
Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car - ValG
http://www.instamotor.com/#/
======
dang
This post got nailed–hard–by the voting ring detector, but I'm restoring it
because we want to see original work on HN.

A "voting ring" is when people get friends to upvote their stuff. This is
against the rules. We want stories to be on HN because they're good, not
because they were promoted.

It's sadly common for a great Show HN post to get demoted because its
creators, eager to get it on the front page, tried to game it. I've noticed a
pattern, too: usually their gaming technique is pathetic. Perhaps that's
because they're creators, not promoters. Unfortunately, it has the side-effect
of making it certain that the ring detector will nail their otherwise good
post, while we carry on the real cat-and-mouse game with people pushing crap.

I've got what I believe will be a sweet solution to this problem, but it
awaits time for implementation.

Please everybody, don't ring-vote your posts; just take your chances with HN's
randomness. If a post is solid and hasn't gotten any attention yet, a couple
of reposts is ok. Be careful not to abuse that, though, since we penalize
accounts for reposting too much.

I'm going to demote this comment as off-topic so it won't get in the way of
the real discussion. Send any moderation questions to hn@ycombinator.com.

~~~
oneiric
How does a voting ring look different than this scenario:

I email my friends (that read HN) about finally going "public." Because they
are my friends and they've heard about my ideas and work for a while now, they
up vote.

------
chadwickthebold
One point - take a look at the copy on your pricing slider. 'You Earn' makes
it sound like that's all I'm going to get out of this deal. It took me a
second to realize it was the difference between the dealership and instamotor.

~~~
ValG
Hey Chad,

Thanks for the note. Yeah you're right. We'll make the update to clarify that.
We had it as "saved" before, but that didn't seem to make sense. Still trying
to find the right wording, but we'll update it today or over the weekend most
likely. Thank you!

~~~
jarrett
How about showing all three?

Dealership pays you: $5,000 InstaMotor pays you: $5,500
\--------------------------- You get paid an extra: $500

~~~
ryanSrich
^ This is how it should read.

I had the same issue. Couldn't figure out the 'you earn' part for a solid 30
seconds or so.

------
nlh
Great idea - good luck guys! Related note for the HN community, while we're on
the subject:

Unless you have time & money to burn, you really should never never never
trade your car into the dealership. It's the worst price you're going to get
along the used car supply chain. And even if you think you're getting a good
price, it's because you're probably pairing it with buying a car (and paying
too much for the car you're buying).

The worst-case used car dealer supply chain works like this (going backwards):

* You buy a used car for $20,000.

* The used car dealer bought it from a wholesaler for $19,000

* The wholesaler bought it from a wholesale auction for $18,000

* The dealership who sold it at auction paid $16,000 as a trade-in.

(*I saw worst case because not all of these steps happen each time)

Note the chain begins with trade-in -- because dealerships know that people
who are trading in are pressed for time and want a no-hassle deal. But in
doing that, they're giving up $thousands to each step along the chain.

So when selling a car - going direct (or using a service like InstaMotor) is
always going to net you more $$ than trade-in.

And now ya know :)

~~~
sharkweek
I just listened to the This American Life episode "129 cars" about a month in
a car dealership - SUPER fascinating look at the industry, with a lot of
insider information:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/513/1...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/513/129-cars)

~~~
nlh
Totally. That episode is one of my favorite TALs ever (second to 'Summer
Camp', which despite having been done in the 90s is still totally relevant).

In fact, I used a lot of the knowledge from '129 cars' to help with a recent
purchase of a Jeep (not from that dealership, sadly). I'm going to write up a
blog post about the experience - I learned a lot and it should be helpful to
others.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Would love to read the blog post. Any chance I could get an email when its up?

------
carlypso
Hi Guys,

Nicholas here. I started Carlypso.com last summer when Chris (my co-founder)
and I had helped a number of our classmates sell their used cars after
graduation.

About 9 months ago, I had the pleasure of dealing with Instamotor founder Sy
when he bought his Audi A4 with our help. His feedback over email was really
encouraging:

"About your idea:

1\. I was looking a bit at ways to remotely unlock a car over a network
connection. It seems to me that the technology story around that is a bit
weak, but not completely infeasible. First, there's automatic
([http://www.automatic.com/](http://www.automatic.com/)) though i don't know
if they'll ever ship a product, but in theory it's really what you guys want.
Second, there is a myriad of small stuff like this
[http://www.text2car.com/](http://www.text2car.com/)

2\. I really liked the concept of being able to take the car for a drive, free
of any awkward conversation with the owner. It's really pleasant actually, and
it gave me the time to think about the purchase and inspect the car. The user
psychology is really nailed on that one. That's the way I want to buy every
used car from now on."

Long story short, Sy and Val liked our service so much that they decided to
just copy it. I'm all for competition and welcome Val and Sy into the used car
market. It is sorely in need of a better solution, one which will make buyers
and sellers happier and eliminate the inefficiencies and scamming of the
dealer model.

