FINE PEOPLE
Lift Share Liftshare.com is one of Norwich’s greatest success stories and is a major contributor to our city’s tech-hub credentials. In its most important year yet we dig a little deeper to find out more about life at Liftshare.
Jaguar Landrover and Waitrose were introducing Liftshare schemes for their employees.
From the very beginning of 2014 the team at Liftshare knew it was going to be their most exciting year since its launch in 1998.
It is little wonder that the company that founded the UK’s entire peer-to-peer sharing community has amassed so many awards and has its sights set on an even bigger and better future. Liftshare’s founder Ali Clabburn is from a long line of Norfolk’s brightest business people.
industry and set up Bonds of Norwich (now John Lewis) industry so it is perhaps no surprise that he has an entrepreneurial streak: “When I was growing up I was constantly fixing things and inventing gadgets.” he explains. “I didn’t tend to take no for an answer if I felt here might be a better way of doing things. ” It was while he was away at university that Liftshare was born when Ali discovered the cost of a train ticket from Bristol to Norfolk.
Historically the family was instrumental in building Norwich’s highly regarded and historically important textiles
After getting an encouraging response from a couple of Post-Its on a notice board asking for a lift home he and a
In the first two week of the year Forbes Magazine had tipped the Sharing Economy to be the biggest trend of 2014, Radio 4 had themed a halfhour programme around Liftshare and some of the UK’s most recognised and prestigious brands, such as McLaren,
Issue 34 2014
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friend built his first website and 16years-on over 600,000 people have benefited from the free service and 1 in 100 cars in the UK are registered on the site. Right now there are 1 million empty car seats available to share through Liftshare.com. Last year Liftshare moved into Silicon Valley-style offices in the heart of Norwich equipped with their own slide, swings, fake-grass carpets and wallpaper that gives the impression that they are working from an island in the middle of a glorious swimming pool.