より簡単な自動車売却サービスをどのように構築しているか
月商 — · 創業者2人 · 従業員12人 · North Miami Beach, Флорида, США
Jurgis Plikaitis（Founder, EpiCar）· 創業 October 2023 · 記事掲載 — · epicar.ai/dealer · 元の記事
創業者は自動車業界での長い経験と人脈を活用し、2023年10月に創業。独立ディーラー協会との提携、SEO、メールマーケティング、業界メディア（Auto Remarketing, ASOTU）への広告掲載や記事、ラジオ出演などでディーラーを集客。月商は創業3ヶ月後（2024年1月頃の記事時点）でなし（無料サービスのため）。創業者2名、従業員12名。
売値の出典: 記事の本文（2024年1月頃時点、創業者インタビューより）と公式サイトの文言（2026-10-14 取得）
EpiCar was born to provide an easy and transparent car selling experience.
In every business you need to stay customer-oriented. Is it the core of launching a business, and the better you understand the client, the better fitting solution you give them, and the more you succeed as an entrepreneur?
会計: QuickBooks
広告: Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Google Adwords, Google ads
分析: Google Analytics
crm: HubSpot
デザイン: Canva, Figma
education: Udemy, Coursera
メール配信: MailChimp
hiring: Upwork
その他: Google Alerts, Skype, HotJar, Google Drive, Zoom, HARO, FlexOffers, Google Search..., Similarweb, Dialpad
決済: PayPal, Stripe
業務: G Suite, Google Workspace, Calendly
reviews: Trustpilot, Yelp, Reviews.io, Google My Bus...
seo: Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Serpstat, Alexa
SNS: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Medium
stack: Custom Built
web hosting: GoDaddy
I’ve been in the automotive industry for quite a while. It was my deep-rooted interest in cars that inspired my career path in this field. This passion for automobiles has been the driving force behind my journey in the industry. It all started with founding A Better Bid, an online car auction marketplace, and then became a co-founder of EpicVIN and AutoInspect. At EpicVIN, we are providing car buyers and car dealers with high quality vehicle history reports, accessible in a convenient subscription way. For a monthly fee, clients can get an unlimited number of reports. Single reports are also available for those who don’t want a subscription. And at AutoInspect, as the name suggests, we specialize in providing thorough auto inspections. My team and I have always focused on the customer and tried to provide them with what they needed the most. During these years in business, I have personally interacted with a lot of dealers. From those interactions, I found out that most dealers struggle with sourcing high-quality inventory. On the other hand, private car sellers should have the convenience of being able to quickly sell their cars without the hassle of visiting multiple dealerships. It hit me that we could solve both of their problems with one marketplace where sellers could list their vehicles and dealers could bid on them in a familiar auction way. This realization was the “aha” moment for me. In a few months, EpiCar was born to provide an easy and transparent way of car selling experience.
Our startup is just at the beginning of its long journey. We’ve taken a good amount of time to validate our idea. We conducted a thorough analysis of the automotive industry, identifying specific pain points for both dealers and private car sellers. Additionally, we engaged in discussions with dealerships to understand their inventory sourcing challenges and with private sellers about their selling experiences. We’ve interviewed about 100 dealers to find out what they would like to see on the platform, we’ve explored the market and the current trends and demands. In our research, we identified the dominance of large companies like Carvana and Carmax in the automotive industry. This dominance often leaves smaller dealerships struggling to find quality inventory. Recognizing this challenge, our team at EpiCar was inspired to create a solution. After the fundamental analysis, we spent a significant amount of time designing the website and testing our idea. A few months later, EpiCar was set in motion. We have been working on building our client base and spreading the word about our marketplace from that moment on.
