DealerTech Venture Founded By Dealers

In my article, “Who Will Reinvent the Dealership?” I ask the question: are dealers doing enough to re-imagine the dealership business model? Caught in a new co-opetition environment with OEMs, Dealer Service Providers, and new Mobility solution providers, and cuffed behind the back in a low margin economy, dealers may not be off to a good start.

Brian Benstock, partner at Paragon Honda/Accura in NY, has been an inspiration of mine. He has a sixth sense for opportunities and a low tolerance for roadblocks. #Frictionless is his mantra, which focuses on simplifying the customer journey and re-shaping the dealership approach. The easier it is for end-consumers to interact and do business with Paragon, the better. For example, Brian and Paragon are working with Google to enable service scheduling through the Google voice assistant to offer a frictionless service experience.

In this article, I will present 10 dealers that didn’t follow the conventions – just like Brian. There may be many more of them. Nevertheless, what unites them all is the focus on opportunities by solving what most others see as problems. Happy innovating!

20 Group Dealer Trades Auction Platform:

Allow me to introduce you to Santosh Viswanathan. He is the CEO of 20 Group Dealer Trades. Santosh also serves as managing partner of Willis Ford in Smyrna, Delaware, and owner of Lakeshore Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM. 20 Group Dealer Trades is the first dealer-owned and operated direct platform. It allows fellow dealers to turn their reconditioned inventory using 20 Group Dealer Trades’ auction solution. Moving slow or unsold inventory through the 20 Group Dealer Trades platform will increase dealer profitability year over year, unleash frozen capital at the store level, and increase cash position which in times of COVID-19 is more important than ever.

AutomotiveMastermind Contact Info:

website: https://www.automotivemastermind.com/
email: sales@automotivemastermind.com
Phone: 800-801-0018

Blinker Car Buying and Selling app:

If you haven’t heard of Blinker, it is a mobile application on which private car buyers and sellers can meet without coming to a dealership. Blinker was founded by Rod Buscher in 2013 and launched three years later in 2016. Former dealer Buscher, known for his acquaintance and business relationship with former NFL player John Elway, was envisioning a more customer-friendly car buying and financing process. His company and app are not anti-dealership, but pro-consumer and pro-transparency, he once stated with Automotive News. Rod’ s goal was to empower private buyers and sellers with similar technology that dealerships utilize, and to have everything related to the automotive world compiled in one app on their phone.

Blinker Contact Info:

website: https://www.blinker.com/
email: info@blinker.com
Phone: 844-854-0805

CAMS Dealership Management System:

The DMS veterans among you will like this because I heard this story about CAMS from one of you. Thanks for the tip, Bryan! San Francisco Auto Center was so ambitious to blaze a trail in the 1980s that they decided to program their own DMS based on a Pick operating system. After being installed on-site, it was demanded by and offered to other dealers in California. The Reynolds & Reynolds Company ended up buying CAMS around 1985, driven by the fear that CDK would snatch it. CDK was ADP Dealer Services at that time and also ran on Pick. Shortly after the acquisition R&R renamed the system ERA. Sounds familiar? Fun fact – there is a copyright note under the ERA Blue Screen login box with a copyright date from 1986, which derives from the CAMS acquisition.

DealerBuilt LightYear Customer Experience DMS:

DealerBuilt has always maintained a strong dealership focus. That is not only because of the early involvement of big volume dealers like Galpin Ford but also because the company was co-founded by John Hosmer – the owner of Hosmer Toyota and Hosmer Honda. New features and partnerships are molded and tested in an actual dealership “lab” prior to release. The company’s LightYear solution has now evolved into a customer experience DMS platform with many customer-facing features already included in the core system and price. Although DealerBuilt is now owned by investor ParkerGale, long-time CEO, and also co-founder Mike Trasatti is still pulling strings with dealer John Hosmer running the lab and fine-tuning the workflow.

DealerBuilt Contact Info:

website: https://dealerbuilt.com/
Phone: 888-808-0733

Dealer eProcess Digital Retailing and Attribution Management:

Dealer eProcess was founded by Joe Gillespie in 2008. By that time, he had been running Gillespie Chevrolet in the Greater Chicago area for close to 10 years. Besides fusionZONE (see below), Dealer eProcess is the second provider on our list for online experience and digital showroom management systems that were founded by a dealer. Although known for its custom website solution and for the responsive designs, Joe Gillespie and Dealer eProcess really set themselves apart with their newly introduced attribution management tool CARoi, and the digital retailing tool SARA or Smart Automotive Retailing Assistant. We wish them the best of luck for the 2020 AWA Awards provided by PCG.

