S2E9 - James Hind, Founder & CEO @ carwow

James Hind is the Founder and CEO of Carwow, one of the most popular platforms for buying new and used cars in the UK. James studied Finance, which led him into the corporate world, however it was not long before he realised that the only was he was going to be fulfilled professionally was if he went it alone. After working as a ski guide for a few months James went ahead and launched carwow in 2011 with the mission of helping people choose and buy the best car. Since then carwow has grown to become one of the most exciting marketplaces and media brands in the automotive sector. 

James sat down with Riding Unicorns to discuss what propelled him to launch the business, what lessons he has learnt along the way and what plans he has for the future of the company. 

Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello everyone. And welcome to this episode of riding unicorns. This week we have James Hind, who is the founder of Carwow on the show, and we can't wait to hear his story. Hi James. Thanks for joining us.

[00:00:23] James Hind: Thank you. Good to be here.

[00:00:25] Hector: Perhaps good place to start would be just your journey up until now.

[00:00:29] James Hind: Yeah, for sure. So I set up, now 11, 12 years ago. So I've been at it a while straight after uni. So I did finance at uni. Didn't learn a lot, went into a fund management firm as an intern, and that put me off finance for life, like literally three months. And I thought this is not for me. So it didn't know what else I wanted to do. And thought we'll potentially start a business. And the advice was always, I got a red was do something in a field interested in, so I persuaded my wife. Who's not into cars to join [00:01:00] me to do something in cars. So she designed a website and we started getting together a whole lot of content out there on the web Antoine place. Ran it from my parents' house for a good kind of lot. Two, three years. And then finally managed to start getting some revenue. Once we actually helped consumers to buy that car and we could actually start to create some revenue for the first time.

[00:01:21] Hector: What was the help that you were providing to consumers that you could add money was around?

[00:01:25] James Hind: Have you ever used rotten tomatoes for films where it summarizes where all the critics saying about a film and you can see within about a minute, is it worth spending two hours of my life watching this film? We thought we'll do the same thing. Find out what everyone's saying about reviews of the latest, whatever Ford, Mercedes, et cetera. So you can at a glance. See, is this car any good? And was it good for

[00:01:45] Hector: super interesting, I'm a big Petro head myself. So I'm interested. Did it satisfy , your interesting calls or was it did end up not being kind of looking around calls and reading about the,

[00:01:56] James Hind: I mean, I can get very passionate about. A lot of things, [00:02:00] it happens to be in an era that I had a passion for, but honestly I could have got as passionate about the business. We were selling washing machines or something. I think it's the same with every founder. They become super absorbed, whatever the problem they're trying to.

[00:02:11] Hector: So the partners at episode one, I think they were your first backup. So what was the journey to meeting them? And then what was the process raising your first round and what was the purpose of that?

[00:02:24] James Hind: So, yeah, they led our first ever round. So we had no money basically to start with for the first few years. And we managed, we tried to raise around and we literally spoke to every VC in London, every angel that I could try and contact, we reached out to and struggled. And then I saw Simon Murdoch speaking at an event about angels and I've sent him an email right after and said, we've got this business. We pitched them. And luckily he then got a load of other angels together. We have, we had a couple of weeks sourced already and did our first around 250. And I think from that, we used it to, I think my co-founder David who's our [00:03:00] CTO wasn't full-time so he could go full-time and then we could start to pump some money into AdWords to drive a bit of traffic. But yeah, we're very thankful to those guys for spotting an opportunity. We were a diamond in the rough, I think Simon says,

[00:03:14] Hector: I think he does say that I am, we've got Simon on the show and other types, so maybe we can. Yeah, his perspective on it. But from your perspective, what do you think he liked about you and it,

[00:03:24] James Hind: well, honestly, I think he could see through what would have been a crap presentation from basically a lot of people who've done nothing before I've got no track record, but I think he could see something. And it honestly, cause he could see something where literally hundreds of people that said no before. So quite what it was, I don't know, but he spotted it and gave us that leg up to start with

[00:03:43] James Pringle: So, James, I was just going to ask about when you felt you became a tech company and how you met your CTO, because I think a lot of founders struggle with kind of finding a CTO CTO. Co-founder.

