Kyle
Whether you’re a weekend warrior on a beautiful Harley or you prefer the speed and precision of the latest Honda or BMW bike, you may have noticed one of the things that the interwebs has been lacking is a decent all in one destination designed to help riders buy and sell bikes, and of course show them off.
Brothers Daniel and Myer Amer are your run of the mill Rutgers students, passionate about business and motorcycles (which of course makes them less run of the mill). With the blessing and mentorship of their father. The elder Amer built his own contracting business from the ground up and his business principles, skills and good ole fashion elbow grease have helped the brothers launch their business.
SwapCycles online marketplace allows both power sports dealers and private individuals to list their motorcycles for sale. They’ve also created a show off feature and a social network community for motorcycle enthusiasts who can use the platform to talk shop,sports,sales, even find riding buddies across the country.
Typically when we think Silicon Alley we’re not thinking motorcycles but SwapCycles is right in the thick of it. We got a chance to talk with Daniel and Myer about SwapCycles and growing a startup, outside of the mainstream, in Silicon Alley. Check out the interview below:
What is SwapCycles?
Our startup is www.swapcycles.com, and what we do is we provide an online platform for Powersports dealerships and private sellers to sell their motorcycles. We have created an easy-to-use marketplace where people interested in purchasing a motorcycle can easily browse. Another function we added to the startup is called “showoff”, which is a place for riders to flaunt the upgrades they have made to their motorcycles, giving users the ability to rate and comment on their fellow riders. The overall goal is to form a social community of powersports riders and bring them together to one central place online. The social community aspect is emphasized by the incorporation of user profiles and the use of communication via private messaging. Our goal is to have a cool and trendy website (web 2.0) so users will automatically want to return.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Swapcycles was founded by Daniel Amer and Co-founded by Myer Amer. These two are brothers both studying at Rutgers University. Daniel Amer is looking to receive his BA in economics, while Myer Amer is studying Marketing. They are both powersports enthusiasts themselves and Daniel actually owns a Ducati Monster 796.
Where are you based?
Swapcycles is based out of the greater New York City area. Specifically in northern New Jersey.
What is the startup culture like where you are based?
NYC is known as the Silicon Valley of the East given the nickname “silicon alley” so the culture here is very interactive and supportive for startups. Aside from Silicon Valley, its one of the best places to be when creating a startup. Everyone from the various industries, to the government (Bloomberg) is very supportive of tech startups. There are many workshops and conferences filled with tech startups that are willing to collaborate and help each other out in the alley.
What problem does your startup solve?
The main problem Swapcycles solves Is creating a targeted marketplace for the seller and dealers for an audience visiting the site in search for only motorcycles, offering greater exposure for the dealerships, and the private sellers will acquire interest in their motorcycle for sale by individuals in the same lifestyle. It creates a niche platform for these riders making it a solid alternative to a general classified website like Craigslist. Another issue that we focus on resolving for these groups is Making sure it is safe and secure (spam free) which is an issue many people run into when selling online ensuring the buyers and sellers on the website will be legitimate in the practices taking place on Swapcycles.
What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?
One challenge we have overcome in the startup process is the general development process of the site. We wanted to make it uniquely designed yet still have simple user functionality so all age groups of riders will be able to use this service. Finding the right team to develop such a product was the challenging task at hand and we went through several phases until we finally figured out the perfect strategy to get this completed successfully.
Who are your mentors and role models?
Our main role model and mentor is our father. He has a successful contracting business built from the ground up by himself and overtime developed a great team and an exclusive client list which in turn helped his business name grow rapidly and effectively. He has guided us since the beginning of this project and the advice certainly proved helpful. Another role model is Alex Algard, creator of cardomain and white pages. Cardomain is a site in which users can show off their cars and we adopted that idea for our users and motorcycles and added our personal touch to it.
Whats one thing the world doesn’t know about you or SwapCycles?
The one thing the world doesn’t know about our startup is that we not only want to create a place to sell and find motorcycles for sale but also create an influence for as many people in the united states to start riding motorcycles considering its more economical and exhilarating than an automobile. The showcase portion of Swapcycles is a way for us to spread that message to our users creating a online social “meet” in a sense, enabling non riders to view what others in their neighborhood and beyond are up to in the motorcycle world. We also genuinely want to help dealers boost their sales to put more motorcycles on our roads by providing affordable packages. No need for classified packages to be insanely expensive and unreasonably costly. And to help them and in turn help us, we are offering free trials to dealers who join us now!
What’s next for your SwapCycles?
We hope to constantly improve the usability for our users by adding more features making it easier to browse selections of different types of motorcycles uploaded to Swapcycles. Considering motorcycle dealers typically also sell atvs, we will eventually incorporate atvs models and makes since motorcycles and atvs are the popular road powersports and have similar groups of people interested in these machines.
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