:44 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, it's there's a whole ecosystem to it. Exactly. In the space of urban planning and mobility, how does cities need to or communities need to rethink mobility as they kind of plan for the future or even plan for the present, like what's the intersection of mobility and call it wellness or healthier communities?

0:28:12 Sandra Phillips: You can tackle this from a number of different aspects.

I'm going to go back to my earlier point. You have to give people choices. We don't like to be told what to do. A generally most people don't. And when it comes to transportation, we are also very habitual creatures. If you think about when you last changed, how you got around is probably when you moved or when you took a new job.

0:28:40 Amanda Stassen: Generally we don't change is actually really true, now that I think about it. Like what was the last time I changed my route is when I go to a different place. Yeah. You're right.

0:28:53 Sandra Phillips: Yeah. So we have to give people choices if we want them to adopt something. That is, let's just say green. Like our car trips contribute 30% of the greenhouse gases.

We have to figure out another way. Yes, we can all go electric, but that's not affordable for everybody. I guess the first big problem actually, in my opinion, is the bigger problem. We don't have the resources to go all electric and to be very honest, we also don't solve our traffic jams just by going right to an electric car.

So we have to give people alternatives. We have to give them choices. We have to give them lots of different ways. Because you might be like, actually, I really enjoy walking when it's sunny, so you need a decent sidewalk again, I'll tell you how many communities we work in that don't have sidewalks, right? And broken sidewalks, what's called like you have a portion and then all of a sudden there isn't any, I might really enjoy exploring the city faster, or I have to bring my kids to daycare, and I want to go by bike because I don't want to be stuck in the loop.

You know, where all the parents drop off the kids. So I take cargo, but, well, I need infrastructure that allows me to do that safe. Because I have a kid in the front lawn, and then I have cases where I just need to do a big grocery run and I do need a car, but I actually can't afford or don't want to own two cars.

I just want one or none. If I live in Vancouver I want none because it's a hassle. Okay, well then I need to have another option. And yes there's also the bus and the Skytrain. But keep in mind. Right. They're all like on fixed routes right. Fixed schedules. They don't run in the middle of the night. They obviously don't go right outside of the school of my daughter.

So there's all of those things. I think we just need to get away from. One thing is the fix it all to we need to give people options, and we have to make it easier in many ways. Like I talked about infrastructure, I talked about, right, the services, the type of vehicles you need all of that to make it work.

And so going back to your question, what should communities do? I think the first thing I would say stop thinking one thing is better than the other. Let's just figure out all the different pieces. And if you have certain communities can't do all of it then you've got to make choices. Right. And maybe it's public transport and car share as a first.

And then later you can public transport and bike lanes whatever your choice. But don't just think one thing will solve it because it will not.

0:31:35 Amanda Stassen: And I mean even when you think you mentioned the congestion of traffic like the, the, the highways are congested with a single person driving, you know people, one person driving in a vehicle and you wonder why are they not taking the train.

But the train only runs at certain times. And so it doesn't run on the weekends. And so you have these communities that there really isn't any better choice than just driving. Yes. Right. And so when you think about so how are we planning these communities as we move outside of the city? Cause how do those things work? Yeah.

Have there been any really big like could you share an example of a project that you guys worked on with Move Me, where you actually saw a difference in people's well-being, as well as things like traffic and congestion?

0:32:29 Sandra Phillips: Actually, I can give you, a very good example in, in the Okanagan area. Right. Okanagan is a very touristy area.

Yeah. As well as Oliver are very small communities. I'm not talking about Kelowna, small kind of communities where people go in the summer, to have wine, drink wine and chill, you know, kind of that type of trip. And so what happens in those communities during the summer months? Yeah, the number of cars triples, which obviously the infrastructure is not built for that because it's just during a certain period of months.

Right. And then they all want to drive to the beach, which there's not enough parking. There's not enough. So that doesn't work. So one of the projects we worked on is is called Sparrow. It's, it's started as a quick scooter electric scooter project, but what we call nests. So sparrow with nests, and the nests are like, they have, it's kind of a bike rack where they're parked, so that.

Okay, everywhere. Okay. They're tied to hospitality, infrastructure. Because most of the time people, let's say people from Vancouver, they will drive up to them. So they do need a car to get there. But do they need a car for this small community to go to the beach? No. If there's an alternative and it's right outside your hotel, right, you will because you also have time.

And this going back to when do we change our habits? When we have time, when we're in a different environment, we're quite happy. People are quite happy to try something. It's made a big difference to those communities. And it's, it's very popular, like a, in fact, even even not in the high summer months. They have, hockey tournaments where there's a bunch of teenage leagues coming in, and they love it too.