I'm not a big fan of plagiarism but different people are different I guess.

If you'd like to stop by our offices, meet our team and see how we're doing,
just PM me and we'll hook it up. Chris might even let you drive his 500 hp
formula car, which he's been building over the last couple of years! :)

Cheers,

Nicky and the Carlypso team Nicholas@carlypso.com

~~~
gk1
I don't think you'll win support with such passive-aggressiveness. ;)

Imitation is part of business. If you create something that's valuable and
profitable, it's only a matter of time before someone copies you.

Here's a good and relevant read for you: [http://blog.asmartbear.com/unfair-
advantages.html](http://blog.asmartbear.com/unfair-advantages.html)

> "... The real question is: What are you going to do when another smart,
> scrappy startup copies it, and gets $10m in funding, and is thrice featured
> on TechCrunch?"

Sound familiar?

~~~
leftwich
I read the post as being direct and confrontational (as opposed to passive-
aggressive).

------
kareemm
I'm in the process of buying a used car and wrote a note to my business
partner about how I wish a service like this existed.

There's often a ton of communication between me and sellers to determine
things like:

\- mileage

\- automatic / manual transmission

\- whether car has been in any serious accidents

\- whether there's any major upcoming maintenance

\- whether the driver smoked

\- whether the title is Clean

Then I need to get the VIN and run a CarProof (Canadian equiv. of CarFax).

Then, assuming it checks out, schedule a test drive.

Then, assuming the drive is good, get a mechanic's inspection done.

Then, pay and sign papers.

It's a royal pain, compounded by the fact that CL and Autotrader individual
sellers seem to be a generally sketchy or uncommunicative lot: no email
replies, missed appointments, lying about the title, etc. are all common.

Car buying won't be done like it currently is in 10 years from now; glad to
see you're doing something to improve the experience.

~~~
joe_the_user
You know,

I'm looking on craiglist in the Bay Area. It is pretty frustrating, I'll
admit.

All those things you describe would be nice but any service like that would
inherently restrict you to those seller savvy enough to put all that stuff
down. Most people don't seem like and so you'd be only scanning a small subset
of available cars. Is having them presented in an orderly fashion worth having
few listings - of course not. Yeah, the sellers and buyers are a real mixed
lot. But an organized website can't conjure a whole new pool of buyers and
sellers into existence.

------
ValG
Hi Guys, Val here from InstaMotor. We’re trying to be to car dealerships what
airbnb is to the hotel industry.

We’d love to get some additional feedback on the service. Any feedback
provided is super beneficial. We’re specifically looking for some feedback on:

1\. When you get to the site, within the first 30 seconds, do you understand
what we do. Why or why not?

2\. If you do understand what we do, would you ever use a service like this?
How much would you be willing to pay for this service?

3\. What’s the biggest benefit to the service that you see?

4\. Any general feedback on the site the content, the service as a whole would
be great.

Thanks for the help guys, We always appreciate it!

~~~
primitivesuave
This is a very clean and straightforward website - no BS to wade through, no
popups asking for my email, just straightforward here's-how-you-do-it. If I
had seen this a couple months ago I would have definitely saved a couple
thousand bucks.

One thing that's really inspiring about this is that it has the potential to
completely change the concept of used car sales. Just like how realtors take
you around to go see houses that are for sale, a car salesman can become a
person who takes you around to test drive cars for sale.

I might be wrong about your target market, but it seems like it is currently a
market of wealthy individuals with high-valued cars to sell but no time to
sell them. However, the quickest sales are the ones for lower valued cars -
way back when I only had four figures in the bank, my only requirement for my
used car was that it not make weird noises.

One lucrative direction you could go with this in the future is adding
financing options, so someone could lease a used car from you and you could
pass a percentage of the monthly car payments on to the car owner. Or, you
could buy the car from the owner and lease it out to potential owners. I have
no idea what the legal requirements are to be able to do this, but if it works
you'd have a pretty stable source of recurring income.

Overall it's a great idea, I wish you the best of luck with this!

~~~
ValG
primitivesuave - you have excellent insights, any experience in the car sales
world? These are a lot of the same items that we've been exploring. I'd love
to chat with you offline if you're available. Feel free to email me at
val@instamotor.com if you're available or call text me at 510.761.5692

------
darrenkopp
"We charge <5% of your vehicles sales price" "Simple 5% commission."

As an engineer, that really bothers me.

~~~
_sy_
Hi Darren -- I agree with you. I will go ahead and fix it. We are still on the
fence as to what is the right amount to charge for our service, but less than
5% is the goal.

------
afhsfsfdsss88
Most dealer trade offers are so low because they don't even keep your car on
the lot, they sell it at auction...at wholesale prices.

That is a lot different than individual sales...which is how this service
sells your car. So yeah, you get a better price for your car, but the service
still eats a good chunk of the sale price difference between dealer-trade and
individual sale.