[00:03:54] James Hind: Yeah, it's new question. So we found David our CTO ultimately by cold [00:04:00] calling and cold emailing loads of CTOs of established tech startups. And I found one guy who was, he kindly took my email. Aiden, who was the CTO was wiggle the big e-commerce shop. And he said, look, there's this Italian guy. We know he'll be way too expensive. You'll be able to afford him, but he might know someone. And so I contacted that Italian person and that Italian person was David. My co-founder, who was the only person we have a, I don't think you can call it an interview. He's the only person we spoke to. And, and we, I think literally that day when we met each other, agreed to work together. So face is, but hustling to try and build it finds people that had a network into these potential future CTOs. I never got lucky.

[00:04:41] Hector: It sounds the way you portrayed, it sounded super scrappy and I'm sure it, I'm sure Paul is a bit where I'm sure positive work. How focused were you at the time? Say of raising that initial angel money. How focused were you on building a huge business

[00:04:55] James Hind: we were taking it one step at a time. I mean, our focus. Yeah. [00:05:00] Literally get David full-time so he could build faster and get some money to actually put into marketing. That was our pure focus. And I think, again, another thing that episode one did very, very well is then help us work out what we should do post that first fund raise. So I, ain't never, they're very, very helpful at that, that you just got loaded money for the first time in your life, into the business. Let's help put together a plan so that you can raise another round after.

[00:05:24] Hector: I realized actually for our listeners, we haven't yet explained exactly what Colwell does. And I think many of our listeners would have already heard of it. Perhaps James, in your own words, you could just explain what you.

[00:05:36] James Hind: So ultimately color's there to help you buy or sell your current car. So buying a car is a big financial decision, quite painful, one lots of choice. We want to give you all the options. All the ways you can buy it, fund it, help you work out what car to buy and help you sell your current car as well for great price. So handholding is throughout the whole thing and we're a marketplace model. So we don't own cars. We don't move cars around. [00:06:00] We don't touch them a pure marketplace representing all the different myriad of ways that you've got. It's bio Celica

[00:06:06] James Pringle: and James, I've noticed that in your last funding round, I think you topped up with a bit of crowd funding.

[00:06:11] What was that experience like? And what was the thought process for this company that was getting access to capital using crowdfunding to leverage some of the other benefits

[00:06:20] James Hind: We, we loved it. We were really keen on it. So we had a really good investor. I think that was dime left in savings in that right. And we, so we want a bit more cash. We still, frankly, rather than give it, probably give it a bit more of the business yet. None of these say that it's got a hold of, of continuous and I see quite a lot of different current street and instead, so I haven't got, I can't remember 7,000 different consumers and it's great that they're going to buy them. It's coffee car. They can tell their friends they're a little marketing channel for us and give them access to the beats and stuff. Versus another VC being on captain.

[00:06:53] Hector: Super interesting. I think Crowdcube is when seed, is it becoming more accepted sort of waste [00:07:00] for actually often later stage companies to top up VC led rounds and for the, for the reasons that you've outlined, have you been able to measure any impact from positive impact on the business from that crowdfunding?

[00:07:11] James Hind: If we wanted to, we could work it out, but again, I think it's just, you got a lot of benefits from it. So we basically copied the likes of Monzo and Revolut who were doing some big rounds and then topping up with a better crowd cube. I don't think it would work for most companies just doing crowds. On its own from scratch. I think it helps massively. If you've got a lead investor, particularly a relatively recognized name it's far easier.

[00:07:35] James Pringle: Well, I was just going to mention that if anyone is interested in learning more about crowdfunding we interviewed both Cedars and Crowdcube and sees them once they go back and have a look And and then I was going to ask about kind of hiring and you guys have grown to quite a number of employees now. So how many is that? And what's been your biggest lesson along the way. If you can tell us any stories or some of the experiences, maybe you can shed some of the chefs.[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] James Hind: We got very lucky with that. And our first employee not founder was also in class. We spoke to him and hired him very helpful. So w we're about 10 people now. A lot of people in Munich and the dread lost people remote as well. I think. The best things we've done and the worst things we've done at hiring people, we've got two amazing hires, highs have transformed the business and really, really just led that area fantastically and made like super easy. And unfortunately on the way we find quite a lot of people who just weren't right for us. And it set us back in different departments, different years, but significantly a couple of times, I actually more than a couple of few times easily. And I think what we learned. Slowly, but have learned. And haven't made the same mistake in the last 18 months is you got to have the values and ways of working. So I made the mistake of hiring some people that come from some sexy companies that impressive companies, but just as they were good at that company doesn't mean they're going to work in how [00:09:00] we work. And it just kind of alien in terms of culture and, and approaches to working. We're pretty ruthless at moving them on fairly quickly. If it didn't work, if it wasn't working out, but had massive impacts towards the business, we live in a lot, lot bigger now faster if we had an ice, some people,

