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A Fractional, No-Overlap, Car Ownership Marketplace.

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Mar 14, 2016
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Chicago
Hello all. As in the title. What do you think of the concept?
Appreciate your feedback and analysis.

Here is the website: www.caragy.com


Further details:

An online marketplace that allows people to own as much as they use of a car.


- A lot of people spend lots of money on owning one or more cars, but to only end up using them during specific periods of the year only.

- Others decide not to own a car since their limited use of it doesn’t justify the spending and associated hassles.

- Car enthusiasts like to own exotic cars or multiple sports and luxury cars but not everyone can afford it.

- Many people have multiple goals from owning a car; some need a truck or a Van during summer while a Sedan or an SUV serves them better in the rest of the year. They usually end up overspending on multiple cars or simply sacrificing their convenience by owning only one.


We think we can create a marketplace that puts all these people together and allow them to only purchase the amount of car ownership they are most likely going to use. Or sell the downtime of their cars to other people and get some of their money back. Such marketplace will revolutionize car ownership and bring customer convenience to a whole new level by allowing customers to own, buy, and sell portions of their cars without having to deal with or worry about any of the hassles associated with traditional ownership such as registration, background checks, maintenance, or insurance to name a few.


The website demonstrates the idea, please have a look and feel free to get in touch. Also appreciate any input for taking this idea to the next level (incubation/ VC etc..)

www.caragy.com
 
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Ravens_Shadow

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Oct 2, 2012
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I've done some pretty extreme analysis on fractional ownership on:
planes, boats, islands, houses, and cars.

The reason being is the ideas of selling fractional ownership islands and cars really piqued my interest. So I called up a few CEO's who run fractional ownership companies asking how they got into it, what regulations there are etc. Funnily enough they told me everything I needed to know from A-Z. Turns out it's just not too easy because educating people on fractional ownership is rather difficult and some people just don't get the same satisfaction from fractionally owning something and then letting other people use it for the rest of the year. Not to mention time shares have ruined peoples perception on what fractional ownership really is.

Could it be a great thing? Absolutely. Are there a ton of barriers and entry requirements? Absolutely. You'll have to manage moving vehicles around the country, because odds of people living in the same city or state while owning the same car are pretty low as it stands. You'll have to target people who have lump sums of cash (forget taking payments on it, that defeats the purpose). You'll have to manage insurance claims between multiple owners and make sure they all have the same insurance provider as a group. You would probably have to form an LLC for each vehicle and list each person under the insurance, but then you have the issue of everyone living in various states so how do you get around that? What would you do if someone wants to sell their share? How will you handle a wrecked vehicle? Who is responsible for repairs? You? The person who has it at that time? Everyone? You also have to take into account that they'll throw in the lump sum, but will need to contribute each month/every few months so that repairs and servicing can be done continually. Will you pay these servicing costs? What happens if someone refuses to pay the costs? Will you repo the car from them?

And there are 200,000 other questions to be asked and contingencies to take into consideration.

I would suggest you call other fractional ownership companies and ask all the questions you have. They're out there, so pick up the phone and learn.

You stand the chance to make tons and tons and tons of money. It'll take you tens of years to get this off of the ground without the right people behind it, and even then, car ownership amongst the younger population has been going down as young guys like myself are all using Uber and public transportation. The only market I see this really working in is the exotic market. Most exotics stay in a garage 95% of the year, so split it between 3-12 people (3 month intervals or 1 month intervals). They put 20 grand and all get to have an exotic for a month out of the year, every year, forever.
 

Michael Clark

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Aug 22, 2016
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By the way I'm not a proper business owner yet so take my comments as you would a potential customer.

I live in Scotland and only have a motorbike. The winter weather lasts about 3 months where I can't use my motorbike and I have to get a bus to work.

My first consideration, and I've looked at this before, is it cheaper than renting a car for 3 months? The price on europcar.com for the 3 months including tax for a Fiat 500 is £1265 - that's £421.66 a month/unit.

For me, the idea holds value as a potential buyer of your product if you can offer me less than £421.66 per month/unit for that car/a similar one.

It's cost that's my main consideration - i don't care about driving in winter weather "in style" - I just don't want to get a bus which adds 40 minutes onto my travel each way for three months.

Otherwise I guess another potential market would be the people who "want to try a 2017 Corvette Stingray for a few months" but don't want to buy one - so that would be my retired parents. These people might be willing to part with a bit more money.

The only problem I can see with that is that if I bought a Corvette I wouldn't want to loan it out to someone I don't know. Even if it was insured etc. Especially when it would run the risk of getting even minor damage which adds up over time.

Personally I'm all for the idea so long as buying a unit of someone else's car is cheaper than buying a month of rental from a company. My parents would be all for it if they could get a car they were interested in and they couldn't rent it via a car rental company.
 
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