Designing Getaround’s Missing Revenue Estimator
A better tool to convince owners to list
Brenden Mulligan is a co-founder and designer at Cluster, a web and mobile app which enables users to create private social networks around interests and experiences. Brenden previously created and sold ArtistData and Onesheet.
I was recently talking to someone about Getaround, the peer-to-peer car rental service that enables car owners to rent out their cars on an hourly basis to other members of their community. It’s the type of service that makes total sense. People don’t need a car 24/7 and cars are expensive to own. So why not efficiently share a car between a bunch of people who are on different schedules.
The conversation I was having related to ways for the owner to offset some of their car expenses and I suggested they listed it on Getaround. After the initial concern of someone else using their car, they asked the question I’m sure 90% of interested interested owners ask next: “How much money could I make?” What they really meant: “Is the revenue I’d generate worth the risk of letting strangers use my car?”
With 3.5 years of rental data, Getaround should be able to build a tool that clearly show users why the answer to this question is Yes (at least in major markets).
Getaround’s Current Listing Flow
Figuring this already existed, I looked for the tool in Getaround’s “List your car” section. Instead, I found almost nothing.
When “List your car” is clicked, the logged in user is presented with a detailed form to fill out. I of course wasn’t ready to type in all this information, so I retreated back to “How it works”. This page was targeted at car renters, but down on the left I found “Benefits of sharing your car”. Bingo.
This page was pretty disappointing compared to what I was hoping to find. The information on it was generic and uninspiring. The numbers presented are mostly averages, such as “You can earn over $800 a month renting through Getaround” and “Getaround car owners make thousands a year...”. This information just isn’t relevant when cars available range from Smart cars to Teslas rented on different days and in cities across the country. There are just too many variables for an average to be convincing.
I kept digging around figuring somewhere I’d find my answer. In the “Owner Guide” I found out that if I had a CarKit installed (making instant rentals possible), I’d make 3x more. I also found out that Getaround would take 40% of my rental revenue. But I still got no indication of how much the remaining 60% would be.
I gave up. I had no convincing information to tell my friend except “The company that makes 40% says you should do it and you’ll make a compelling amount of money.” We moved on.
Designing the Getaround Revenue Estimator
Getaround must have enough data to offer some compelling estimates for potential car listers. If after 3.5 years they don’t have enough data, well, that’s probably not a good thing for the business. But I’m confident they do.
Note: I realize this could provide too much transparency to the state of Getaround’s business and be strategically risky. I don’t think they’ll ever do this. But, let’s have fun with it anyway.
Getaround is a two sided marketplace: the car renters make up the demand and the car owners provide the supply. When an owner adds their car on the market, they are hoping there is enough demand and people will rent their car often.
Understanding Demand Factors
The main contributing factors to the potential attractiveness of a car on the market is most likely:
- Car (make/model/year)
- Location
- Availability
- Rental Ease (instant rentals and dedicated parking spot)
Car
Within a few miles from my house, car prices range from $5-25/hour. I know there are some cars in the system that go for $100/hour. So the price at which a car is rented makes an enormous difference to revenue generated per month.
Location
Another huge contributing factor is the amount of renters who typically rent cars in different areas. Although supply/demand is important at a global level, it’s more important at the neighborhood level. If there are a lot of potential renters in a neighborhood, but not many cars, the owners are likely to generate a lot more revenue than in a neighborhood with an over-supply of vehicles.
Availability
Some owners rent their cars out all the time, some only during the week, some less than that. The amount of time (and specifically which days) matters enormously when understanding how much a car will make per month. A car available only during the week most likely has entirely different revenue potential than a car only available on weekends.
Rental Ease
Finally, convenience when actually picking up the car will lead a renter to pick one car over another, so things like reserved parking spots and key exchange complexity will change how many people choose to rent the car.
Designing a Tool
If the above are the main contributing factors, building a revenue estimator would be pretty straight forward. It would have the following questions:
- What type of car do you have?
- Where is the car located?
- Does the car have a dedicated parking spot?
- Would you like to install a FREE CarKit? (to simplify key exchange)
- When will the car be available for renters?
The form would be significantly simpler than the current signup form.
Getaround could run the answers through an algorithm that would spit out a revenue estimate compared to historical data and trends. Of course there would be situations where this wouldn’t work, but in most cases, I feel like it would be enough to give a general estimate to a car owner interested in listing their vehicle. “$300-500 per month”, although a wide range, is more helpful than “You can earn over $800 a month” when really deciding whether or not to list your car.
Getaround and owners could also use this data to decide on the actual rental price. I’d imagine that people listing cars on Getaround have absolutely no idea how to price their car. The next step in this tool could give them a slider, that would take into account the price elasticity of the demand of a car like theirs rented from a location like theirs during the available times they were planning. This slider could help them find the optimal price to use when listing their car.
This Should Make the Decision Easy
With a few simple forms, the owner would get great visibility into how much they are likely to earn by listing their car on Getaround, which would hopefully be a lot more compelling than generic numbers presented on a generic page. It should make the decision fairly simple and straightforward.
Of course, what if the data isn’t compelling? Well, that’s another problem to solve, probably involving limited the supply until the demand is there to match it.
Regardless, I bet Getaround would convert a lot more interested owners to listing on their marketplace if they gave them some relevant numbers up front.
Thanks for reading this! Any thoughts? If you got value out of this article, I would really appreciate you hitting the recommend button below. Connect with me on Twitter @mulligan with any comments / thoughts.
