SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 367: $94M Raised, Car Marketplace, 270 Employees with George Arison of Shift
26 Jul 2016
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base.
Chapter 2: What is Shift and how does it transform car buying and selling?
You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million.
Chapter 3: How does Shift generate revenue from car sales?
He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the 100 bucks is Dustin Goodwin. He's in the HR industry, specifically in the software as a service space, looking to increase his revenue. So congratulations, Dustin.
For your guys' chance to win 100 bucks every Monday on the show to build your idea, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word Nathan to 33444.
Chapter 4: What challenges did Shift face in its early revenue stages?
Again, text the word Nathan to 33444. This is episode 367. Coming up tomorrow morning, you're going to hear from Rand Fishkin.
Chapter 5: How has Shift's growth trajectory evolved since its founding?
He went from a blog to a $40 million per year SaaS business and over 23,000 paying customers at Moz.com. Top Tribe, good morning. Our guest today is George Arison. He's the founder and CEO of Shift, an online marketplace disrupting the $1.2 trillion car industry by fundamentally transforming the experience of buying and selling a car.
Chapter 6: What unique features set Shift apart from traditional car dealerships?
Previously, George co-founded Taxi Magic, which was acquired by Verifone, the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology. George is a graduate from Middlebury College in Vermont. George, are you ready to take us to the top?
I am glad to be with you.
Chapter 7: How does Shift utilize technology for pricing and customer experience?
All right, let's do this. So first things first, tell us what shift does and how does it make money?
Shift is a way to either sell a car or to buy a car. Today, if you want to get a new car that's used, you either go to a dealer and buy a used car from a dealer, or you buy a car private party, most likely on Craigslist. Shift is sort of the alternative, a different way to do that. If you have a car to sell, we come to your house, we take the car away, and we then sell it for you on your behalf.
And if you're a buyer, we actually deliver the test drive to you, to your house, so that you can try the car before you buy.
Chapter 8: What lessons did George Arison learn from his entrepreneurial journey?
But we don't have like a physical lot that you can go to to look at the cars and it's all done virtually and on demand. So it's basically taking all the costs out of a traditional sale and being the savings of that to the seller.
So I'm on the website right now looking at a car, the BMW 328i. It looks like it's $14,650 and I can book a test drive right from your site. How do you manage, I mean, if I'm in Boston and this car right now is physically being stored in San Francisco, how do you manage to get me a test drive in an efficient manner?
So we are a local market, meaning we do things in specific markets. That car would be available for a test drive in San Francisco, anywhere from like San Jose all the way up to Marin County. And you can, on the website, book a test drive by asking for a day when you want the test drive to happen.
And then we'll schedule a time for you to be wherever you want, whether that's your house or your office, for the car to come to you. Okay, very cool.
And then a car enthusiast who is basically a person who works for Shift that, you know, is a very customer-friendly, customer-focused person, he or she will get in the car at the appropriate time and drive it to you so you can then have a test drive there. And if you want to buy the car, you'll be able to buy the car, you know, on the spot right there.
Got it. And I'm looking, again, I'm looking at this one. I've never seen somebody make wear and tear photos look so sexy. Thank you.
Yeah, our designers spend a lot of time on that. And we think it's really, really important to be very transparent with photos. So, and information about the car, because, you know, kind of the lack of information is always something that people are unhappy with. And so we do make both very beautiful photos of the car and the wear and tear photos available.
And our team, you know, spends a lot of time making sure the photos are really beautiful and show the car in a good light.
No, it's very well done. So walk me through how if I buy this, this BMW 328i that I'm looking at right now, and it's light blue for 14,650 bucks on your site, how do you make money from that?
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