
Your Mechanic (YC W12) Wins TC Disrupt - cwilson
http://www.techcrunch.com/2012/09/12/techcrunch-disrupt-sf-2012-winner/?icid=tc_home_art&
======
uptown
We should all go talk about it on Shaker.

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2012/09/techcrunch-
disrupt...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2012/09/techcrunch-disrupt-
where-are-they-now.php)

~~~
dusing
I prefer Yammer

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brianbreslin
I was talking about this idea with my friend who is a master mechanic for GM,
and he didn't like the idea. His reasons were:

\- Working on someone's pavement outside is awful

\- Car falls off the lift hurts mechanic, its homeowner's fault

\- Oil and chemical disposal isn't accounted for

\- People usually don't properly diagnose their problem, so you wouldn't have
most parts ready.

\- Most luxury dealerships will pickup and drop off your car for service in
major metro areas. (his dealership picks up as far as 3 hours drive away)

His other suggestion was to build a barbershop model whereby the independent
shop owner rents the repair bays to independent mechanics.

~~~
ramanujan
Yeah, it may be that your friend isn't properly thinking through why this will
be such a big hit: it's fast and convenient for a large fraction of problems.

Because the huge thing about car trouble is the logistical inconvenience of
getting it fixed. I don't want to have to buy a luxury car just to get a long
ride back and forth from the dealership; I want someone to come and fix my
cheap car in the driveway on my schedule or tell me why it cannot be fixed. I
also want the power to bring in three mechanics back to back such that I can
comparison shop without thinking about the pain in the neck of changing
garages after a quote.

Even if this only hits 50% of problems, that's amazing. I literally have had a
Check Engine light on for weeks; just went and tried out the UI and it was
well thought through, with this particular problem front paged and my
make/model in their interface. (They don't yet have guys who fix old Hondas in
my area, so it stopped at the last step, but I'll tell everyone at work about
it for sure to save people the inconvenience of a trip.)

And long term, with enough market pressure good mobile carlift technologies
will develop (we have pickups, flatbed trucks, mobile firehoses, mobile food
trucks, not so hard to build a mobile mechanical lift).

~~~
samstave
Yep, in the same way that the window repair at your house business is
fantastic.

My car recently broke down and won't start, in my driveway. I plan to use this
service to fix it.

------
exue
The pitch may be a bit awkward and I can't attest to the quality of other
contestants, but I have a good impression overall from Your Mechanic.

Car repair is heavily stuck in the 20th-century model of businesses.
Individual shops open from 8am to 5pm, you want to find someone good? Without
Yelp you're basically relying on word of mouth to not get ripped off, or
Yellow Pages. The main form of contact is calling mechanics up, driving around
the city at 8am before I go to work and then dropping it off.

Sometimes I get in to my favorite shop and they have too many cars and can't
help me. My options are now come back another day, or heading to a random
unknown shop if it's urgent - risking the cesspool of bad mechanics. Google
offers onsite oil change and basic maintenance, which is a much better
experience than taking an hour + off to run back and forth in business hours.
I've had to go to the shop many times in the past 9 months, and overall the
logistics have not been a great experience. The only thing is I don't really
trust Your Mechanic to offer me a reliable/honest mechanic - I've been relying
on referrals, reviews and Yelp to find places, some good experiences, some
bad. I feel like Your Mechanic's system may or may not be good depending on
how ratings and the network effects work out.

Overall I'm excited for Your Mechanic to start making some changes.

~~~
soup10
Wow, is there anything google doesn't offer as a benefit? Something strikes me
as odd about a Corp that has it's tentacles involved in so many aspects of
daily life. Why not just offer higher salaries? Seems like all the perks are
designed to make you feel dependent on google, make it inconvenient to leave,
and live a lifestyle that benefits google. That's probably just my tinfoil hat
speaking though. Just seems a bit creepy to be dependent on your employer for
so many everyday things.

~~~
lacker
The on-site oil changes aren't free. I'm not sure if Google even spends any
money on it. They basically just let a mechanic set up shop in the parking lot
one day a week. It's nice because it saves time, not because it saves money.

------
sinak
For reference, the other finalists were:

Lit Motors (runner up): <http://litmotors.com/>

Expect Labs: <http://www.expectlabs.com/>

Gyft: <http://www.gyft.com/>

Prior Knowledge: <https://www.priorknowledge.com/>

Saya: <http://www.saya.im/>

Zumper: <http://zumper.com>

~~~
wamatt
Interested if anyone had any thoughts on Prior Knowledge's predictive DB,
Veritable.

<https://www.priorknowledge.com/>

~~~
fchollet
My personal opinion is that it might be too early for this kind of product to
find a real market. The value proposition will seem unclear to almost every
potential user.

They're not the only players in the field, by the way:
<https://www.numenta.com/index.html>

------
nodesocket
The pitch did not impress me, it felt rehearsed, awkward, and lacking a "wow"
factor. If I may be honest, not trying to be negative or troll, but most
startups that pitched and demo'd at Disrupt don't excite me.

The exception was last year's BitCasa, who ironically lost to Shaker. Strange
world we live in sometimes.

