Kyle
Michigan has two great hot beds of startup and entrepreneurial activity, Detroit and Ann Arbor. We’re constantly seeing startups from both cities make news. We’ve profiled and interviewed quite a few startups from Michigan.
Ann Arbor startup MyRepairFacts is a new web 2.0 portal to connect used car buyers and enthusiasts to sellers and information. MyRepairFacts offers their users National Motor Vehicle Title Information Reports (NMVITS) for $10 less than most competitors at $24.99. Not only that though, they serve as a repository for information pertaining to anyone’s car.
Users of MyRepairFacts can start using the service when they purchase their new car. Then, every time they go to the repair shop for an oil change, a repair, a tire rotation, new tires, or any other history with their vehicle, they can scan in the receipt and other information to make a nice, neat file on their vehicle in the cloud.
Storing important vehicle information through MyRepairFacts keeps all your information in a centralized location for you in one area. It also frees up valuable space in your glove box. Now though, when you go to sell your car you can be equipped with the NMVITS report, CarFax and every receipt from everything you’ve done to the car. In effect, this will improve your bottom line when selling your vehicle.
After the user has put all their information in the system and they’re ready to sell their car they can share as much or as little of the online history with the buyer via email, Craigslist or any other site with a link from MyRepairFacts that’s good for 30 days.
We got a chance to interview MyRepairFacts CEO Andrew Ramirez about this new automotive related startup. Check out the interview below:
My Repair Facts is a web 2.0 portal for buyers and sellers of used cars to share repair expenditures, pictures and vehicle reports online to increase their used car sales dollar amount, time and competitive advantage. A user may add as many vehicles to our database as they like. purchase of a National motor Vehicle Title Information Report (NMVTIS) through Myrepairfacts.com provides data from insurance claims, DMV.s, Salvage and junk title databases. Our price for these reports are cheaper than our competitors. Our price $24.99. competitors price $34.99.Generally speaking, a seller of a used car provides a pile of receipts, invoices and past owner information in the form of tangible paper to potential buyers once meeting. This information can be scattered, scant, unorganized and extensive. This results in a less informal understanding, confidence and lower value of the car.Users may upload this information to their My Repair Facts account by either scanning the documents, taking a picture of the document or mailing My Repair Facts Inc. their invoices. We strive to provide the easiest most convenient form of sharing this information to increase your car’s value, buyers confidence and time when selling.Consolidation of the data in easy, readable and secure. Users may set their information to public or private. Users are also provided with a method of removing any personal identifiable information about themselves from the documents.Once ready to sell, the user selects as many, some or all documents uploaded to My Repair Facts to “Share Facts” with a buyer, Craigslist or other third party car selling assistance sites. A link is provided to the user that is valid for 30 days to share this information with the target buyer or website. Here My Repair Facts requests the buyer to register for free and view the information.My Repair Facts also provides mailer notifications, discounts and offers from repair shops and dealers that are respective clients or partners of My Repair Facts to target users based on demographics such as the owner’s Make, model, Year, zip codes, Social media information or all users. This is one of My Repair Facts sources of Revenue. My Repair Facts also provides subscriptions to Dealers for bundle purchases of history reports. This service can be as extensive as providing reports, sending discounts and/or offers to users, uploading their customers history records to My Repair Facts (for customer retention, trust and confidence), advertising or any combination is negotiable.My Repair Facts also provides registered users with information about recalls, Service bulletins and consumer complaints about specific makes and models. Additionally for free, our service grants the user to search for repair facilities in a given area using a google map API we call “shop finder”.
Andrew Ramirez, CEO/President
Background:FounderMy Repair Facts visionaryASE certified Auto-mechanicCPS/automotive/business student-Proud to admit My Repair Facts is my First Entrepreneurial ventureJason Withrow, Chief Web Officer/ Vice PresidentBackground:FounderOnline business owner 5 yearsComputer Science professor at Washtenaw Community College and University of Michigan, department chairOver 10 years experience in web architecture developmentMasters from University of Michigan of science and informationMasters from University of Akron of Arts in PsychologyCapital university Bachelors of artsKhaled Mansour, Chief Technology Officer/SecretaryBackground:FounderSmall business owner 10 yearsComputer Science professor at Washtenaw Community College and University of Michigan, department chairOver 20 years experience in web based applications and back end programmingWestern Michigan University Masters of scienceYarmouk University Bachelors of ScienceProject leader for large company projects such as IBM, Boarders and University of MichiganJosh Budde, Chief Information Officer/Vice presidentBackground:FounderOver 10 years experience in managing information systems for large companies such of U of M family medicineWashtenaw Community College CIS AssociateApple CertifiedMicrosoft Certified
Ann Arbor Michigan
The startup scene here is much smaller than the west coast. Assistance for startups is not abundant but the programs available such as “Ann Arbor Spark, SCORE, GLEQ, MI-SBTDC” are absolutely amazing and nothing short of a god send for SBStart-ups like us.
