When Slick arrives, it expects to pull ahead of existing competition such as Yoshi and Spiffy. Those companies have been on the road a while and officially have a headstart with individual consumers in the western region, but Slick has experience with a large roster of corporate fleet and mobility-as-a-service clients. It has thus developed cloud-based, ultra-efficient operations -- and a little breathing room on profit margins for the consumer app.
Fleet clients include Comcast, U-Haul, Stanley Black & Decker and Enterprise. The company also services rideshare and peer-to-peer rental clients. Together, those groups comprise about 80% of the company’s business, Slick founder and chief executive Joe Manzari said in a phone interview.
“Our [technicians] are constantly roving a market, and then as the consumer business comes in, that just gets feathered in with the natural flow of things,” he said. “It allows us to get to a job very, very quickly. And then the future product is seen purely as a bolt-on.”
Those two new products, fuel delivery and wheel service, are as-yet unpriced. Current services are listed and priced on the company site. Those fall under the categories of steam detailing and maintenance. Prices are about comparable to market rates for premium service. A synthetic oil change is $99; a tire plug is $50. A battery replacement, at $175, is on par with AAA Roadside Assistance prices.
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Interior and exterior steam cleaning are two of the on-demand services Slick offers.COURTESY: SLICK
Now truly on-demand as a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, swipeable-from-your-smartphone option in its four current markets of Detroit, Boston, Washington D.C. and its hometown of Baltimore, Manzari hopes to keep it 24/7 as the company adds more areas. It could change, but for now service is round-the clock. That service will next be available in Chicago May 1 and in three California cities by the end of June. Eight more cities will be added by the end of the year.
Apart from quicker service, the company also expects to edge other players in the space with its greener practices: spill-free oil changes using vacuum technology and chemical-free, steam-only interior and exterior detailing.
The app also culls past service records using vehicle identification number, and maintains them along with Slick's care history to generate predictive analytics for future maintenance.
Manzari got the idea when he was on his way out of his last company. Industry Retail Group provided managed services related to enterprise technology for the retail sector. Clients included Urban Outfitters, MAC Cosmetics and Aveda, all stores with carefully branded experiences. The company's sale closed in August 2013, netting Manzari and his partners just over $50 million.
Shortly before his August 2016 exit, he ideated a kind of Uber for oil changes. The father of four and owner of two cars had grown to dread oil changes, a simple maintenance task that became an irritating one, juggling the kids and having his wife follow him to drop off the car, only to arrive to annoying upsells, and then repeating the process when it came time to pick up the car.
Startups already working on the idea staffed their on-demand services with contractors, Manzari found, when he started trying them out. It made for a patchy customer experience that led him to decide he'd staff his own concept only with W-2 direct employees. He knew from his days with Industry Retail Group that service delivery was a small final step with massive consequences. When he’d send someone to deliver a rack of mission-critical gear to a chic retailer, “that accounted for the last 10% of effort, but that 10% could ruin the customer’s perception of us,” Manzari recalled. “We decided while still in beta [with Slick] that we wanted to have our own technician pool.”Slick was created in January 2017. Manzari launched the company with his own money and to date has been self-funded.
Early fleet customers were obtained through cold-calling. The company secured its first fleet contracts in June 2017 and launched the customer-facing app in iOS in July 2017. The Android app followed last August.
Next, the company will continue its U.S. expansion with both fleet clients and individual app users, and develop a smart kiosk in municipalities with a completely automated system for key exchange. That is, no human staff.
Long-term, Manzari wants to be in the category of large-scale managed care of assets and not simple on-demand, à la carte services. He sees his tech-driven model as already superior to others in the mobile service space. “[Assessing] the entrants to the field to date, delivering the service is one thing, but being able to deliver it en masse in a green-friendly manner is another thing,” he said.
He compared managing cars to the pre-Airbnb vacation share industry. Assets designed to be used required maintenance, and their owners recognized there is an easier way after the managed support provider appeared. “That’s where we come in,” Manzari said. “We take these active annoyances of vehicle ownership and turn it into a managed passive event that keeps that asset producing for its owner.”