~~~
qq66
The quality of the pitch is only marginally related to the two most important
questions about the company: Is it a good market? And will this company be a
leader in this market?

~~~
nodesocket
Agree, maybe I am just being a curmudgeon today, but the kind of companies
that TechCrunch chooses for Disrupt as a general rule of thumb, don't excite
me.

It is a good idea though, peer-to-peer anything is the new hotness.

~~~
tptacek
Peer-to-what-now? People in YourMechanic's market used to have to comb through
useless Yelp ratings to find a place to take their cars to and leave them for
a day or 3 to have basic repairs done. Now they can type some things into
their Googles and have their cars fixed at home.

As a card carrying member of the "160k miles, last 20k with the check-engine
light on" club, this is the best thing ever and I can't wait for them to get
it to Chicago.

~~~
rprasad
YourMechanic hasn't magically replaced the trust system. It's simply another
competitor offering its services...if you trust them. It only takes one bad
mechanic to poison the well with customers.

YourMechanic hasn't reduced the time it takes to perform basic repairs. The
only practical difference is where the repair takes place and that you can
schedule it over the web instead of over the phone. Existing mechanics already
offer at-home repairs (albeit, at significantly higher rates than in-shop
repairs) so YourMechanic's "innovation" is really just offering existing
concierge mechanic services for a lower price.

Here's the thing: any mechanic worth his oil doesn't have the free time to
drive to customers to perform repairs. He may have employees drive out to
customers to pick up cars on his behalf, but he will remain back at the shop.
Thus, YourMechanic will ultimately attract the types of mechanics who don't
have the skills to set up their own fixed locations, i.e., mechanics who are
mostly definitely not the cream of the crop.

~~~
qq66
That's an interesting observation that made me slightly revise my opinion of
the concept YourMechanic (formerly extremely bullish). My garage charges labor
at $125 per hour, which is not the cost to the owner (I'm sure the owner pays
his mechanics $50 or less). Nevertheless, a mechanic has to pick me up and
drop me off at the train station, which is not that much worse than coming to
my house.

Incidentally, I'd never use an at-home service, even though it's very
inconvenient for me to drop off my car at the garage, because the quality of
car repair can be a life-or-death issue, so I'd rather that my mechanics have
all the tools and equipment (car lift, adequate lighting, etc.) they need
right at their disposal instead of being tempted to cut corners.

------
dbot
The problems I see with services like auto mechanics, home services providers,
etc. are three-fold:

1\. The time it takes out of your day to fix the problem; 2\. The knowledge
disparity between the vendor and customer, exacerbated by the need to have the
issue fixed quickly (no time to check veracity); 3\. The fact that many of
these services have business models that focus on upcharging after customer
lock-in. For example, I've read that some quick lube shops are expected to get
an additional 50% above the oil change cost out of each customer..

This service seems to help with the first issue, not so much the others. For
example, if the mechanic comes over and diagnoses several, expensive problems
and is now saying it will cost $X to fix, you either have to accept it and pay
or send the person home, which wastes everyone's time. That recently happened
to me with an electrician I found on a daily deals site. All I wanted was a
pair of outlets installed, and he put together a work order for more than
$1000 in "needed" repairs. I just asked him to leave. My house is still
standing and my regular electrician disagreed about the necessity of those
repairs.

It shouldn't be surprising that the best shops are always really busy and,
frankly, I doubt they will have the time or interest in participating in
something like this. (Not to be a downer, I love the idea...these are just the
issues I see.)

------
pbreit
It sounds like repair estimates are going to be freely available so I wonder
if YourMechanic becomes a reference-able source of quote information for
negotiating purposes?

~~~
rprasad
No. Repair estimates are already freely available. Just google the parts you
need to replace. The price you see (plus taxes) should be what you pay to your
mechanic.

Unless you're getting major work done (i.e., dent removal), a reputable
mechanic will only charge for parts, not for labor. If you've never actually
had that experience with your mechanic, I suggest you look around b/c you've
been getting ripped off.

~~~
pbreit
My experience is typically the opposite: parts at cost and charges for labor.

------
jcampbell1
Congrats to the team. I thoroughly checked out the site, and this is clearly
backed by a smart team. I see dozens of subtle smart decisions, and no obvious
mistakes.

Compared to YC companies, they are way ahead on SEO and other web marketing
strategy. YC demo day companies tend to suck at SEO in obvious ways.

~~~
sk5t
I would downvote this comment for extreme, petulant vagueness if I had the
karma to do so.

~~~
newman314
Agreed.

If we are going to "pump" up the SEO factor, things like
<https://www.yourmechanic.com/book/#/addj=10021> for "Car is not starting"
would not be in place.