Generally speaking, a seller of a used car provides a pile of receipts, invoices and past owner information in the form of tangible paper to potential buyers once meeting. This information can be scattered, scant, unorganized and extensive. This results in a less informal understanding, confidence and lower value of the car. Also, Competitors do not provide the seller with a means to easily provide a buyer with all documents the seller may have regarding that cars maintenance and repairs. We provide an interactive web 2.0 solution to increase your cars value when you go to sell. Taking the receipts from the glovebox to the cloud.
An exert from our business plan:It wasn’t fair. The accident was not her fault. It was only a minor “fender bender.” She had it fixed immediately at a certified repair shop; there was no damage to the frame, just a small dent that had to be bumped out and repainted. She had always been conscientious and completed all scheduled routine maintenance. But now, when she wanted to sell the car and listed it on an Internet site, a buyer had pulled one of those vehicle history reports and it only showed the accident. The buyer was offering $1,000 less than Bluebook value. It wasn’t fair! In her mind, she wished there was a more readily available means to provide the details of her complete maintenance and repair history to Internet buyers. This individual represents the My Repair Facts value proposition. Seventy-five percent of all cars sold annually are used cars – roughly 28 million in 2010. The vast majority are listed on-line.Today, CARFAX® has become a routine part of the used car sales process; however, CARFAX® does not present a complete vehicle history as it contains an incomplete list of events in the life of a car. CARFAX® only includes:
- Title changes
- Vehicle Accident Reports
- Summary of maintenance done by dealers
What is NOT shown:
- Recommended vehicle maintenance schedules
- Maintenance done by non-dealer repair facilities
- Repair details including parts replaced and replacement part brands
- Owner performed maintenance
MyRepairFacts.com (MRF) is designed to address these problems. MRF provides vehicle owners with the ability to build and maintain a valuable and complete car care history from multiple sources. Paper documents including photographs can be scanned into the vehicle database. Participating dealers and repair facilities can send records electronically.
MRF’s proprietary software can be used to redact or remove sensitive personal information (name, address, telephone number, credit card information). An additional feature provided to all registered users is the ability to research the entire database by vehicle model and repair type for comparable data within a geographic region. Therefore, MyRepairFacts.com is a more complete resource for used car buying, selling and repairs.
What’s your secret sauce?
Our secret sauce is that we are the one stop, online shop for buyers and sellers of used cars. Get recalls, Bulletins, mailers, discounts, find shops, buy history reports, share reports, share invoices, share pictures and most importantly increase the value with confidence, organization and a more complete report on your car.
Also, from our business plan:MRF’s proprietary software can be used to redact or remove sensitive personal information (name, address, telephone number, credit card information). An additional feature provided to all registered users is the ability to research the entire database by vehicle model and repair type for comparable data . Therefore, MyRepairFacts.com is a more complete resource for used car buying, selling and repairs. My Repair Facts creates a more confident, trustworthy and valuable dealer-to-customer and buyer-to-seller relationship.
Some dilemmas we have endured since starting have finding funding for R & D and marketing, Good help, an easy secure form of data uploading and segment desirability to use My Repair Facts. These are issues that I feel most to all start-ups encounter and make us stronger as we walk through. Some of these dilemmas will be on-going but help create the foundation of our strength to endure.
One challenge we have overcome is acquiring funding to create a secure, usable and functional online platform. With the help of Ann Arbor Spark and some really amazing teammates, investors and friends.
My Repair Facts is going to be creating an explanatory marketing video, a mobile app, mobile site and looking to find funding for a regional roll-out. Auto-show sponsorships, SEO and local advertising are in the near future. We are also looking to obtain a CFO and marketing officer. We are always striving to acquire more data for a more complete report on a mass competing level with our competitions.