And they now use that and they all of a sudden have freedom. Think about it as well. Right before they had to wait for the bus to get them anywhere. Now they have more freedom to go.

0:34:26 Amanda Stassen: Oh, that's so good. That's a great example. So let's shift gears now to model. For people who don't know what model is, share a little bit about what its purpose is and how does it actually work.

0:34:38 Sandra Phillips: Okay. Model is what's called a station based car share, which means you have a car in a specific location and you can take it wherever you want. But at the end of it, you bring it back to that location, so you can't just leave it somewhere else in your city.

0:34:52 Amanda Stassen: So like a rental car, kind of like a rental car.

0:34:55 Sandra Phillips: So you I think that's what about description. It's like a self-serve. You are a member. It's a cooperative. So you're a car owner? Actually, if you have a model plus membership, you're a member. Owner, which will help drive where the next cars go. But we have about a thousand cars. By the end of this year, 1 in 5 will be electric.

So we're on a really clear path towards electrification. It's 28 years old. It's one of the oldest cars here. Not just in North America, but in the world. Okay. And it's been growing. We have a, our strongest market is Metro Vancouver, and it started out in the West End with 16 members saying, yes, we want to share car.

They had two cars. They shared it. It was all very manual. There was no technology. You had to pull the license plate down and there was a key behind in a lock box. None of that is the case anymore. We are fully app enabled. You have a special fab. You get in and out of the car without any of that.

But of the, biggest operation is in in Metro Vancouver, we have, large operation in on Vancouver Island, specifically around Victoria. And then in the off Canadian in colonial area.

0:36:11 Amanda Stassen: And so how does it work? What do people do to to get in?

0:36:19 Sandra Phillips: Yeah. So you sign up, I should say currently on the website in,

Soon. Let's just put it that way. Soon. You can do all of that through the app. You sign up, you need, what you need is a credit card, obviously, like most accounts. Right. And then a driver's license, because in B.C., for insurance purposes, we have to check that you are an eligible driver for caution. Every car has to do that.

It's automated, but you need your driver's license to put that in. Once you're through the registration and then you choose, you just you just want to be a monthly member because, no, I don't want to be part of the co-op as a member owner. Or do you want to be member owner? That's it. So once you're signed up, you use the app to book the car you choose like which location?

In some cases I choose where I live. In some cases I'm like, actually, I'm taking the ferry over to Nanaimo and I want a car in. And I'm like, you choose, the car where where you want. You book it for the length of time you want. You have, as I said, you have a slot that's in and out.

You do what you need to do. There's really nothing else that needs to happen. You do what you need to do. At the end. You fall about, and you get charged for the time and the column and the distance you use. That's it.

0:37:46 Amanda Stassen: So it's it's kind of I'm thinking about Uber, which is another form of, mobility, shared mobility, where you're, you know, you order through the app, you go from A to B, you don't have to worry about the vehicle.

This one is taking it a step to the next level. Perhaps where you own the car for you actually can keep the physical car for as long as you want it, for as long as you have have signed it out for, and you're also an owner. Talk a little bit about that.

0:38:18 Sandra Phillips: Yeah. So that's probably the most unique thing about model.

There's other car care providers. And there are other carshare cooperative. But one of the most unique things about model is that it's a cooperative, which means the funding mechanism for growth is based on member owners. So we have about 30,000 members. Not all of them are members owners, but the majority, and they invest directly into the company and, and the growth.

But they also have a say so every year. And in fact, we actually own AGM season every year during the AGM, they elect the board of directors. So they have a direct say in what is it that model does. And one thing we have model as a social purpose. Which is to provide, affordable, inclusive, convenient and sustainable transportation to connect our communities.

And they have signed off on that. The board of directors has signed off on that. That's the vision where everybody wants to go, which also makes it quite resilient, I should say, when things change. Because there is kind of a, you know, we have metrics and KPIs that are North stars, and then we have a social purpose that is in or sort of is tied to the community.

It also makes it quite resilient when there is, you know, model has weathered a number of economic crises. And I've seen other articles, other car share, including articles pull out of market during economic challenging situation because the funder all of a sudden decided, you know, North America cargo is only profitable in Vancouver. So we're just going to shut down the entire North America because it makes no sense to keep one market right where this one is anchored, where our members are in the communities, and we don't have any members, well, then we're probably obsolete for as long as we have members.

It's incurred financially.