As soon as the website was ready, we opened dealer registration. We joined the Independent Dealer Associations of Florida, New York, California, and Texas (the largest dealer associations in the States) to have more interactions with dealers and better understand their needs. We’ve started our marketing activities, including email marketing, interviews, radio shows, and articles in digital publications. We chose those channels drawing on our previous experience of communicating with dealers. We discovered that there are some dealer communities that we can join and advertise in there as well as place articles on automotive/dealer websites. Moreover, most dealers are subscribed to automotive newsletters where they get all the industry updates so we used this too. It all resulted in an influx of registrations on the website. Currently, our priority is to onboard dealers and offer them complimentary registration. Once we've established a solid base of registered dealerships, we'll start granting access to vehicles. Our approach to attracting private sellers involves multiple strategies, ensuring they have a ready market of dealers on the platform for a swift vehicle sale. Building a robust dealer client base is our first step. EpiCar was launched in October 2023, and we haven't reached the desired number of registrations yet. However, we do understand that it’s only been 3 months and there's still much ahead. If you’re a dealer, we’d be happy to see you on board! In every business you need to stay customer-oriented. Is it the core of launching a business, and the better you understand the client, the better fitting solution you give them, and the more you succeed as an entrepreneur?
The things that worked the most in attracting customers were SEO, partnerships, and email marketing. We devoted a lot of attention to partnering with dealer associations, working with automotive journalists, and sending newsletters. Below you can see some of the press releases, email blasts, social media posts, and articles. Email marketing: Social media sponsored posts: Press releases: Radio: Interviews: Our most successful campaigns so far were a post on Auto Remarketing and an advertisement in one of ASOTU’s daily email blasts. Article written by Auto Remarketing Staff: ASOTU’s Daily Pushback: We are also devoting a lot of attention to SEO. Moreover, one of the things we are about to do is to conduct a webinar for dealers where we will give useful recommendations about inventory sourcing. One thing that I know for sure is that in every business you need to stay customer-oriented. Is it the core of launching a business, and the better you understand the client, the better fitting solution you give them, and the more you succeed as an entrepreneur.
As I mentioned, we are new players in the game. High sales and profit are still in store for us but we are certain that staying true to what you believe and making every effort to give your best to the client is a road to success. Our service is currently at no cost. All used car dealers are welcome to join EpiCar for free and to receive a commission free discount for their first car purchase. What we also offer for dealers is the possibility to claim a 25-mile radius around the dealership and get priority notifications as soon as there is a new car for sale in the chosen area. For a seller, there is also no fee for uploading their vehicle and receiving dealer offers. The short term goal for EpiCar at the moment is to onboard as many dealers as possible and to have dealers make their first car purchases through our marketplace. If we speak about long term goals… Well, the current market situation is such that most inventory is already claimed by large companies, making it increasingly challenging for smaller dealerships to find high-quality vehicles. Despite the challenges, we saw an opportunity to make a real difference for smaller dealerships that were struggling against larger companies. We recognized the potential to disrupt the status quo by providing these dealers with easier access to diverse and high-quality inventory. This vision was not just about entering a market; it was about changing it for the better. Our goal is to establish ourselves as a reputable source of inventory while also providing a hassle-free way for individuals to sell their cars by simply uploading them online.
Our main obstacle has been fully immersing ourselves in the market and putting in extensive efforts to gain a deep understanding of it. The most important thing I realized while creating EpiCar is how crucial it is to have people who share your vision and can be relied upon. The lesson I learned is the significance of a team in bringing any idea to life.
We use HubSpot for customer service, email marketing, etc. It is a convenient tool as it provides a comprehensive suite of tools covering marketing, sales, and customer service, all in one place. For advertising, of course, we use Google Ads, Instagram Ads, and Facebook Ads because these platforms offer unparalleled reach and targeting capabilities. We also use Google Analytics to track and analyze our website traffic, understand user behavior, and gauge the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.
Among books, I can recommend "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries. I liked it for its emphasis on agility and innovation in business development. That’s the only one I can recall as I haven’t been quite a reader lately.
As mentioned above, this is all about being client-oriented. This means deeply understanding your customers' needs, preferences, and pain points. From the very beginning, make it your mission to know who your clients are and what they truly value. This focus on putting the client at the center of everything you do, from developing products to marketing and providing customer service, is essential.
At the moment, our team at EpiCar is fully staffed and we are not currently looking to fill any positions.
Website Facebook LinkedIn X