On the Plane to Los Angeles

I'm sitting on the plane to Los Angeles right now. Almost every seat is empty. Strange that they still take off with so few passengers. Oh well.

Exactly one year ago I was also on a flight to California (San Francisco). Just before that, the idea for a taxi company had taken shape. On the flight to SFO in August 2023, I wrote my first note about my taxi company. I named my company FLINTAXI and was really proud of the name. My first logo sketches were made on my iPad during that flight. I went with the last design — and then removed the little heart again, because love is there anyway :P

So now I'm sitting here, actually trying not to work during these 2 holiday weeks. I have a Master's exam in October and only brought materials for that. No phone, no laptop. Just my iPad. Still, I worked. I love working on my idea. I want to research everything, implement everything, think, collect ideas, improve. It's genuinely fun. Unfortunately I often get stuck on things with my website or worry about how I'll generate income when I'm working full-time at school — and when people eventually notice I can barely take rides, they might stop booking and stick with Uber & Co.

I finished my Master's thesis at the beginning of July, had it bound and submitted for grading. Then my cousin came from London for a week. After that, things got going:

1 week of taxi driver training. Then a few days off and a road trip in Germany. In Hanover, a close friend had an important football match I attended. I used the car journey to dig deeper into the taxi business — listened to entrepreneurship podcasts, taxi industry podcasts (German, but still interesting), YouTube documentaries about Uber & Co, how they operate behind the scenes. Then researched website creation.

Back home, I immediately started a business course for nearly 2 weeks. That was sometimes overwhelming, since at grammar school I had never learned anything about accounting, starting a business, or taxes. I'm considering introducing an optional project called "Start a Business" for young people — covering everything I've learned and will continue to learn: web design, data protection, terms & conditions, cookies. This is stuff everyone should know before starting a company, because it hits hard if you're coming to it fresh.

After the business course I had a wedding week in Vienna — a lovely week without much work. Although many taxi drivers were at the wedding, so when the opportunity arose I chatted with them here and there. The wedding was a lot of fun.

Then it was back to business.

So now the website is essentially up. I can receive bookings. Members can book, and for FLINTA*-identified people I can allow male members to book on their behalf. Online payments are still a tricky topic, so I'm hoping guests pay by card or cash in the taxi. Otherwise I'll be able to send payment requests via WIX Chat or PayPal link after the ride. Whether I can offer fixed prices I'm also not sure about yet. I've built my own taxi price calculator in Excel based on taxi rates, but rides outside Vienna are more complicated. I'd need to enter the route into Google Maps, somehow determine where the city border is, then double the kilometres and minutes outside Vienna. But the taximeter doesn't do that automatically either — you note the price when you leave Vienna and simply multiply the rest by 2. I imagine you learn that with practice. I can work out rough advance prices with the Excel calculator and send them to customers on request.

Next steps are: E-car decision, financing (MG5 or Skoda or Renault?) — more test drives Cash register decision (hellocash?) Meeting with tax advisor Taxi driver licence exam (October) Business licence exam (I find out 2 weeks beforehand) Master's exam (September hopefully) Business registration Company register entry (FLINTAXI) Business address rental (?) WAFF funding? E-taxi subsidy? PayPal account for the company N26 account for the company On the website: Privacy policy · Terms & Conditions · Cookies New number → set up WhatsApp Business with automated message (GDPR-compliant) where contacts can give consent to data processing.