[00:09:16] Hector: what, what does cultural fit mean at co-op? Do you think? Presumably you're overweight. Car enthusiasts

[00:09:23] James Hind: really got some currencies. Yes. We liked the naivety, the people that don't know class bring. Cause that would make sense that your typical consumer, I think it's a good question of what is culture. I mean, to us, it's, it's, it's ways of working. And yes, we have all the kinds of values on the wall like everyone does, but we've got to stick to how we work is there is a certain style and, and it wouldn't work for. And lots of people are very successful at co-op probably wouldn't be necessarily successful in other companies, because again, they've got very different ways of working, but being ruthless on the interview process for finding that fit.

[00:09:57] Hector: Super interesting. And I think it's always quite a difficult [00:10:00] question, but is there one moment or a few moments that stand out to you as being the best moments in the Coldwell journey for you?

[00:10:06] James Hind: Well, I think fundraising it was always a good moment because it's ultimately reinforcing that someone's got big belief in the company and what you're doing, and it's a chance to kind of celebrate as well because obviously startups are fairly relentless and constant wanting to do more and more, more, more, more, and there's fundraising when they happen are a good kind of moment to stop and think, gosh, we got this far and here comes another big phase of growth behind it.

[00:10:31] Hector: And, and for, for you guys have the sort of big grounds that you've done, I'm not sure what your biggest rounders

[00:10:36] James Hind: I think was 30 million pounds.

[00:10:39] Hector: So 30 million pound round. What does that mean for you guys? Is it more money to throw into the marketing machine or is it more money to execute on new product and execute on the vision

[00:10:52] James Hind: yeah. So historically definitely largely more money spends marketing. More recently it's more around development and product which has [00:11:00] also, I think overall a better way to grow is all about the consumer proposition. If you've got that, then it's fantastic. But I think in the early days we were throwing too much money into marketing and getting two hooks on that Google crack cocaine. So we wean ourselves off that nicely over the last couple. But a lot of people do the same thing.

[00:11:20] James Pringle: That's a pretty positive mood because I think there was some start in 2020 that came out that 65% of venture dollars were spent with Google or Facebook. It rocked a few of few VCs worlds once they heard that there's quite a lot of noise at the moment in the core buying space, notable brands. How do you see it playing out and is that a kind of a net positive for the sector that everything's coming online? And you guys have raised lots of money, but how do you compete with someone that's raised more money?

[00:11:52] James Hind: Yeah, so I think auto tech was not sexy until about two years ago and a lot's happened since. [00:12:00] I mean, ultimately we love it. The more choice, the more options that consumer has, the more need there is for a marketplace that has all the options and these kind of new breeds of car dealers. Tech firms, raising money, doing various things are big, kind of kick up the ass for the traditional current story. I just want the last industries to go online and COVID, and all these new breeds are really shifting their gear into taking digital properly, which is ultimately a massive net game for us. W we like as well, the focus they generally got on consumers, because again, the traditional car industry have to mirror that focus. So everyone wins.

[00:12:36] James Pringle: Yeah. And your model, although, very consumer friendly, is it slightly more attractive to the incumbents than maybe some of the other platforms that are going kind of fast?

[00:12:45] James Hind: So we'll work with, so we have car dealers selling for us, leasing companies, car manufacturers, some of the online car dealers. So we'll let anyone promote what they're selling. Ultimately, as long as we think there's a good customer experience at the end of it. [00:13:00] So again, more choice the better for us.

[00:13:03] James Pringle: Yeah.

[00:13:03] Hector: Some exciting news. Last week I think, was your whistle. Which, which I just think is awesome and makes so much sense and gives you true full stack offering. Can you talk a little bit about that and what it means for you?