Instead, maybe something like <https://www.yourmechanic.com/fix/10021/car-is-
not-starting>

So yeah, I wouldn't necessarily hold this site up as heavily SEO optimized.
Nothing against the company as they are a young company just not a good
example IMO.

~~~
jcampbell1
I don't think pumping is necessary. Their site is not a solution to the
general case of "car is not starting", thus should not have a page for that.
That would be gaming google, which is fine, but a bad first move for a
startup.

I'll now call out YC companies to prove my point. I went to the techcrunch
demo day round 1, and have a look at <http://vastrm.com/> It is a complete SEO
disaster. No reasonable advisor would have said that was a good idea for an
e-commerce company.

------
ajaymehta
Congrats to Art and the team! Well deserved.

When is Your Mechanic coming to SF?

~~~
alexaleesf
Our plan is to launch service there in a few months. Thanks for asking!

------
newman314
Some config issues?

curl -I <https://www.yourmechanic.com>

    
    
      HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
      Server: nginx/1.2.2
      Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 05:05:23 GMT
      Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Length: 168
      Connection: keep-alive
      Vary: Accept-Encoding

~~~
staunch

      $ curl -I -A Mozilla https://www.yourmechanic.com
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Server: nginx/1.2.2
      ...snip...
    

They're "blocking" curl for whatever reason.

~~~
newman314
Interesting.

I wonder how this is configured in nginx.

Edit: [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-appleosx-bsd-
nginx-b...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-appleosx-bsd-nginx-block-
user-agent/)

On a different note, I think it's rather odd they find the time to block user
agents but do not have HSTS set.

------
prawn
Are mobile mechanics a new thing in the US or is this different? Lubemobile
here in Australia has been around for 30 years and I'm sure there are
competitors.

Is it just the collation and quoting that's novel?

~~~
rprasad
No, mobile mechanics exist in the U.S. However, the service providers are
either (1) very expensive, top-of-the-line, and operate on the concierge
model, or (2) not worth the gas they spent getting to you or whose skillsets
are limited to very basic repairs.

Type 1 will not use YourMechanic because it will cut into their profit margins
significantly and they don't need a 3rd party middle-man to get business.

Type 2 will use YourMechanic. They can handle simple stuff, i.e., the stuff
that will take a shop 10-15 minutes to repair. For anything more complicated,
your SOL.

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noonespecial
I'm just wondering here: Might it be hard to find a mechanic like this in
February in Minneapolis?

~~~
goggles99
This is the same thought that came to my head. Weather conditions would
certainly cause a problem. Heat, rain, snow. How could a mechanic come to your
office and do work on your car 2/3 of the year? the conditions won't permit
it.

I suppose if everyone lived in San Diego, CA things would work out great
though.

I suppose that the mechanic could come pick up your car at work and drive it
to their garage/shelter - then drive it back (why don't auto shops do this now
for a small fee?).

~~~
Gustomaximus
It could be problematic on the keys swap-over as you would still meet up.
Though this just got me thinking, wouldn't having your mobiles RFID/NFC also
do car entry & startup be cool! That must be in the works somewhere.

Alternatly some mechanics offer courtesy cars, so you can stay on the road
while your car is being fixed.

------
ivankirigin
awesome. I've used them, and the service was great.

------
shortlived
I need serious repairs requiring a lift. How do they do this "on site"?

~~~
nodesocket
<http://goo.gl/WT7YZ>

Sorry had too. :)

~~~
Danieru
I know there is a sunk-cost aspect to writing a comment, realizing it is "sup-
optimal", yet posting it anyway. I implore you need to resist letting this
fallacy get the better of you. Some of my best contributions to HN are when I
close the tab before posting a bad comment.

------
scapa
Product looks really useful and I might end up using one of these sometime in
future. The pitch really sucked with thick accent and would be lot better if
it came in natural way.

------
artag
Thank you for posting this!

------
npguy
Solid Gap. Anyone with a car can appreciate the problem !

------
alexg0
Congratulations to Art. Great job!

------
jpeg_hero
the term "shade tree mechanic" comes to mind.

------
davidwhodge
Congrats guys!

------
goggles99
Lit Motors - YES, very interesting. This is something that I could see take
off if the cost is not too high. There are so many commuters these days and so
little carpoolers.

~~~
colinshark
They are estimating a $24k launch price, which I think is optimistic. That
assumes they have secured a supply chain, and know all their costs well.

I'm pretty tapped in to all things motorized. They needed to aim a bit lower,
here. An up-market product is not going to provide much of a revolution.

------
wilfra
Congrats!

I just put in an order to have my AC fixed tomorrow. Hopefully it works out, I
hate going to mechanics, but my high mileage car demands that I do so often.

------
goggles99
Just checked Your Mechanic. $40 for an oil change? no thanks. Not worth the
convenience. It will fail at these prices.

~~~
ebiester
I'll pay it. I don't have to take my car to a mechanic? That saves me an hour.
The extra 10 dollars is an acceptable convenience charge.

(Now, I know you think, everyone can just change their own oil! But for those
of us who are apartment dwellers without space for all of the tools? We're a
bit stuck. That's not counting the places where we aren't allowed to change
our own oil -- I'm not sure how Your Mechanic will work around this.

I'm more worried they won't be able to get the density required to make this
worthwhile in the first place.