Dealer eProcess Contact Info:

website: https://www.dealereprocess.com/
Phone: 877-551-2555

DealerScience Penny-Perfect Desking:

This is another company that was founded by a dealer with an eye for solving a haunting problem – in this case, to automate error-prone high impact and high effort tasks. Today, third-generation Honda dealer and founder Andrew Gordon runs DealerScience. This DealerTech provider with headquarter in Boston provides a powerful Desking tool and Digital Retailing solution. The system is built with one thing in mind to remove manual processes from the equation, allowing dealers to focus on what they do best: selling.

DealerScience Contact Info:

website: https://www.dealerscience.com/

email: hello@dealerscience.com

Phone: 888-813-5311

fusionZONE Digital Showroom Platform:

fusionZONE was founded in 2009 by Brett and Karen Sutherlin. This company from Lakeland, Florida, was born in a dealership. Brett alone has over 18 years of automotive experience. Both Bret and Karen understood early that consumer behavior is shifting to the web, and saw an opportunity for offering a more robust and responsive website solution. Over time the product and service offerings grew to a suite of digital and online marketing tools. Today fusionZONE Automotive is one of the most popular providers in its vertical, and one of only a few true digital enablers for an online showroom experience.

fusionZONE Contact Info:

website: https://www.fzautomotive.com/
Phone: 424-232-0728

UpdatePromise End-to-End Service Suite:

Chances are high you have not heard of UpdatePromise. That is intended. This company from California was founded by Curtis Nixon, who owns a chain of collision repair shops. One could argue that he is not an actual dealer. However, the overlap between UpdatePromise and franchised dealers on the service side is undeniable. So displeased with the consumer experience, Curtis decided to invest and develop software to identify predictive behavior and process failure. UpdatePromise now offers an end-to-end service application suite for service scheduling, write-up, mobile MPI, service engagement/communication and marketing, kiosk integration, and service payment. The system is used by roughly 20,000 collision centers, auto glass mobile techs, and dealers.

UpdatePromise Contact Info:

website: https://www.updatepromise.com/
Phone: 800-276-9107

TruVideo Dealership Inspection Video App:

Let me introduce you to Joe Shaker, a dealer at Shaker Auto Group by day and partner of Truvideo by night. Joe understands that building strong relationships with end-consumers in an increasingly digital world requires applying different methods. Video plays a significant role in every dealership’s marketing plan for brand exposure. Still, it is a personal video that is needed to build trust during the transaction for better conversion and lower customer price sensitivity. That’s what Truvideo aims to achieve for the vehicle inspection process. By having the technician walk the customer through the MPI results with personalized videos of the vehicle, the dealer can create unmatched customer trust through unfiltered transparency. The dealership customer can receive her/his personal inspection video either through email or text, and respond immediately to discuss the next steps.

TruVideo Contact Info:

website: https://truvideo.com/
email: info@truvideo.com
Phone: 781-819-0125

Scan123 Dealership Document Management System:

Today, digitizing paper-heavy processes in a dealership’s Business Office, Finance Department, and Service/Parts Departments are common. However, imagine how it was in 1971 when Gresham Toyota in Oregon decided to invest in document scanning and management capabilities after they had almost lost everything in a fire. Fast-forward to 1996, Scan123 was born serving dealers nationwide with its easy-to-use document scanning and digital storage system. The company now has more than 1,000 customers – most of which are dealers. Scan123 had saved many of them not only money but also trouble in times where some DMS providers had held dealers hostage over their digital document archiving systems. Luckily those days are over, but digitizing transactions are in high demand. With new data safeguard regulations approaching, and the need to meet customer expectations in a new virtual dealership, the days of paper file cabinets in a dealership are numbered.

Scan123 Contact Info:

website: https://scan123.com/
Phone: 503-874-1000

WebBuy Digital Retail App:

Digital Retail is the buzzword of the hour. COVID-19 accelerated the dealers’ adoption of online sales solutions to accommodate new consumer needs. That is something that Steve Zabawa and Tom Murray had seen coming in 2014 when they co-founded WebBuy. Both veterans unite a deep understanding of dealership operations. Steve is the dealer principal of the Rimrock Auto Group in Montana. Tom is the acting WebBuy CEO, and also brings long-term retail experience from a national automotive group. The WebBuy Digital Retail application offers dealers a true online sales channel for consumers to pick a car, manage the trade-in, select F&I products, desk the deal, and have lenders tender for the best rates on the unique WebBuy BidBoard.

WebBuy Contact Info:

website: https://webbuy.com/
email: sales@webbuy.com
Phone: 406-313-6600