Help Wanted/Asks:

• Need office space (update: found in Node U)
• Need cofounders (update: trial)

Hiring: 

• Candidates in hiring funnel for cofounder: 14
• Interviews: 2
• Trial running with cofounder (Armin)

KPIs/Core Metrics:

• Monthly Active Users: 270
• Weekly Active Users: 100
• Daily Active Users: 13-40
• Lease requests: 12
• Lease requests per day: 1-2
• Lease conversions: 0
• Lease conversion revenue: $0

Product:

• Added weekly LEASE deals scraped from ev-vin.blogspot.com data
• Doing background research myself once received requests. As this was not converting once I’d done the research:
• Added up-front deposit. When the requests stopped added more value – electrade can do paperwork digitally for dealer, and act as a proxy between dealer and user (“price security/no stressful negotiations”)

Experiments/Hypothesis run:

• Problem: Not installing app (acquisition). Attempts to solve:

  • Free ASO worked on. Ran many experiments but managed to score top 10 with “lease car” and “electric vehicles”.
    • Results: increased from non-ranked to top 20 in “Electric Vehicles” and “Lease Car”. Impressions 7X. Installs flat.
  • Free DM Reddit (manual) /r/electricvehicles and /r/teslamotors
    • Results: Wrong kind of customer. EV enthusiast but not car shopper when manually reaching out. Not sticky. $0 per install. 1 in 20 installs.
  • Free Leasehackr.com forum link as acquisition channel super effective.
    • Results: 60+ targeted leads to going up in App Store rankings (point 1). Very negotiation-happy customer – wrong kind of customer? Budget customer.
  • Paid Reddit paid on /r/electricvehicles and /r/teslamotors
    • Results: $0.45 per tap Android and $0.49 on iOS. Roughly 50% install rate from product page -> Roughly $1 per install.
  • Paid iOS App store: Results: $2.50 per tap, not sure if installed.

• Problem: Installed, Not requesting. Attempts to solve:

  • Single-number lease price (incl. all).
    • Results: Sticker shock is real. Lease requests down to 0 in the week that attempted this. Started up again once reverted to “monthly” + “down”
  • Added “X more left at this price” to increase urgency.
    • Results: No significant increase in tapthrough rate
  • Added “X people looking at this deal” to increase urgency.
    • Results: No significant increase in tapthrough rate
  • Potentially finding wrong customer – people off leasehackr may LIKE negotiating. Find different customers? => Reddit customers work better.

• Problem: User requesting, but not converting on email step. Attempts to solve:

  • Better conversion email – 48 hour limit to increase urgency.
    • Results: No difference. Drop off.
  • Better conversion email – Not give full number over 36 months as looks high.
    • Results: No difference. Drop off.
  • Upfront down payment – $200 deposit.
    • Results: 1 attempt to pay, may be fraud. Potentially may take 60 days to convert customers, though once have app installed, though.
  • Added value: Do all paperwork digitally & pay deposit to lock in so don’t have to haggle with dealer – just pick up & pay.
    • Results: Same as above. Not sure this convenience is a pain point. Reached out to ask for feedback from email addresses but no response.

• Tested EV insurance

  • Loads of complaints online about how it’s expensive. Added Metromile affiliate program.
    • Results: 0 sign-ups so far after 2 weeks of cohorts.

Experiments for next 2 weeks:

• Test Concierge service (you say which car, we’ll find at a price).
• Test Consultant service (we’ll answer your EV questions and then recommend products).
• Change from pure EV? Potentially, the hassle-free value proposition may be more effective in a mainstream market for now?
• Add off-lease cars from Greenlight Auto Wholesale ?
• Help find parking spots with charging for those EV owners without a garage w/ Piedparker.com ?
• Rent an EV for a month between leases?

Photos of my new workspace at Node (strongly recommended for the community and $200 a month):

Current screen grab at the end of the month: