Co-founded by Mahmud Kotebagil, Beyond Garage is a Hyderabad-based one-stop solution for finding the best mechanic for all the repair and service work of car or bike. The company solves the problem of maintenance of the vehicle by using a single tap hassle-free transparent platform to simplify vehicle service for owners and the businesses. The venture also controls end-to-end customer journey by selecting the right spare parts for the customer.
The company majorly caters to Automotive service/marketplace and identifies itself as an Uber for the vehicle service and spare parts industry. The company works to solve the major issues that persist in the automotive ecosystem currently. It ensures the customer can avail their service anytime within only 30-40 minutes of order placement just like ordering food on Zomato.
Mahmud holds Mechanical Engineering degree from Karnataka and has previously worked in Siemens and Infosys. He is highly inspired by the Indian industrialist, Mr. Ratan Tata. He is influenced by his dedication, vision, simplicity and leadership qualities. He is fond of reading books, a die-hard fan of motorsports and loves traveling.
In an exclusive interaction with Motiverge, Mahmud Kotebagil, CEO and Co-founder of Beyond Garage shares more insights about his venture, journey so far, motivation and future plans.
Below are the excerpts from the interview:
What is Beyond Garage all about?
Beyond Garage is a one-stop online solution to find the best car and bike service and mechanic for all the repair and services of your vehicle along with ordering of the spare parts. Beyond Garage is not an aggregator rather we are the service provider who controls the customer end to end journey by selecting the right process, protocol, parts for the customer vehicle. Our services include anything and everything related to cars, from general service, painting, insurance work to breakdown services like vehicle not starting, jumpstart and many more along with supply of the parts both Genuine and OEM recommended parts. Beyond Garage has formed after the amalgamation of the successful vehicle service company Doers and spare parts supply company Auto Parts Hub with the vision “ To organize & standardize the world automotive service needs and provide a quick transparent, quality and affordable solution to our customer” . We at Beyond Garage manage end to end operation of vehicle service and spare parts supply to provide professional and value for money service.
What factors motivated you to start this venture? What seeded the idea of a startup in Automotive Servicing Industry?
It all started back in 2016 when I was working in my first company. I’ve been a die-hard fan of vintage and classic vehicle for a long time. So that interested me to buy used 1990 RX 135 model. I spent around a month salary to restore the bike and it was a good feeling for a week or two. But eventually, the bike started giving issues which keep turning off again and again while riding. I took my bike to the person who restored along and also to other 6 more workshops including authorized and multi-brand garage but unfortunately, the problem couldn’t be resolved by any of them and back that time, there were only aggregator or platform like Just dial/Google my business page which helped you to find nearby workshops but not control the end to end customer journey or take the ownership of the service. I realized there are four important problem in this industry that we are addressing. First, Professional end to end vehicle solution is missing, second, vehicle services is tedious and tiresome process and its not available all the time. Third, there is no guarantee/ownership on the reliability of service and lastly, nonstandard price across all workshop.
What were the first few steps during and after the launch of Beyond Garage?
We did detailed market research on both demand and supply side to understand the pain point and how we can holistically provide a better vehicle service platform for both users and business. Before the launch of the service, we did market research with sample size of 4000+ users and 500+ Garages to understand the demand and supply side correctly. Based on the finding of the market research we designed the process/frame work and aligned our business & operation model accordingly.
After the launch of Beyond Garage, the continuous feedback from our partners and customers was an important step which helped us to bring further advancement in terms of technology. Further, integration of spare parts in the service system was crucial and we did it successfully to take complete control on the selection of the parts.
Have you raised funds so far?
Currently Beyond Garage is funded by the company’s promoters.
Tell us about your motivation. What keeps you going?
I think the biggest motivation or guiding light for all of us is our vision of organizing and standardizing the world automotive service domain. Further, Beyond Garage has people who are passionate towards the automotive field and that helps the brand to keep working hard towards common interest.
How has your journey been so far?
It has been a great journey and great response from the customer and partners. We are very positively looking forward to have great growth in upcoming days.
What is the USP of your brand? What separates Beyond Garage from other multi-brand car service providers?
- The complete diagnosis and estimation before hand – We stick to our promise of detailed report and one price wherein the vehicle would be fully diagnosed by our expert technician and we will provide a cost estimation which will remain same.
- Extended Warranty – Beyond Garage has best processes and protocols in the industry along with right resources. Hence, Beyond Garage provides the warranty on the services which ranges from 30 days to 24 month.
- Affordable – We are around 25-60% affordable on different type of service and we provide warranty on every service to ensure the reliability.
- Prompt Response – When it comes to availability and accessibility of our service, we are very prompt and we reach customer location within 30-45 min.
With travel limited to a minimum, how did COVID impact your business & plans? How do you see growth and market response in a post-COVID world?
It’s very true and understandable that due to COVID-19 we had seen the impact on the automotive domain earlier. However, as the business and travel has resumed now, we are seeing good growth in terms of vehicle services as compared to previous months where the industry was still recovering from the second wave. We strongly believe that the COVID-19 may have short term effect on the service, however, when we see the long term vision it is a great industry to work on and we are very happy to be a part of the industry.
Where do you see yourself in the upcoming 3 to 5 years?
Beyond Garage would be a brand across India where we look forward to take the pain out of the Automotive Servicing and provide the efficient and dependable service via technology advancement.
What are your messages or leadership lessons for budding entrepreneurs/young generation?
If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful. And push your limits and so you touch one limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further and further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.
Hope this interview will motivate all the aspiring entrepreneurs. It is a part of our startup profiling feature story/interview series. We are on a mission to bring forward the inspirational journey of successful entrepreneurs in order to spread some motivation during these tough times.
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