Help Wanted/Asks:

• N/A

Hiring: 

• Working with Armin now. Calls every other day, text continuously.
• Talked to another potential cofounder. Not as interested in this project.

KPIs/Core Metrics:

• Revenue: $0
• Got out of building: Every single day.

Product:

• Added polish
• Made up-front reservation fee default. Clearer to test value for now.
• Tested test-drives
• Removed insurance
• Added value-add club
  • Found out NIO is doing the same things
  • Found out Carmiq is doing the same thing.
• Got out of building with off-line marketing.
  • Distributed 100 Flyers & Posters
  • Talking to people at charging stations (5)
  • Spent days in Daly City Supercharger.

Experiments/Hypothesis run:

• Experiment: Not one user opened Stripe Credit Card screen to lease car. Possible Solutions:

  • Would a more trustworthy seeming interace help?
    • Clearer onboarding process. More trustworthy
    • Polish, so app seems less sketchy
    • Results: One stripe open, still no checkouts.
    • 
    • 
  • Value-add to differentiate (Fair has “cancel any time” and “bundled insurance”)
    • New cofounder Amir suggested we try a value-add add-ons/Benefits on top of lease to differentiate ourselves from normal leasing lke Fair’s “Cancel any time”?
    • Results: No difference.
  • And what if could sell unbundled from car lease, too?

• Experiment: Sell value-add features instead of leasing, with digital marketing.

  • $35 per month value-add benefits EV bundle (pivot)
  • Add leases again later once we’re the AAA of EVs.
  • Upside: Address whole EV market, not just subset actively looking for EV lease.
  • Upside: Less friction due to 1 month instead of 36 month commitment. $35 commitment instead of $8,000 commitment for lease.
  • Advertise new value prop through paid marketing. If we can get 10 people to pay $35 in the next week we’ll pivot.
    • Results: On Reddit ads 18 clicks for $8 -> 5 installs ($1.6 per install) -> 5 people touched through to pricing -> 0 subscribers
    • Results: On iOS app store marketing 3 installs for $6 -> None of them actual customers, none of them even in the USA.
  • Advertise new value prop through paid marketing, but with better tag line and investing into marketing: “Put your EV needs on autopilot”.
    • Results: Reddit Ads bought 18 clicks for $7.97 -> 5 installs ($1.6 per install) -> 4 people touched through to pricing -> 0 subscribers.
    • 
  • Learnings: Paid ads not cost-effective, and no need for product.
    • Marketing: What if we try as content marketing with blog piece on new better title?
    • Product: NIO is offering home-charging pickup in China for NIO owners. -> working in China?
    • Marketing: Offline marketing with flyers and and talking to users.

• Experiment: Sell charging concierge, with physical marketing.

  • We know charging concierge is a thing in China with NIO.
  • What if we put flyers on chargers (pre-targeted audience) and let people text my number for a $35 per pickup to validate the market for this same thing in the USA?

  • 4 tear-off strips next to chargers.

    • 
    • Results:

  • 120 flyers distributed under windscreen wipers.

    • 
    • Results:
  • Learnings: Physical ads working, but little need for this service and hard to implement.
    • Marketing: Pretty sure physical flyer marketing is the way to go – we’re definitely getting infront of the right, targeted customers now (ie. Tesla owners).
    • Product: No need for this service, but we’re sure of this now after doing flyers AND talking to customers.

• Experiment: Go into field and watch people at supercharger stations.

  • Watch people at superchargers - Like Airbnb live-in that Chesky did. Notes from field:
    • Supercharging stations feel like a Tesla club on the top story of this parking garage (this is what NIO was trying to achieve?).
    • Tried to see what people are buying when they leave their car (quickly) but a large share of people just sit in their car. Seat back. Kids play. They’re on their phone. Read paper. Door open. Downtime.
    • How to get their attention though? QR codes won’t work or are too lossy – they don’t look up. Driving sign in front of them for app or sign to order coffee from nearby store? Or float? -> “Supercharged coffee”, Supercharger snacks, Supercharger food truck.
    • Supercharger take-out (charges too fast to pick up food said youtube video)
    • Supercharger chat for people who are bored.
    • Supercharger delivery
    • QR code to market the app?
    • Supercharger ads on drive-by car?
    • Supercharger club - remote services at superchargers. We bring you stuff at superchargers. It’s like take-out at superchargers. Nearby stuff at superchargers.
    • 
    • Learning: Get out of the building, go off-line.
    • Results: New idea! 👇

• Experiment: Sell delivery service at supercharger stations to people sitting in their cars (with sign, walk up to windows in T-Shirt so not sketched out).

  • 20 cars go through per hour on average.
  • 5 cars per hour convert _ $8 _ 10 hours = $400. Pay someone $150 of that.
  • The flyer hustle with a matching electrify T-shirt at the supercharger.
  • Give people flyers and tell them to text a number for half price on first delivery – launching next week. Make a run every half hour.
    • Handed out from 3.30p - 6:30p at Supercharger in Serramonte
    • Roughly 60% people sit in car when supercharging, half of those opened the window.
    • Mostly from moms and/or dads with kids in the back smiled and engaged.
    • Results: 34 flyers handed out, 3 texted us back (best conversion rate yet) to sign up, including email and name!
    • Now that have 3 sign-ups, deliver food to them at certain times of day.
    • Work-intensive to implement as solo full-time founder (Armin’s not available to deliver, etc)