Joseph Perez
Santa Rosa, CA (USA)
Role(s):
C-Level Executive (CEO, CFO, etc.)
Fixed Ops Pros, Inc.
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Startup
Location:
Santa Rosa
Industry:
Automotive
Year Founded:
2018
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Business Stage:
Growth (not profitable)
Entity Type:
"C" Corporation
Description:
Executive Summary: Fixed Ops Pros is an automotive marketing services company focused on becoming THE recognized industry gold standard for reporting the current mechanical condition of used vehicles using data collected from a car’s on-board computer system. While CARFAX® and others provide history reports, our data is collected, analyzed and reported in real-time during the sales transaction process.
Opportunity: Three out of four automotive sales involve a used vehicle, and almost 40 Million used vehicles change hands each year in the US. Very few of them go through a pre-purchase inspection process detailing the mechanical or electronic condition immediately prior to sale. When questions surround a vehicles condition, both the buyer and seller are exposed to risk. What is needed is a way to easily and objectively test, analyze and report the current mechanical condition of used vehicles for the purposes of a more transparent sales transaction. Such a product would greatly reduce the anxiety involved, and increase the value of the vehicle, for all parties involved and at all points of sale.
The Product: Fixed Ops Pros vHealth™ technology records the real-time, electronically monitored mechanical condition of a vehicle, and then compares the results to an extensive database of known mechanical and electronic component parameters and failure modes. The result is a scored assessment and detailed report of the mechanical condition of a vehicle. Over time, our system will become even more powerful as we reference a larger community of vehicle data and can predict failure signals more precisely.
Current Go-to-Market status:
• Letter of Intent (LOI) in place with the country’s largest automotive remarketer and potential for 9M+ reports per year.
• Proven CARFAX® business model provides history and guidance for a wholesale pricing structure starting at $9.99/report or more.
• Currently completing paid pilot in 2H 2019 leading to a Q1 2020 national product launch in the wholesale auction vertical.
• Auction use gives immediate product credibility and access to auto dealer vertical. Quickly builds store of vehicle test data.
• Use of fast-growing community data when combined with existing industry experiential data creates predictive failure abilities once subject to machine learning and AI data mining and analysis methodologies.
• Use of connected car data currently linked to independent repair shop business opportunities. No other solution in the market is focused on providing the automotive remarketing industry with credible third party, pre-sale mechanical condition certification.
Our team’s automotive industry experience, vehicle remarketing knowledge, and reach within the vehicle auction, extended warranty and retail repair sectors gives us instant marketplace credibility to create the traction needed to rapidly take advantage of a huge unmet need in the Vehicle Auction, Auto Dealer and P2P sales verticals.
Funded to date by personal resources and F&F, we require $250K in bridge capital to to facilitate go to market activities with our first customer, and to produce test units, which are treated as company assets. Ultimately we are seeking a $5M Series "A" fund raising round (already underway). These funds will be used to build our engineering and support teams, further development of our decision science and enterprise platforms, ignite branding and brand development efforts, and to aggressively market the product in our first two channels.
Due to minimum anticipated contractual volumes from our first customer, and programmatic access to their customer base, our estimates project that the company will generate up to $15M in revenue, and be cash flow positive, within 12 months of an auction sales launch.