Aggregator platform for two-wheeler mechanics like gomechanic.com or BikeDoctor.com

“Opportunities lie in the place where the complaints are” – Jack Ma.

Challenge – Unavailability of two-wheeler mechanic aggregator platforms

It was a cold morning in Guwahati on 13^th December 2016 when me with 3 of my friends decided to visit Sikkim with bike. Since none of us owned one, we decided to take 2 Royal Enfield bikes on rent. At around 9 pm on 16^th December, when we were crossing Kokrajhar district of Assam, the clutch wire of one of our bikes broke down. Two of my friends went ahead searching for a mechanic in the nearby areas but couldn’t find any. After spending 2-3 hours looking for a mechanic, we decided to rest in a nearby dhaba as it was difficult to drag a broken-down bike. It was the first time when I realized this gap in automobile repairing market.

The second incident happened when I was visiting Darjeeling with 5 of my friends. Again, we rented 3 bikes, but this time we travelled to New Jalpaiguri by train and then rented bikes there because of my previous experience. When we were going to ‘Rock Garden’, which is situated at a descent of around 3000ft from main Darjeeling, the rear brake of one of our bikes malfunctioned. The only option we had was to either hire a four-wheeler to tow the bike or to go get a mechanic from Darjeeling. Just when we were about to leave for Darjeeling to get a mechanic, a Gentlemen halted and asked us about the situation and helped us out

The third incident happened when we were visiting Laitlum Grand Canyon in Shillong. During this trip, one of our bikes got punctured when we were about to reach the canyons. Since laitlum is a remote area in Shillong, almost 70-80 kms from the main city, we had to travel back to Shillong to get the mechanic. It took us more than 6 hours and made us change our plan significantly.

All these incidents made me realise that even though India has the biggest two-wheeler market, with nearly 18 million two wheelers being sold every year, the availability of automobile repair services is not at par compared to that. The government of India is increasing its expenditure on road construction projects in rural areas. This combined with rising per capita income will result in increased volumes of two-wheelers in small towns and villages, where the density of mechanics is less and the lag in automobile repair services is more prominent.

This problem doesn’t only exist in hilly or remote areas, after talking to some of my friends in Noida and Allahabad, I realized that they also face similar issues. The only difference is the density of mechanics is high in flatter areas compared to hilly and remote areas, but in both these cases there is absence of aggregator platform for mechanics. If your bike breaks down in the middle of the road, you must take it to the mechanic shop by yourself. This problem becomes even bigger if we consider Women. Since the number of women commuters is also increasing, there is a rising need of aggregator platforms to be present on the market.

So, to conclude, after facing the issue of two-wheelers breaking down in the middle of nowhere multiple times, I would like to draw inspiration from the firms which are creating aggregator platforms and would like to create a platform to aggregate the mechanics at an all India level like shiksha.com and would like to make it more women friendly like BikeDoctor.

Solution

After discussing the challenge it’s time to discuss the probable solutions. If you go back to 2016, before the existence of GoMechanic or bro4u, similar challenge existed in the four-wheeler automobile market too. Now, there is a plethora of doorstep service providers for four-wheelers. The need of the hour is an aggregator platform with an integrated application that could bring mechanics of two-wheelers together in one place. A platform where anyone could request for a mechanic anytime anywhere. The platform could be like what Swiggy or Zomato are doing, a two-sided market. The user demographics of a small restaurant owner listed in Swiggy is quite similar to a typical two-wheeler repair shop owner. All we need is to get the mechanics signed up to the platform.

The second step of the solution would be to create your own network of mechanics, to fill the demand gap in necessary geographies, something like Cure.fit or Swiggy. This will require onboarding people and providing them the necessary training. Later, this could also be scaled-up to create a network of service centres.

Storyboard

Assumptions

• Need Assumption – People will be ready to use the platform to request mechanics whenever their two-wheeler break down.
• Technology Assumption – Matching mechanics to customers is easy based on the location. Supporting technology already exists as Swiggy, Uber etc. use similar model.
• Production Assumption – People who own a bike and a smartphone will definitely be interested in trying it out and the people who often travel will be more than interested as they only know the mechanics in their native place, so they won’t have any reason to drag the bike to a mechanic.
• Commercial Assumption – Profit can be made through numerous ways such as advertisements or charging premium from the shops to show their name in suggestions.

Low-cost experiment

The assumptions that need to be tested and could be tested through a low-cost experiment are –

• Are people willing to wait for the mechanic to arrive?
• Will shop owner’s sign-up in the platform?

The second hypothesis is easy to test. A feedback could be collected about the platform from the nearby mechanic shops and their willingness o join the platform. With almost negligible cost, this feedback will help us gauge the attitude of shop owners towards the platform and will also help in making necessary mechanic-centric changes. Getting a green flag from at least 60-65% shop owners would mean success.

The first hypothesis requires contact details of shop-owners throughout Bangalore and a bit of cooperation from IIMB students. As we know that many students in the campus own two-wheelers, they could be given a POC whom they can contact if their bike breaks down in the middle of the road. The POC could refer him the details of a mechanic from nearby shops. This will save the cost and time of developing the app while fulfilling the same purpose. The feedback of the student about the waiting time and the overall experience could be collected. If 60-65% customers express satisfactory results, the experiment will be a success.

Prototype of the solution

App – The following is the demo Interface of the App which will be used by the customers to request mechanic at the time of breakdown. It provides the details of relevant repair shops depending on location and bike model with ratings, availability of mechanic and ETA.