[00:13:16] James Hind: Yeah, sure. So it required a company called whistle and basically we've got a fantastic way to sell your car. So what you do, you've got a car to sell you, take some photos, you put your registration and your mileage, and then you list it on the site and you'll get dealers bidding to buy it directly. So you've got a range of offers and ultimately then you get a great price for it. So we believe for almost all consumers, a better price than you weren't using something like we've only coal or parts exchanging. And then the dealer that you choose will collect from your house. So really, really convenient as well. It's a, it's a great little team is only about 11 people, but selling about 14,000 cars a year. And we've got absolutely shed loads of traffic and consumers that we can then pump into it. We'll ease out the whistle brand and make [00:14:00] it pure color, and then start up a whole lot of marketing just on that proposition as well, because it it's literally the best way to sell a car.

[00:14:06] The whole premise, the whole model is great. Great for consumers, but as importantly, great for dealers to access these cars directly as well.

[00:14:14] Hector: Yeah.

[00:14:16] James Hind: speed. Basically, this team has built out a good tech platform, big network of dealers, and they've got deep, deep, deep, deep knowledge. I'm sure at a time we could have got that, but build it. It would take a good 18 months, two years buy it and we can start accelerating it far faster.

[00:14:34] James Pringle: A decision like that to go and buy another company. How is that taken? Who's involved? Do you lean on some external support in the process as well? Or can you rely on your own sort of finance background and some of the VCs

[00:14:47] James Hind: yeah, sure. So this is a good example where we'd kept in touch with this company for a couple of years. So we had a bit of a relationship we'd seen them grow. And then my COO, who only joined us recently I had another meeting with them and thought there's [00:15:00] something here and, and encouraged us to consider acquiring them. We had a look at it, did a bit of kind of like it's a bit like a VC lightweight DD, and then you issue a term sheet with an agree kind of price. Then you go into a moral kind of deep, deep. So we got some legal experts and finance guys to, to, to pour over it and similar to similar to the time between a term sheet and close about six weeks. And then again, a bit like a VC to get that initial offer. We went to the board a bit like engine investment committee and said, this is what we want to do. This is the price you want to pay. Do you agree? And ultimately they backed it and said, yep. So all in all, not hugely complicated, I think in a way almost a complicated, it comes now. Well, we've got to integrate the team. Good, good team that attack the dealers. Uh that's that's almost probably the hard bit now.

[00:15:48] James Pringle: Yeah. Awesome. And when you. Submit an offer. D did you call up the founder or is it literally just like send an email over? We want to buy your company? [00:16:00] What we're offering

[00:16:00] James Hind: again, a bit of experience with a term sheet where you call colon to talk it's right. The excitement, and then send it straight out. So they've got it. They can circulate it around that board. But no, I think it was only the second time we required a company. But yeah, so far good experience. And I think, the nerve wracking bet from talking to friends, who've done it before is you basically acquiring lots of people into your team at once. So again, you've got to really work out. Is there a cultural fit? Because if there's not a cultural fit, then those people aren't going to, I'm going to work. So we spent a lot of time.

[00:16:34] Hector: So we've, we've asked for your best moment. It'd be unfair to let you get away with not having the worst moments. So what are some of the worst moments, speed or the hardest moments?

[00:16:44] James Hind: Again, it goes back to miss highs where you get really excited that you've got this a generally also senior person joining and you think great that they're going to really transform it. And then it's that reality when you sleepless night, when you think, I don't know, maybe after a month, three months. [00:17:00] Sometimes six months you think this person's just not, not what I thought they were going to be. And I think that the hardest thing that I found was for, I mean, without naming roles, but I'd never hired a chief whatever, or achieve something else, we've never had one. So I didn't quite know what to expect. So found it quite hard to work out. Or I had, did I have unrealistic expectations of what this role should do, but it was just a general feeling of this isn't working. This isn't good enough, basically. And, and then you've gotta do it. And then you got to deal with it, or you got to the company, went through a period of seeing quite a lot of C-levels leave because we had to let them go because they weren't working out. And that, that, that causes a lot of kind of uncertainty, lack of trust, lack of confidence. So we had to battle that for a good couple of years. Luckily the last kind of 18 months been more plaintiffs. But definitely very tough times.

[00:17:49] Hector: Yeah. How do you keep staff morale up when, when there's like turnover at a high level?

[00:17:56] James Hind: Yeah, it's super tough. I think we've always been honest, [00:18:00] with why it didn't work out. So again, not, not criticizing someone and saying they were crap, they were rubbish. They didn't do anything. Just saying, honestly, this, this person didn't fit in to how we work. Not to say they're not great somewhere else, but they just didn't fit into how we work. And that's why we're having to let them go. I think the company went through a period of seeing, I don't know, two or three within a year leave and then it's questioning, well, , why did they get through in the first place?