And "all the paperwork" amounts to downloading a bill of sale form and title
transfer online with the DMV. It's not rocket science, nor time consuming.
Certainly not worth hundreds of dollars.

~~~
param
People making 100-200k/year would love this service. People below that income
range would want to sell privately themselves to make the most money. People
above would just dump it at the dealer's and not care.

~~~
ValG
Thanks for the notes guys. A few things that might not be as obvious:

1\. Cars with Loans on them. This actually is a hassle, especially in states
where the loan holder owns the title. You literally can't just sign the title
over to them. In most cases, the buyer has to pay for the car, the seller uses
that payment to pay off the loan and then they get the title to transfer over.
There has to be a ton of trust there. Even with a bill of sale, everyone is
afraid of getting screwed. 2\. The straight craigslist process is not quite
that easy, respond to emails, some of them from people not even really
interested in the car. You have to go back and forth scheduling viewing and
test drives. Roughly 40% of the time, you have to drive out to meet someone.
If they no-show? Or low ball you? Or don't want it? Time is wasted at all of
these steps. 3\. Some people hate negotiating, and don't know what a fair
price is. We help. 4\. In Cali at least, you need Reg 262 for vehicle
transfers. It's a form you can only get directly from the DMV (can't print it
online). I went to the SF DMV the other day to pick some up, the line was over
2 hours, just to get a form. Needless to say, I put it off for another day.

I agree, for some people it makes the most sense to just sell it themselves.
But it's not always a straight shot.

~~~
exue
Great points, especially on the loans. I'd like to add that you don't need REG
262 except in special circumstances, such as if the seller doesn't have the
current title, or with loans (maybe that was part of the context though) [1].
But avoiding that trip to the DMV is a great blessing

When I sold my vehicle in CA, both the buyer and I filled out the transfer of
liability online [2] - no appointments needed. The title ("pink slip")
contains the bill of sale with the odometer reading that you would otherwise
put on REG 262. The buyer and seller both sign the title which also has the
paper version of the transfer of liability should you be inclined to mail it.
The buyer generally will have to go to the DMV to pay use tax and turn in the
old title.

[1]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/reg_hdbk/ch5/ch5_5.htm](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/reg_hdbk/ch5/ch5_5.htm)
[2]
[http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/nrl/welcome.htm](http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/nrl/welcome.htm)

------
greggman
I thought this was an awesome idea and tried to post it in my facebook feed to
show my friends. Unfortunately
[http://www.instamotor.com/](http://www.instamotor.com/) ends up with the
excerpt "Landing Page Template for Bootstrap" and
[http://www.instamotor.com/#/](http://www.instamotor.com/#/) has no picture.
I've found, or it least it seems to me, when there's no picture none of my
friends click the link.

Apparently you need to add these tags?
[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/web/tutorials/scrumptio...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/web/tutorials/scrumptious/open-
graph-object/)

~~~
_sy_
Thanks for the heads up! I'm on it and will be pushing an update to in a few
minutes. Mind if I ping you then?

edit: I updated the header but still no update on Facebook. I'm assuming it
must be cached. I will try to create a Facebook page to see if that clears it.

~~~
greggman
Going to this page and testing seemed to fix the caching

[https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/)

Still no image though. I think the link is the wrong URL? It's currently
[http://www.instamotor.com/instamotor_illustration.png](http://www.instamotor.com/instamotor_illustration.png)

~~~
_sy_
Oups! I'm really short on sleep and I accidentally copy-pasted the wrong URL
earlier.

Thank you for all your help!!

------
exue
Great service! A lot of people don't have experience or simply don't want to
deal with the Craigslist experience. Putting another option between a private
party sale and the dealer is great.

Questions that immediately come to mind - how do you handle negotiations, and
how do buyers pay? How do you pay the seller afterward? (cash, verifying a
cashier's check - other comments point out the common scams etc.) (Or is
Instamotor just a transaction facilitator)? Where is the vehicle listed? Do
you handle smog checks as well (for California)? <\- Those are the most common
things I go through the used vehicle process.

Also, how do you filter out non-serious buyers, especially for performance
vehicles? A lot of sellers ask for some sort of proof of payment or cash ready
before a test drive. It seems like you're mainly handling high-end cars where
the 5% commission will pay off too, how does the model change for say a $5K
vehicle?

Finally as a buy I would want to do my own inspection unless the inspection is
at a mechanic I already trust - there is way too much conflict of interest
having the selling side do an inspection.

