In July 2013, Lyft sold Zimride to Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, to enable the company to focus exclusively on the growth of Lyft. The change from Zimride to Lyft was the result of a hackathon that sought a means of daily engagement with its users, instead of once or twice a year. In May 2013, the company officially changed its name from Zimride to Lyft. Zimride launched at Cornell University, where, after six months, the service had signed up 20% of the campus.
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The company name came from the country Zimbabwe, where, during a trip in 2005, Green observed locals sharing minivan taxis. Green was introduced to John Zimmer through a mutual friend and the pair initially met on Facebook.
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Zimride eventually became the largest carpool company in the United States.
#Lyft auto queue drivers#
By using Facebook profile information, student drivers and passengers could learn about each other. When Facebook opened its API to third-party developers, Green said he thought "Here’s the missing ingredient." Zimride linked drivers and passengers through the Facebook Connect application. He had used Craigslist’s ride boards but wanted to eliminate the anxiety of not knowing the passenger or driver.
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Green had the inspiration for Zimride after sharing rides from the University of California, Santa Barbara campus to visit his girlfriend in Los Angeles. Lyft was launched in the summer of 2012 by computer programmers Logan Green and John Zimmer as a service of Zimride, a long-distance intercity carpooling company they founded in 2007. A Lyft vehicle in Santa Monica, California, with the original grill-stache branding, since retired