[00:18:23] Hector: What advice would you give to your former self 10 years ago and now in how to build a business?

[00:18:30] James Hind: I think most mistakes were made in the, not in the first five years, but in the kind of second. So in the five, most recent years, and again, I'm repeating myself, but it is around hiring spent lots of time with the person you're hiring, did lots and lots of reference checking. We used to do things like presentation. For senior roles don't bother anymore. Get him to talk through how they worked before and could keep drilling into that again and again and again. And focused on that ways of working nothing else

[00:18:56] James Pringle: makes sense. That's been a, quite an [00:19:00] active tech IPO market in recent times in the UK, but we've also seen a couple of companies get lured in by the sparks and the. So, how do you see things playing out? Do you guys plan to IPO one day? And if you do, would you expect to do that here or in the U S

[00:19:18] James Hind: yeah, I think it's on the it's on the future roadmap, for sure. I think it ultimately is a great way to raise funds. And I think particularly these kind of consumer facing businesses can do well. Some of them can do very well when the IPA and ultimately though it's just another funding. I don't think I didn't see it as that radically different to a private round, a private round, obviously bringing some primary capsule, you get an opportunity sometimes for investors to sell down a bit. It's ultimately not hugely different, so we'd wear it up against private rounds, but for sure, that'd be, it'd be good. It'd be a fun thing to, to experience as well.

[00:19:51] Hector: For sure. And , what's your vision for Carla and how has that changed at all over the last year?

[00:19:56] James Hind: I think, yeah, I think it's, it just gets bigger. The vision in terms of, [00:20:00] again, it's all around helping you with your car, like it's most households, second biggest monthly outgoing after the, their rental, their mortgage. So it's a big, big, big part of people's lives. There's a lot of distrust and it has a lot of confusion and we just want to help the consumer and be loved by them. We do it. We do it well with a new way. We're doing it now with helping you sell your car. We've got aspirations to do it and used as well, which has a big market. And we did it in Germany, in Spain, but we're going to do it in more countries as well.

[00:20:25] Hector: It's super interesting. Your, journey given, going straight into being a founder , from uni pretty much. And I think to lots of people, that's how entrepreneurs do it because the people we hear about the mark Zuckerbergs, that sort of thing I suppose we think that must be the norm. But as investors we can certainly tell you it's not the norm. So do you think if you had experience before starting carwash, you would have avoided any of the mistakes you made or do you think there was a sort of naive optimism that's helped you along the way?

[00:20:58] James Hind: No. I think [00:21:00] if I had a, what a scale up before. It had been far, far better. I think we'd have moved far, far, far, far faster. And he said it was some of the really successful entrepreneurs. They've often worked in tech businesses before get often in a successful and a, and then applied lots of the same principles. So I think I struggled with, I'd never worked in a company before until color. If we're doing it again, we did it 10 times faster and at least the first few years would be 10 times faster. Far easier to access capsule. You got more of a track record. You've made legend mistakes already in your career. You've got a network already. Yeah, I think jumping straight into funding a business. Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't put anyone off it, but I think seeing the world , and seeing other sides of how things are done, it is also a very, very good first step.

[00:21:44] James Pringle: Yeah. As an investor. On the other side, it is definitely more interesting when someone says I'm at. Relevant company. And I've worked at a big scale up tech company. Hector, do you guys feel the same episode one? Do you get [00:22:00] lured in by that a bit?

[00:22:02] Hector: Yeah, definitely. And I think we have to be careful because it turns into a bias. And for founders, who've worked at Colwell delivery. Any of these sorts of companies. Investors are immediately going to prick up. And so it's a massive help for raising money, but as Jamie will testify, not having had that experience. Doesn't mean you won't build a successful business. And the real opportunity is it, all these diamonds in the rough, right? It's people who are overlooked and that's where the real opportunity lies because other people aren't looking. So yeah, it's definitely triggered and it can be a massive help heading, starting these businesses, but we definitely have to be careful not to fall into the trap of only investing in these people

[00:22:44] James Hind: I think it's the same with hiring again, it's easy to see it and have a very strong bias. As soon as you see a well-known tech startup on the CV doesn't mean it's necessarily again gonna work. And there'll be some harder, harder to spot talent that hasn't necessarily been there, done it before.[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] James Pringle: And James, you said that when you first went out, you spoke to lots of VCs didn't quite break through, but then you met Simon and that triggered an angel round, which ultimately got the company going. So how important do you see the angel round being, and do you do any angel investing and if you do, what do you look for when you're reviewing a startup?