Some ways to get it more buyer-friendly would be to offer a CARFAX as well.

~~~
ValG
All of these are excellent questions. I'll tackle them 1 by 1 (the is to say,
we're still working through some of these items, this is just our current
methods).

1\. How do we handle negotiations: We talk to you, the seller and work to find
a fair market price for the car. We have dealership level tools available for
this. We come to an agreement on the minimum price you'd take. From there, we
negotiate with the potential buyer and can take an offer up to the minimum we
agreed upon. Anything lower we'd need explicit permission from you.

2\. The Buyer makes a cashiers check out directly to the the seller. We
deliver it to them.

3\. The vehicles are listed everywhere we can, including some of the
traditional places like Cars.com and autotrader. For certain cars, we also do
very specialized listings (e.g. for Porsches we list or Porsche enthusiast
forums, etc...).

4\. We handle it all, including smog checks.

5\. We get paid at the time of the transaction usually directly with proceeds
from the sale.

6\. With performance vehicles we are very very diligent about this, currently
doing it manually. We represent a few very high value Porsches. We research
all of the buyers (again manually, but we'll work on that) to see if they're
legitimate and also work to get commitments from them. If we see an 18YO kid
that wants to test drive a Porsche, we won't necessarily disallow it, but
we'll make sure that he has the financial resources and intent to purchase the
vehicle. It's not perfect, we're still working on this, but I can tell you all
of our owners have been very very happy with the people test driving so far.

\--Edit-- We currently offer CarFax. One thing we have to improve is
enumerating the depth of service that we provide.

~~~
ams6110
Be careful, forged cashiers checks are a common scam.

As seller to protect yourself you need to e.g. meet the buyer at his bank and
get cash or a certified check that the bank prepares at that time. Or use some
kind of insured escrow service.

~~~
ValG
Thanks AMS6110, We actually verify all cashiers checks immediately when
received. It's usually pretty easy to google the bank the check is from and
call them to verify the authenticity of the check.

------
mattsfrey
Having to enter a phone number to create an account resulted in a closed
browser tab. Might want to consider this factor, can guarantee theres plenty
more where I come from.

~~~
ValG
thanks for the note Matt. I think you're right and it's something we've
debated before. In the end we decided to leave it in there. The first thing we
do when you get started with us is call you to schedule the photo shoot for
your car. We come to your place to do this at your convenience, but we need
the phone number. We'll re-evaluate this over the weekend. Thanks for the
feedback, we really appreciate it!

~~~
lancewiggs
Almost all our meetings are set up over email, IM or text. And the vast
majority of communication is online too. So requiring a phone is a sign that
the old way of doing things is not gone, and it will make it harder to get
traction, especially from the HN crowd and people with poorer English.

~~~
robzyb
> So requiring a phone is a sign that the old way of doing things is not gone

It isn't gone. You are in the minority.

But that being said, maybe there is an argument that the OP needs to cater to
the new things.

------
callmeed
You should really move the "Now Serving The Bay Area" message above the fold.
I would have signed-up and used you right away (want to sell my Honda
Element).

~~~
vxNsr
I usually assume these type of startups aren't targeted at us out-of-towners.
Also the background pic of the Golden Gate Bridge also helps...

~~~
colinyoung
It's not the first startup splash page to have the GGB on it. I don't even
notice anymore.

------
alasdair_
"How much is your car worth?" on the main page: I have no idea. Isn't that the
point of your service, to tell me how much I can get for my car?

------
michaelrbock
Congrats to InstaMotor on the launch; this looks like the kind of experience I
would want when selling a car. Best of luck to the team!

While we're on the subject of cars and improving the car buying/selling
process, I just wanted to say that Edmunds.com has opened up its car data to
the world in a sane, RESTful API. Check it out at
[http://developer.edmunds.com](http://developer.edmunds.com) and let me know
if you have any questions: mbock @ edmunds . com.

We also just finished Hackomotive, a $35k hackathon focused on startups
improving the car shopping experience. You can see the winners here:
[http://www.hackomotive.com/](http://www.hackomotive.com/). We'd obviusly love
to see InstaMotor apply for next year!

------
deegles
Could you please add a form for "Notify me when InstaMotor is available in my
area"? Just with email and city. I almost signed up before I saw it was only
available for the Bay area.

~~~
eni9889
Hi deegles,

Thanks for the feedback. We have added this to our todo list. We are still in
the process of finalizing the flow of the site.

------
jlees
I'm your target user right now. I'm desperately trying to sell my car without
using Craigslist - I have a loan still, and I'm afraid of risk and scams. Feel
free to ping me for a user study if you need.

I've tried another service but due to a small dent in the car I couldn't sell
it - the car's actually in the shop right now getting that fixed, because
using a service to sell is so much better than the alternatives. My current
plan is to go back to them when it's repaired.

~~~
jzwinck
Why did a small dent make the car unsaleable? It seems odd because usually
doing work on something before selling it will net you a loss.

------
AndrewKemendo
I like it and would like to use it here in D.C. please.

