A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:01:37 · Pablo Srugo, Andrew Tai
[00:01:37] S0: It's a pleasure to have you here. Andrew. Just for quick background, I mean, Andrew is a founder and father of two kids now, as I was just chatting with him earlier. His first startup, called Motoinsight, was acquired ultimately by Autotrader, the group that runs Autotrader. And it was a pretty long journey. I mean, it was about a 14-year journey, grew the company well into the eight figures of ARR. It started a bit differently. Ultimately, the business was around selling software to dealerships, classic B to B SaaS, even more enterprise type SaaS. It started off as a marketplace. Today, we'll be talking about how to pivot and the journey from going from, and pivoting specifically from, a marketplace to B-to-B SaaS, two very different business models, and just walking through how to do that but also why you did that. I think that that's where we'll uncover a lot of insights that founders might be able to use. With that said, let's start at the beginning. How did you come up – what was Unhaggle, actually? Maybe let's start there. [00:02:42] S1: It’s funny. I always think about it as, man, that was a long journey. You think he said 14 years. By my count, it’s probably 11 or 12 depending on how you actually count it. It started really as a marketplace to help consumers find and buy new cars easier, faster, more transparent. There was a bit of a Priceline inspiration there were – dealers would compete for your business. You can configure the exact car that you were looking for and get local dealers to offer you the best prices on inventory that –
00:02:42 · Andrew Tai, Pablo Srugo
[00:02:42] S1: It’s funny. I always think about it as, man, that was a long journey. You think he said 14 years. By my count, it’s probably 11 or 12 depending on how you actually count it. It started really as a marketplace to help consumers find and buy new cars easier, faster, more transparent. There was a bit of a Priceline inspiration there were – dealers would compete for your business. You can configure the exact car that you were looking for and get local dealers to offer you the best prices on inventory that – [00:03:14] S0: What was happening? Maybe just walk us through. Today, the world of car buying, there's just so much innovation happening there. What was alive back then? Was Carvana a thing? How big was Autotrader? What were the options, really?
00:03:14 · Pablo Srugo, Andrew Tai
[00:03:14] S0: What was happening? Maybe just walk us through. Today, the world of car buying, there's just so much innovation happening there. What was alive back then? Was Carvana a thing? How big was Autotrader? What were the options, really? [00:03:26] S1: The market was way more static back then. This was 2011 when we started. As of late, you see all of the big names like the Carvana and the likes that have garnered a lot of attention both up and – up and down through the cycle. In 2011, none of that was reality. It was still very much a classified listings model. Autotrader was in existence. I think back then Autotrader, actually, a component of their business was still printing paper books, Autotrader books. I remember reading those growing up. This was a very different time. The concept of bringing the buying experience online was a major step forward in and of itself. We wanted to really transform the model. Instead of you shopping around and negotiating to be able to eliminate that and bring transparency in pricing. In addition, the convenience of being able to do much of the transaction at home. And it started as really a scratch your own itch moment. I was going through the process of buying a car. For someone like me that grew up on the internet, the traditional process made very little sense. The light bulb was just, hey, there's got to be a better way. And, and technology should be able to help.
00:03:26 · Andrew Tai, Pablo Srugo
[00:03:26] S1: The market was way more static back then. This was 2011 when we started. As of late, you see all of the big names like the Carvana and the likes that have garnered a lot of attention both up and – up and down through the cycle. In 2011, none of that was reality. It was still very much a classified listings model. Autotrader was in existence. I think back then Autotrader, actually, a component of their business was still printing paper books, Autotrader books. I remember reading those growing up. This was a very different time. The concept of bringing the buying experience online was a major step forward in and of itself. We wanted to really transform the model. Instead of you shopping around and negotiating to be able to eliminate that and bring transparency in pricing. In addition, the convenience of being able to do much of the transaction at home. And it started as really a scratch your own itch moment. I was going through the process of buying a car. For someone like me that grew up on the internet, the traditional process made very little sense. The light bulb was just, hey, there's got to be a better way. And, and technology should be able to help. [00:04:42] S0: Before jumping into the, the, the big change and, and the thing that really worked. Let's talk a bit more about what didn't work. What was the original conception, the thing that you saw that was broken in terms of the car buying experience that you desperately wanted to fix?
00:04:42 · Pablo Srugo, Andrew Tai
[00:04:42] S0: Before jumping into the, the, the big change and, and the thing that really worked. Let's talk a bit more about what didn't work. What was the original conception, the thing that you saw that was broken in terms of the car buying experience that you desperately wanted to fix? [00:04:56] S1: Yeah, so I think the first part of it was just the tremendous inefficiency. Literally driving from one dealership, to another dealership, to a third dealership, and maybe a fourth dealership to literally just ask, hey, what's the price on this vehicle, and then have a bit of a back-and-forth negotiation. I think we had heard stories of people where they would fax a description of the vehicle that they were looking for and what they were willing to pay, and then see what would come back, out to a whole bunch of dealerships. Then email, some people would do that. Fax machines were actually still a thing with dealerships back in 2011. But that was the first part of it, which was really the inefficiency and the lack of transparency. I think beyond that was everything was moving online in terms of transactions. Yes, buying a car is more of a complex transaction should you be able to do it from the comfort of your own home and through a matter of clicks, I think those were the initial inspirations behind it. It was an experience that I wish existed, going through the car buying experience myself.
00:04:56 · Andrew Tai, Pablo Srugo
[00:04:56] S1: Yeah, so I think the first part of it was just the tremendous inefficiency. Literally driving from one dealership, to another dealership, to a third dealership, and maybe a fourth dealership to literally just ask, hey, what's the price on this vehicle, and then have a bit of a back-and-forth negotiation. I think we had heard stories of people where they would fax a description of the vehicle that they were looking for and what they were willing to pay, and then see what would come back, out to a whole bunch of dealerships. Then email, some people would do that. Fax machines were actually still a thing with dealerships back in 2011. But that was the first part of it, which was really the inefficiency and the lack of transparency. I think beyond that was everything was moving online in terms of transactions. Yes, buying a car is more of a complex transaction should you be able to do it from the comfort of your own home and through a matter of clicks, I think those were the initial inspirations behind it. It was an experience that I wish existed, going through the car buying experience myself. [00:06:03] S0: And what was that ten-star experience? Was it you go on a website, you put in I want a Civic from this year, whatever, and you get asks back and then you can bid on them? What – or you just shop through all the dealerships’ inventory in one place?