[00:23:20] James Hind: Yeah, definitely. That Andrew was a huge breakthrough for us. And I think we were very lucky to have Simon and some of his mates and a couple of other entrepreneurs that we got in, because again, they helped us hugely get to the next step and Simon still on our board. Now that's a , massive value. Yeah. I think that angel community , is super important to tech ecosystem. I did a fair bit of venture investing. I focused on. Stuff I understand. And there's a lot of stuff I don't understand. So mainly consumer facing stuff , and again, lots obviously on what the proposition isn't who the founder is. But yeah, very keen to get involved and help out where I can to these ancient investments. And I think the other thing is the angel investment community is [00:24:00] huge. Now there's a lot of people out there doing it. Whereas six, seven years ago , it was a very kind of niche, little. And that's only a fantastic thing.

[00:24:09] James Pringle: Yeah. It was definitely being driven by more unicorns being around so that the demographic of the NGO has slightly shifted from old boys bringing in their mates to more people that have actually been on tech scale-up journeys. And that's really positive to be able to add some of those experiences to your cap table as well.

[00:24:28] Does anyone in your family have an entrepreneurial background? What led you to going straight in at the defense?

[00:24:33] James Hind: I know they haven't been my family, all doctors, literally. I think my dad said. Yeah, , did you're in business for six months? It'll look good on your CV when you apply for jobs later? No, in a discouraging way. Just , that's how they sold the world. No, the only reason we started the business, we had no clue what else to do. Not clear.

[00:24:50] Hector: so you guys have, I think I'm right in saying you're in the UK. Germany and Spain would call our work in the U S?

[00:24:56] James Hind: Definitely it's something we're exploring at the moment. There's a couple of [00:25:00] countries that really attractive us as potentially one of them. But ultimately we don't think that with everything, their consumer pain buying a car has been eased at all. But for sure, it's on the short list

[00:25:11] Hector: and how come you haven't talked to that

[00:25:12] James Hind: I think we, we knew that Germany was very close to home, a fantastic market, very strong , in auto, in the economy. We thought that was brilliant. And then Spain, we thought again, close to home. Now we're getting confidence. We can go a bit further a field. And The us S is definitely big, unique in many ways, but yeah, we think he could work that.

[00:25:35] James Pringle: And apart from having the enough capital to take on a new market, what are your biggest considerations? Around entering a new market?

[00:25:45] James Hind: Size makes a huge difference. Spain's a great market for us, but it's not that big a, you, you look at say Florida and it's 50% bigger than the UK And , that makes such a difference because ultimately you're making this, you've got the same pain of building a network. [00:26:00] You got the same pain of localizing the product. You've got the same pain of getting consumers. You're just doing it to a much wider audience. Yeah. So I don't think the work effort is harder .

[00:26:10] James Pringle: Yeah. And with precision targeting through digital channels, could you do just one state?

[00:26:15] James Hind: So we don't want staff saying we did Oprah and the dread, and then next week we did open the muscle then, and it's just a city by city brand, no brand approach. So yeah, we're not set playbook to do this.

[00:26:28] Hector: And how does that work? So you have Opal signed up and then how do you avoid the problem of consumers coming to Carlisle in Spain? Only seeing open and thinking, this is rubbish.

[00:26:40] James Hind: You basically have to put up with that. So it's a show , your consumer proposition is not wide. Isn't it? Like if you're a delivery might only do pizza. So you think I'll go on Carey where you just have to put out rates. So the first six months, you're not going to have a complete consumer proposition. But that for us is the best way of launching. The other way of launching would be to [00:27:00] sign up loads. Dealers do massive marketing all at once, but the reality is you need to tweak stuff as you go. It's never perfect and doing on a smaller scale means , you can move faster.

[00:27:09] Hector: Interesting. Does it tend to be easy enough to get an Opal lined up?

[00:27:13] James Hind: You generally, you don't bring it opal. In this example, you're ringing up PayPal dealers. So you've got a cold call and build out a dealer net. So that's the hardest bit, because January, these dealers wouldn't have heard of you. They're not always the most switched on to online or the most open to it. That's the hard grind of literally going around the houses and then sign it.