I would suggest making the sell price in the big red letters instead of the
"youll earn" part. That whole section is a little confusing and I thought it
was telling me I would only get 2k for my 20k car. I only really care about
how much I would be getting for my car, the comparison to the dealership is
important but secondary, and oh by the way I will have already probably looked
that up on kbb.com.

~~~
ValG
Thanks Andrew. We're trying to expand as quickly as possible, but we have to
tackle the Bay Area Market first.

Thanks for the feedback, it looks like a lot of people are confused by that.
We'll make changes and update it tonight.

Thanks again guys, really appreciate it!

------
ufmace
Thoughts:

Wish it was more prominent that this is Bay Area only for now. I doubted that
it would be in my area, since it sounded like something that required local
personnel and nobody seems to do startups in Houston, but you have to scroll
to the bottom to see it stated.

Some of the text looks terrible on my Windows 7 - Chrome environment.
Especially everything in How It Works.

The website is all about the sell side, and you say the buy side is ebay,
craigslist, autotrader, etc. Why not post the cars in a store on your site
too? Last time I checked those sites, they had a terrible UI.

In fact, that idea expands the business from a seller's assistant kind of
thing to more of an online-focused CarMax. I think that could be really useful
to everyone. I'm thinking kind of a cross between AutoTrader and CarMax. On
the buyer's side, it could be like the existing online sites, except that the
photos and details are collected by your people, so they're consistent and
high-quality. Maybe you take the car for a few hours, have a mechanic check it
out, wash it, and take high-quality high-res photos in a controlled
environment. The buyers can know and trust that you've done all this, and that
they're getting a good representation of what they're thinking of buying.

The sellers get pretty much what you're already doing, all of the legwork done
for them, a better price, and hopefully buyers who know what they're getting,
and are vetted as serious buyers before a test-drive is set up.

I suppose the main difference between you and Carmax, then, is that you are
all online, thus have a much better online presence, and don't need to
maintain a car lot. Does that translate into enough of a cost savings to offer
a better deal to the customers than the current incumbents, though?

~~~
ValG
Excellent points ufmace. The short answer is yes, I believe so. I worked in a
car dealership before. The capital costs are massive, between physical
locations, inventory, personnel, etc... It's truly astounding.

Part 2 is adding that selling side, and we will do it, but we're not there
yet.

------
canistr
From the looks of the responses here, looks like you guys should get up a
"Notify me when you come to my area" up on your site.

------
orky56
This is a great service. Although eBay Motors and Craigslist exist for this
opportunity, they are very impersonal and create just as many issues as they
try to solve. Here's some feedback on the website and service. Hope it helps!

1\. Redundant content: I felt like you repeated the same value proposition in
nearly every section of your website. However, each section had one small
tidbit that wasn't addressed anywhere else (e.g. only available in bay area).

2\. Excessive calls to action: Although it's great that you have placed many
calls to action (various buttons, sliders, etc.), it really confuses the user.
Having one consistent message and/or placement might improve conversion. Just
a hypothesis and one you should definitely A/B test.

3\. Poor navigation: The "home" button in the footer navigates the user to an
awkward anchor tag on the home page. The About page has a large image that
makes it seem like a homepage rather than getting in to the actual content of
the page. The Contact page is an overlay modal and may not even be worth
creating as a separate page. Perhaps placing it in the footer is sufficient.

4\. Commas: In your slider showing the different amounts you can save, you
should be sure to a comma as a thousands separator or a decimal point + "k" or
"thousand". This will increase impact and hopefully conversion as well.

5\. Reposition: Seeing this on "Show HN" and seeing lots of copy/images in the
beginning made your site seem like it was a just placeholders. It wasn't until
I scrolled to the bottom did I see there were testimonials and cars that were
actually sold. This content should be placed further up since it demonstrates
some form of validation/social traction. It would be great to have a ticker or
some other indicator of cars sold at some point when it gets bigger.

Best of luck and feel free to reach out for any clarifications.

~~~
ValG
Orky,

Awesome feedback. We'll eat this up and spit something improved this weekend.
We really appreciate it!

------
ryan_j_naughton
Your "Get started today" form is failing for me.

Instead I am getting this error: Sorry, we're not able to save your info at
this time. And the div with that error is added each time I submit the form so
you can get them to start stacking on each other.

<div class="alert ng-isolate-scope alert-danger" ng-class="&quot;alert-&quot;
+ (type || &quot;warning&quot;)" ng-repeat="alert in alerts" type="alert.type"
close="closeAlert($index)"> <button ng-show="closeable" type="button"
class="close" ng-click="close()">×</button> <div ng-transclude=""><span
class="ng-scope ng-binding">Sorry, we're not able to save your info at this
time.</span></div> </div>

~~~
ValG
Thanks Ryan, we just caught this too. We're restarting those servers. A little
too much traffic for our lead system. We're working to get it back up asap.

~~~
ValG
Should be back up!

