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Hi, I'm Dustin, and I've been working on abstreet.org for about ~2.5 years to fight car dependency in cities. Aiming to explore and advocate for short-term tran

Hi, I'm Dustin, and I've been working on abstreet.org for about ~2.5 years to fight car dependency in cities. Aiming to explore and advocate for short-term transportation changes like creating low-traffic neighborhoods and fleshing out bike and bus networks, and moonshot ideas like congestion charging zones in city centers, superblocks, and zoning changes. Targeting the general public, rather than planners who've already got tools they trust, for education, gathering feedback, and prompting citizen advocacy. We've been growing an open source & academic community fairly well, but I want to hire more full-time engineers, and money's becoming a limiting factor. Looking for a partner on the business and PM side, so I can focus on the technical. The huge disclaimer is that I'm unwilling to compromise on the project being open source, so I have no idea how to squeeze a business model in here. I've also done a terrible job so far of actually getting public transit / cycling advocacy groups on board, so the need for a PM is pretty severe to make sure we're building the right thing. Contact on github or HN.

gnarrwall 6y ago
Hi Dustin, Dave here. I just spent the last 4 years building out a parking management software firm which was recently acquired by our largest PE backed competitor. In doing that, I raised money, handled all forecasting & accounting, ran all sales operations (municipal is mostly done via an RFP process) and managed the high level product roadmap from our strategic objectives backwards. Most importantly, I have experience in successfully building long term relationships & contracting with over 250 Cities across the US, which I believe will be key to success in monetizing your product long term. If you'd like to chat further, please shoot me an email at dhyj7771@gmail.com. I have some ideas for open-source first monetization I think might be useful to you, even if we don't find longer term synergy from a conversation.
dgellow 6y ago
Wow, that's a fascinating project. Wish you all the best.
halfeatenpie 6y ago
Hi Dustin! I saw your work on Hacker News last year and I forwarded it to a colleague of mine working in the academic side of Transportation Engineering. They found your work interesting and complemented on your visualizations. If I could suggest something, it might be useful to reach out to professors at your local university whose research interests coincides with your software's application (you can shop around as well). They can probably help you with the following: 1. Provide cutting-edge technology and ideas related to transportation engineering 2. Offer a method/connection to the local DOT or other agencies who may be interested in this as a decision support system (DSS). 3. Maybe even find a partner or... (and I think this might be a better option) help you establish a steering committee or a group of advisors who can then make recommendations to supplement your skillsets. You might even be able to temporarily support your open source model through grant funding and application to different "cutting-edge" applied projects and, if you can, develop those technology in a generalizable way (a framework) to be used as a shiny feature for your application. Grow it up to be a one-stop-shop with the latest and greatest. I'd be happy to discuss a bit more to help you navigate these waters. Cheers, Don P.S. regarding finding a partner for the business side, what might be useful is to reach out to the local universities in your area and see if their business college/program has a "founders meet-and-greet" program. At our current institution we have programs in place to connect founders with a business counterpart which has resulted in establishing some growing companies. In addition, you can probably take this opportunity to network with a few professors and (as an advisor) be willing to put their name to the product for technical knowledge/support.
- dabreegster 6y ago
  Don, Wow, thanks for the detailed ideas! I've resisted joining academia myself, but that shouldn't prevent finding partners there. Recently I started working with 3 transportation/civil engineering professors, and their expertise is already helping to fill some gaps with the project. I'll try more aggressively looking for more academics to loop in. UW in Seattle almost certainly has this sort of meet-and-greet; I'll poke around and see if they have anything happening online these days. Thanks again! -Dustin
  - 6y ago

gnarrwall 6y ago

Hi Dustin, Dave here. I just spent the last 4 years building out a parking management software firm which was recently acquired by our largest PE backed competitor. In doing that, I raised money, handled all forecasting & accounting, ran all sales operations (municipal is mostly done via an RFP process) and managed the high level product roadmap from our strategic objectives backwards. Most importantly, I have experience in successfully building long term relationships & contracting with over 250 Cities across the US, which I believe will be key to success in monetizing your product long term. If you'd like to chat further, please shoot me an email at dhyj7771@gmail.com. I have some ideas for open-source first monetization I think might be useful to you, even if we don't find longer term synergy from a conversation.

dgellow 6y ago

Wow, that's a fascinating project. Wish you all the best.

halfeatenpie 6y ago

Hi Dustin! I saw your work on Hacker News last year and I forwarded it to a colleague of mine working in the academic side of Transportation Engineering. They found your work interesting and complemented on your visualizations. If I could suggest something, it might be useful to reach out to professors at your local university whose research interests coincides with your software's application (you can shop around as well). They can probably help you with the following: 1. Provide cutting-edge technology and ideas related to transportation engineering 2. Offer a method/connection to the local DOT or other agencies who may be interested in this as a decision support system (DSS). 3. Maybe even find a partner or... (and I think this might be a better option) help you establish a steering committee or a group of advisors who can then make recommendations to supplement your skillsets. You might even be able to temporarily support your open source model through grant funding and application to different "cutting-edge" applied projects and, if you can, develop those technology in a generalizable way (a framework) to be used as a shiny feature for your application. Grow it up to be a one-stop-shop with the latest and greatest. I'd be happy to discuss a bit more to help you navigate these waters. Cheers, Don P.S. regarding finding a partner for the business side, what might be useful is to reach out to the local universities in your area and see if their business college/program has a "founders meet-and-greet" program. At our current institution we have programs in place to connect founders with a business counterpart which has resulted in establishing some growing companies. In addition, you can probably take this opportunity to network with a few professors and (as an advisor) be willing to put their name to the product for technical knowledge/support.

dabreegster 6y ago
Don, Wow, thanks for the detailed ideas! I've resisted joining academia myself, but that shouldn't prevent finding partners there. Recently I started working with 3 transportation/civil engineering professors, and their expertise is already helping to fill some gaps with the project. I'll try more aggressively looking for more academics to loop in. UW in Seattle almost certainly has this sort of meet-and-greet; I'll poke around and see if they have anything happening online these days. Thanks again! -Dustin
- 6y ago