[00:27:32] Hector: And what is the pitch? What do you give them? Case studies get figures, what they can expect.

[00:27:37] James Hind: Exactly that. , and basically the story is, look, the consumer to move online. You've got this big showroom, so you get some local people that will just walk in, but the consumer making their decision online.

[00:27:47] James Pringle: And with whistle, presumably the proposition just gets even stronger because then now you're saying we're a supply source as well as the demands.

[00:27:55] James Hind: Yeah, that's it, we've got a strong congenital opposition and we've got a [00:28:00] stronger supply proposition. So they've got more reasons to work with us.

[00:28:02] James Pringle: How do you choose which brands to go with first? Like how do you knock them off?

[00:28:06] James Hind: Market share, generally not nothing too scientific.

[00:28:09] James Pringle: Yeah. And where did you get that data?

[00:28:11] James Hind: You can find it. There's a waste find it always.

[00:28:14] Hector: Are there any interesting nuggets of data that you guys see that our listeners might be interested in or that we might be interested in that, you get through running a business?

[00:28:22] James Hind: We say a loss of stuff around how people buy cars, I think it's always quite surprising is people are very run low. So they change like no one sticks with them and say, these are a BMW. You got about a kind of 70% sweet all the time. The other one is how quick Alexa gone. 50% of all the cars we started out in Germany are electrical plug-in hybrid. You got about 25% in the UK. And it's great. It's great for us. It's great for the world. It's great for the car industry and if you've ever bought or earned or driven an electric car within the first minute, you realize, okay, this is the future .

[00:28:55] Hector: James, do you have any more question?

[00:28:56] James Pringle: I've got one more, which is just around the recent chip [00:29:00] shortage, which affects it. New cars. Has that been a tailwind for you guys and pushing people more to this kind of secondary market?

[00:29:08] James Hind: Yeah. As pet pen, I suppose, mainly because you've got a wet all the time for a new car. So you end up on used cars. So big, big issue because very few new cars around. And as an example, I ordered a new land Rover back in October. I thought it would be here in January. And I get an email every two months saying it's delayed and I'm now expecting in October. So 12 months a and for most consumers they'll think, forget this, I'll buy it of said today, it's an issue, but yeah, it's Edwin it'll pass.

[00:29:37] Hector: Is that one of the new defenders?

[00:29:39] James Hind: Yes.

[00:29:40] Hector: Very cool. Very Jetta. But anyway, I'm sure we could talk for hours, but we do have to draw close to to the show. James, thanks so much for coming on to it, but before we go, we do want to play the business lunch. And I wonder if you've had time to think about three guests who you'd like to have around your dinner table.

[00:29:57] James Hind: Yeah. I think quick fire [00:30:00] responses are, , I think it's probably not this one. I'm sure , you've heard it many times, but Elon Musk, cause he's just mad, ambitious genius, running multiple disruptive companies at once across multiple industries and just operates on another scale to probably anyone else. I think another one that I'm not deliberately sticking with auto, but someone like Henry Ford who made a massive empire pre digital, existing and disrupted and was quite unique, but it'd be amazing sort of speak to someone about how did you run a business across countries at massive scale without slack, email, instant communication. That'd be really interesting to learn about. And then I think a third one is we have a very big kind of editorial reach. We've got big video teams, lots of content production. We're talking about it earlier. Jeremy Clarkson. I think he's a fantastic. presenter. He's got his new farm show that we were talking about and he just brings Entertainment and education to life. And I think he'd be a good person to have an opinion at a dinner party as well. Not [00:31:00] afraid of an opinion.

[00:31:00] Hector: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's going to be a really interesting dinner, joined lots of good debate and opinions, strong opinions for sure. No, James, thank you so much for coming onto the show. And if any of our listeners are looking for a new car, they should definitely check out Koa and they should check out co-op they're selling a used car. So yeah, thanks so much. And yeah, let's stay in touch.

[00:31:18] James Hind: Fantastic. Just guys,

[00:31:21] James Pringle: Thanks so much, James.

[00:31:22] James Hind: Thanks guys.

[00:31:23] Great episode that with James from Caldwell, lots of lessons to be learned about hiring. And the importance of getting high as rights. And if it does go wrong, correcting them quickly. Next week. We've got David Semans chief investment officer at wealth of fire on. So check us out then. Like, and subscribe in your favorite podcast platform.