~~~
vollmond
I'm still seeing this on the car-description part.

~~~
ValG
Sorry it's been up and down all day. We didn't think we'd see quite this
amount of positive response from the community. We really appreciate it and
the feedback has been amazing. We'll make a lot of the changes suggested. If
anyone wants to submit by can't please email me "val@instamotor.com" and I'll
reach out.

------
joshmlewis
I've bought and sold a lot of cars the past few years. I have never once
considered a dealer trade in offer. I've had relatively easy and good luck
with selling my car online through Craigslist and Autotrader which I imagine
is what they will probably do to unload the cars.

I like the idea of the service but I'm wondering what the difference is
between dealer trade in pricing and market pricing. Even if I have to
sacrifice a couple grand to not have to do the whole process, I'm ok with that
but I'd rather know pricing from that point of view.

I'm also curious how you plan on doing the legal paperwork as I've done a lot
of this too and it's not easy getting setup to handle all the paperwork
especially if it's between two parties.

~~~
ValG
Great questions Josh,

Dealer trade-in pricing generally uses a standard called "black book". They
base the pricing on the type of car the the condition of the vehilce. The
discount of retail to black book varies, but can be huge (4k+). When dealers
buy a car off trade-in, they have to price in the fact that they have a lot of
overhead to get the car sold. Dealers also price risk into the car value, if
it's not a desirable car, they will sell it at auction. They have to make sure
they stay under the auction value.

Individual buyers don't have that. That spread is pretty large and we can take
advantage of that.

The paperwork is actually pretty straight forward if you have a notary public
available (we do). We can pull up all the paperwork necessary and _generally_
get it done at each persons convenience. The biggest issue is actually trust
between the parties and us. That's what we have to work on.

~~~
korzun
I think Josh is trying to point out that comparing your price to a dealer
trade-in price is a bit of a joke since trade-in price is always a 'low ball'
based on market value.

I actually came in the thread to post the same thing because I saw that on
your web site and chuckled.

It would also help to list prices you guys sold cars at, not just 'X' over
'trade-in' price.

The way numbers are presented and compared makes you look a bit sketchy to
somebody who knows a thing or two about vehicles.

------
delive
I was curious on how the test drive scheduling worked. It says "schedule
flexible test-drives with remote key access." It sounded a bit unclear to me,
and I'm not sure how that works.

I think the idea is excellent and would use it when I decide to sell my car.

~~~
orky56
Had similar confusion. "remote key access" and "keep using your car" don't
seem compatible.

------
petercooper
It's a totally different business model to this but
[http://www.webuyanycar.com/](http://www.webuyanycar.com/) is a pretty big
deal here in the UK. You get a valuation, take your car to them, they buy it.
To my surprise it worked pretty well too and I got almost as much for my car
as I'd have realistically got waiting for months on a classifieds site or
whatever. I imagine the way the British used car market works has a big impact
on the idea actually working though.

~~~
amalag
[http://www.carmax.com/](http://www.carmax.com/) does that in the US, they
have a business model of no haggling and give some gaurantees on the cars they
sell.

~~~
ValG
Yes, CarMax is sort of the model that we looked at. They are the only player
in town that had the scale necessary to apply modern business management
principals to their business. But they're margins are paper thin. Too much
overhead.

~~~
lawncheer
Dumb fact: CarMax was developed by the old Circuit City.

~~~
ValG
I'm actually very impressed by it. They found a market that is highly
fragmented and tried to consolidate. The interesting thing is that they it
took them forever to make a profit (and tons of funding). It's great to see,
but in my (biased) opinion, they didn't go far enough.

------
dm2
My biggest question is about the test-drive. How do those work?

What stops someone from taking a 1 hour test-drive? (and wasting you gas on
their errands)

If someone gets in an accident during a test-drive who is liable? Do all
insurance plans cover this?

What does remote-key access mean? "We verify all buyers and schedule flexible
test-drives with remote key access."

How quickly do you plan on expanding to other states?

Your site has a 1px left margin which is making a horizontal scrollbar which
is annoying me.

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 0) html { margin-left: 1px;
}

~~~
argumentum
>> _Your site has a 1px left margin which is making a horizontal scrollbar
which is annoying me. @media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 0)
html { margin-left: 1px; }_

Lol, Only on HN :)

------
elyrly
InstaMotor does put a valiant effort in changing the mundane process that
filled with disagreements from the seller side. The end product will solve
minor inconvenience but doesn't look kindly from the OEM's point of view. They
will see this as a threat to the dealers and sustaining a flow of walk-ins to
market their new models. Its generating a buzz here thats all a post like this
can ask for: opinionated tech individuals that look forward to innovating
various industries.

------
everettForth
Just curious, I actually have a car valued at around $20,000 that I want to
sell. I posted it on craigslist, and realized that I don't have time to deal
with all the crap.

Some dealer called me and left a message saying that they would sell my car
for me for $200. Are they lying? Are there other hidden fees? Why should I pay
InstaMotor $1000 instead of $200 to this other guy?

One advantage, I see is that I get to keep and drive my car. Except my car is
parked in a lot, and I only have 1 keyfob to get it out.