0:40:18 Amanda Stassen: Interesting. Interesting. Very interesting. For the co-op as a business model reflects there's something very interesting about it. So number one it's membership based mission which means the members are the core of the funding. They are some of you know they help to make some of the decisions. Do they benefit when the company when the business does well, like how does it work on the other side for them.

0:40:48 Sandra Phillips: So there's there's different structures for co-ops you can have like in some cases like there's the consumer co-op, which is us, right, can have provider clubs. And I'm blanking. There's the third one, which I'm blanking on right now. Ultimately there's different ways of bringing the profit right back. Right. In all cases, it has to be invested back into the community, whether that's in our case, it's invested back into our service.

Technology better being like one of the things, as I said, is, we will have, 1 in 5 vehicles will be electric because there is a push for us to electrify. So reinvesting into that, other co-ops have payout dividends to them. Right. That's not what we do. Obviously, if you're a member, owner, in all cases, I think, you know, I can say that you will have the best price.

In our case, you have the best price plan, you have the most benefits if you're a member owner. Right? A regular a regular family member, right, right there.

0:41:58 Amanda Stassen: And certainly withstanding economic challenges, there's benefits to that. But there's also benefits to the the the customers self-select themselves as believing in and being totally aligned to the brand or the company, the businesses vision.

So these people, these customers who are your members are they've bought into your vision, they've bought into your purpose. And so they they're invested in this vision that has been painted for them. How what would you say is the most compelling part about the change that model wants to make? Or now that you're at the CEO helm, what are you seeing as sort of that future vision that's going to be cast?

0:42:48 Sandra Phillips: So there's a number of pieces to the future vision I think maybe going I just want to quickly highlight something around when you said there bought into I have worked in almost 80 shared mobility projects around the world, lots of them very high growth VC funded or strategic investment. Right, right. And I have never seen any silver bullet.

It has lower churn than model. And I think that is directly tied to what you just said. You self-select, you buy into it because you believe. Yeah. Not only do you need to service. Yeah, but do you actually believe in what this company stands for? It's democratic with, you know, with all its pros and cons. But that's what it stands for.

So you buy in for other reasons than just pure utility. I think, where do we go? I think there's a number of different things that, why I'm also at the helm. One thing is, and I talked about it now quite a bit, it's a car share business. It started as a commercial business. It's obviously the most expensive asset you can buy if you want a vehicle, except if you want to buy a bus.

But none of us knows about, like a public transportation customer plane. But generally, a car is the most expensive thing we can all buy. So that's what it started. Now the world around us has shifted, as I've mentioned, right? There's all these other forms of transportation. Specifically in Vancouver, there's a very, large local bike share. There's lime, which is a scooter, electric bike share.

There's Uber and Lyft, there's public transport that has expanded significantly. How do we continue to fit? And I actually say, how do we actually fit into today's multimodal lifestyle, right, for our members? Because if we have members and we have, data boxes, over 50% of our members have either gotten rid of a car or don't have cars.

So we remove a lot of cars and have one that shares, you know, or is shared amongst more people. But that doesn't mean they only use cars, right. They use public. We know that they use public transport quite extensively. They use biking a lot. How do we continue to fit into that, and how do we make it easier for them to be part?

So one of the projects we a model has been park for a while is called Ride Link. It's that integration project that actually mentioned where Moves Me was involved. And so I've worked with this team extensively just on the other side. Yeah. It's called Ride Link. It's an app that aggregates all not sorry, I shouldn't say aggregate.

It integrates all the services. You sign up once and you have, a bike share membership, a car share membership in two car share and a bus pass. And you use the bus pass to unlock them. You book it through the app, you pay one like it comes off. You don't have to give your credit card to three different providers.

So we have that in Metro Vancouver. How do we do that? Because as I said, we're in Victoria and we are in Colonna, both of which are not served by TransLink by, but they're served by BC transit. How do we also fit into that? How do we how do we continue to stay relevant? And there's all sorts of other ways how you can bundle things like think of, I don't know if you remember the Welcome Wagons they used to have in, in certain communities had a welcome wagon, was there.

Now you've got a bundle of like discounts to different businesses, right. What is your move? Going back to my point that we most likely change our transportation habits when we move. When when you move to a new community, you get a transport welcome wagon or wallet with all the different services. Another way of making it easy for you, right?

Rather than you having to go and find the information and figure out what's even here, how can we make it easy? Yeah, I think that's one. The second one is electrification. I talked about it where at some point we had a goal prior to me to be fully electrified by 2030. That's very unrealistic. With the especially for us, charging infrastructure is a real challenge, making it work.

But continuing on this journey, how do we electrify and what are the right electric vehicles as well? Right. And then I think the other thing is really, model has been around for 28 years. At some point you think everybody knows your story, but actually people don't. Our 30,000 members too. But not the like not the millions people living in BC.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a little bit I mentioned Taylor Swift earlier, because she, she was in the, Harvard Business Review for her strategy of her, like, as in, like her eras, her changing constantly is a strategy. It's like, I think she has to saying that you have a flag and you wave it, and people want to be with you under that flag, and then all of a sudden they want to be under a different flag.

So how do we stay relevant? Yeah. And how do we tell that story, how we stayed relevant. So that's I think the other thing we're really focused on like telling our story, stepping into this wonderful story we built, and making sure other snow as well.

0:48:15 Amanda Stassen: Yeah. Well, listen, we're coming to the end of our, our time together.

We could just keep talking. What two practical tips would you share that would help founders, entrepreneurs or even entrepreneurs because you've had that sort of, you know, experience that would help them to accelerate their growth, their business today.

0:48:38 Sandra Phillips: Okay. I think one of the things that took me a while, or at least to understand is if you're an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, you've got to have a community, a tribe around you that supports you, and that supports you not just by cheering you on.

Yes, by cheering you on and having your back, but also have telling you very candidly when maybe things are not so great or you're not doing so great, or, you know, you think I, I call them my lifelines knives. I call them often when I'm struggling with something and just be like, I need another perspective. I'm stuck in my head, basically.

So I think that it took me a while to understand that, that I really need that around me and those lifelines to, to help me navigate all the different challenges that come my way. And I think the second thing is ask for help. We have a tendency to offer help very easily. I'm also speaking. I think this is also very specifically for women entrepreneur.

We love to give help, right? We have the hardest time to ask for help, and most people actually are quite willing to help. Interesting. I cannot tell you how many times in my, you know, my little tribe building and the lifelines that I was like, and I actually purposely picked people that are maybe not exactly thinking the same way I would.

Yeah. In that group, how many times like I, they would never just be okay with me just calling and I have yet actually, I actually have yet to have somebody who's like, no, you cannot I don't want to talk to you about this. They're all like, sure, how can I help? So I think those two for me are the big ones.

0:50:31 Amanda Stassen: That's so good. Yeah. Why do you think women have a harder time asking for help?

0:50:37 Sandra Phillips: Maybe because we're brought up, asked like we have to hold it together. We're. We're often asked supports. Right. All sorts of different things. I don't know, I think part of it is that, and maybe then the other part I sometimes thinks and this is actually, also an entrepreneur thing, as, especially as we often see here, is that we may feel like going back to my comment where, like, maybe they will say no, which in my head is a failure was not a failure.

Like, yeah, yeah, she's got to ask for, I don't know, 20 yet no's. You may get one. Yes. Actually in my cases has been 20 yeses. But right there is this thing and I think that starts very early. I, I have a six year old and I have, a girl and I have observed how we sometimes on playgrounds, how not even consciously we do these silly things that like starting very early, asking like, be careful, don't go up the high tower.

And it's boy, we're like, yeah, sure, try again. You're like, oh, why are we doing this? So I think there's there's interesting. Maybe that's the reason why. Because we fear failure.

0:51:51 Amanda Stassen: So then you'd rather not ask for help. Interesting, interesting. It's very interesting. Something to ponder for sure. Yeah. So where can people connect with you and learn more about the work that you're doing?

0:52:02 Sandra Phillips: It model. I would say maybe two places. One is, I'm a very strong LinkedIn user. If you look for Senator Phillips model, you'll find me or Sandra Phillips shared mobility. You'll get, connect with me on LinkedIn. Very active there. I think the other, place to connect is just through modelo, which is model dot co-op.

0:52:27 Amanda Stassen: Okay. Is the website okay? Awesome. Awesome. Sandra, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your insights and your story. I loved your journey and just the different experiences that you've had. Really insightful. And just in case you haven't heard this today, thank you for living and sharing your purpose. The world is made better because of it.

0:52:47 Sandra Phillips: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and listening.

0:52:50 Amanda Stassen: Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Builders and Believers with Amanda Sasson. If today's conversation gave you something to think about or reminded you why you build what you do, share it with a founder, leader or team who's on the same journey you can follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts and join me on LinkedIn or Instagram for more ideas on leading, scaling, and building businesses that move people and make a difference.

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