~~~
ValG
Thanks for the note everett; I'm not sure about this dealer and their process.
But we've looked at a couple local consignment lots and didn't find a deal
that made sense. For example, a local lot here in Berkeley charges you ~450
per month to hold on to your vehicle. They do very few of the value adds that
we do. We do: CarFax, PreSale Mechanic's Inspection (via YourMechanic),
Listing the vehicle so it gets serious exposure (our estimates is that we hit
roughly 90%+ of all car buyers), we don't need to take your key, even if you
only have 1 we can do test drives without you being there, you always have
complete access to the car, etc... Think about it this way, even at $200 per
month, the dealer has an incentive to keep you car on his lot as long as
possible. With our commission only model, we have an incentive to get your car
sold. True store - one of our recent customers had her car listed at said
consignment lot for 2 months with no action. She payed ~$900 for nothing, on
top of paying her car payment and insurance. 2 months at well over $1k. She
came to us and we had it sold in 3 days (3 days is not typical, but we have
incentive to get the cars sold quickly). It's a matter of having the
incentives lined up correctly.

------
MortenK
I hate selling cars. It's troublesome and time consuming, so you I'd gladly
pay for the service. The pricing turns me off though. Selling a 50K car, the
commission would turn out to 2.5K. That's net. So with 50% income tax rate,
I'd have to earn 5K to pay the commission.

That's much too steep for me. If there was a cap of say 1K, I'd be a customer
in a heartbeat. But 5K gross is certainly worth the inconvenience of selling
it myself.

~~~
yblu
50% income tax rate? Wow... have to wonder how much one makes to have to pay
that amount of tax! Anyway, the real question is whether you can sell for more
than 47.5K after biting the inconvenience and spending time.

------
petersouth
In addition, could you make a service where I can go into a new car dealership
and buy a car in five minutes with financing. I just bought two brand new cars
in the last six months and had to wait around for hours and leave dealerships
after calling them up before I even left my house and telling them I want to
buy x car at x price at x time of the day and they agree, but when I get there
it's a nightmare.

~~~
_sy_
hey Peter, sy here from Instamotor. I think Trucar is kind of supposed to do
that. Not sure if we'll ever jump into that particular segment.

~~~
petersouth
Nah, I went in on an advertised special defined price on one and even had a
TrueCar listing in hand another time. They made up a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that
the cars they had aren't exactly like what they advertise. After I said ok to
a price, I still had to wait around for hours with wife and two young children
to finalize all the paperwork and get the car prepped. Wanted to stab myself
in the eye from frustrationand swore I'd never buy new again. It appears there
is still a wide space between the negotiated price and driving away.

I think TrueCar is mostly for newer cars, but is it possible they apply the
same method to used cars in the future and try to take money off your
increased price? Do you think

------
Ellipsis753
I like the idea but wanted to point out something that confused me. Car value:
$100000 Average Dealership Trade-In Offer: $80,000 — $85,000 With Instamotor:
$95,000 You Earn: $10,000

The way it says "you earn" I can't help but think that that is the total
amount you will get. I would prefer it to say "you earn $95,000. $10,000 more
than you would have with a dealership". Or something similar.

~~~
_sy_
we got a lot of comment on how confusing this section is. We'll do another
pass at it soon. Thanks for feedback!

ps: was everything ok and clear enough?

~~~
Ellipsis753
Yes. Other than that it seemed pretty great.

------
theflubba
1\. Take pic of your white van. 2\. Post pic with description and mileage on
craigslist. 3\. Don't mention what happened in the back of the van in '99\.
3\. Get a couple emails. 4\. Sell it to the highest bidder.

Who's too stupid to not figure this out and needs a service?

Okay, so they pay you more than the dealership. That's a selling point. But I
could find someone on Craigslist and sell it to them for more.

~~~
jim-greer
Then you're not the target audience for this. The last time I sold a car via
Craigslist it probably consumed 8 hours at least. Multiple test drives, etc.
Nowadays I'd let the dealer screw me rather than take that time. This seems
like a great intermediate path if it's well run.

------
vishaldpatel
This might just work! How much would it cost you to offer a free car-wash
coupon that's redeemable at local full-service car washes?

I would write blog posts on interesting success stories with different types
of cars and seller stories -- often cars are hard to sell for various reasons.

Offering to take a professional picture is your ultimate in.

~~~
ValG
Great idea! We've started soliciting quotes from out beta customers and have a
ton of awesome data on car sales that we can use for blog posts. More coming
soon!

------
balls187
As soon as you come to Seattle, I will sell my GTi with you (srsly)!

Ofc, you'll be awesome, so then the Seattle Government will issue legislation
banning your awesome idea because Used Car Dealerships won't be able to
compete, and they'll use their Good Ol' Boy network to shut it down.

~~~
eni9889
We're happy to hear that we can't wait! As far as legislation goes, we expect
some pushback but we are ready to fight it head on. Thanks for the comment, we
really appreciate it.

------
TulliusCicero
Definitely a cool idea. Where's the buying side, though? Do you guys just list
on craigslist?

~~~
ValG
Not just Craigslist, but we go through a lot of traditional channels
(autotrader, cars.com). Selling a car is a marketing game, especially if you
want to maximize your outcome. For certain types of cars, we also list them on
specific forums (e.g. Porsches would get listed on Porsche enthusiast websites
etc...)

------
chenac
Seems like a really cool service!

Do you guys have a geographic limit that you are restricting service to?

~~~
xbonez
At the bottom of the page, it says they are limited to the Bay Area for now.

------
giarc
How long have you been running this service? I recall about 3 months ago, a
post on HN where someone posted a bunch of idea's they had but didn't have
time to execute. This was one of them. Did instamotor flow from that?

~~~
ValG
Hi giarc,

Actually Sy and I (2 of the 3 co-founders) met on HN after a similar post
(like 6 months ago?). It wasn't the one you're talking about, but had a
similar theme.

------
BorisMelnik
Excellent idea - we are all looking at it right now in our office. 1 person
said he would definitely use this right now for his used car he is selling.
Really well done, very well explained & designed.

~~~
ValG
Awesome Boris, happy to hear it! I hope we can engage with your co-worker.

------
bnzelener
If you can get this working on cars, I would love to see what you can do with
residential real estate. 42Floors might beat you there, but they seem pretty
focused on commercial.

------
radnam
Do you plan to have a listing page for the cars with a email service which
intimates me when a car I am interested in (e.g., brand, price range etc) is
now available through you.

~~~
ValG
Yes, that's on our product road map.

------
m52go
Kill CarMax. Decentralize it.

The sheer number of resources one dealership consumes boggles my mind: all the
people, the mechanics, the land, the land, the land, oh, and the other acres
of land.

~~~
ValG
I used to work in a car dealership group. The inefficiencies are terrifying.
That's what led to this.

~~~
m52go
Best of luck!

------
Gracana
Haha, my car isn't worth enough for you to sell it. :|

~~~
ValG
Haha, We can still help. email me directly at val@instamotor.com.

~~~
danans
What is the minimum value vehicle you can sell?

~~~
Gracana
I was just going by the slider, which goes down to $5k.

------
pmorici
How does this compare to CarMax? They typically offer more than a dealer would
as well on cars that are in good condition and less than 10 years old.

------
SimpleXYZ
What a great idea. I once scrapped a car for a couple hundred bucks instead of
selling it because I didn't want the hassle of selling it.

------
cianclarke
Oh hi, I fixed your pricing page
[http://i.imgur.com/N90HwsK.png](http://i.imgur.com/N90HwsK.png)

~~~
ValG
haha I love this. Thanks Cian. This is awesome. Thanks for the effort. I
actually really like the approach you took. Can we take this and run with it?

~~~
cianclarke
Sure, go nuts - I'll even give you the HTML if you like :P Seriously though,
fantastic business, and an industry in dire need of disruption - but even as
somebody who has gone through the tribulations of selling a car privately
recently, it's still too expensive.. Still - hoping you prove me wrong on
that!

------
enscr
> Transferring vehicle ownership is confusing; that's why we take care of it.

Care to explain. I've found it extremely straight forward.

------
kfd1
Love the idea. This tackles a real pain point for many sellers. Good website.
I like!

What are the challenges of expanding to different locations?

~~~
ValG
Markets are pretty different across the US. Car buying/selling is local
process. People tend to be willing to go roughly 50 miles to see a car if
they're really serious about purchasing it. There are also differences in
paperwork and requirements for selling a car, and how the market is made up.
For example, from my experience, people in the midwest tend to finance their
vehicles much more frequently than people on the west coast. It's not a huge
deal, but does add additional wrinkles in the process.

------
johnatwork
Let me know if you guys ever come to Canada.

~~~
_sy_
I spent a lot of time in Vancouver, BC; Canada is a wonderful place and I
can't wait until we expand there. We'll try to tackle the San Francisco Bay
Area first :)

------
pwrfid
Super nice website & really cool product. Congrats

~~~
ValG
Thank you!

------
duaakshay
I really like the slider with what you earn! Good job

------
sharemywin
Why wouldn't you need a dealer license for this?

------
stefap2
Is minimum car price $5000?

------
mellery451
where do we go to see what cars you currently have for sale?

~~~
giarc
I don't think they actually list them on their site, they list on various
already established sites (autotrader, cars.com etc).

------
ztratar
5% is a lot. I would expect this to be more around 2%.

~~~
joshfraser
It doesn't make sense for this to be a percentage since the work involved in
selling a 30k car is the same as selling a 5k car.

~~~
ValG
Hey Josh, it's actually not quite as easy to sell more expensive cars. As you
move up the price chain, the market of people that can afford the car gets
lower and lower. Think of it this way, 90% of the population can afford a $5k,
but only 10% of the population can afford a $30k car. (numbers not accurate or
scientific, just as an example).

------
rasz_pl
whatr pain and agony?

