Business Builders to Know: Mario Schraepen’s Journey to Success
When Mario Schraepen founded LinkedCar, a customer-first mobility platform for the automotive industry, he seemingly had everything an entrepreneur could hope for when launching a startup: an innovative product that solved for a gap in the market, an enthusiastic team behind him, and two big customers already signed up.
When the pandemic broke out just two months after starting the enterprise, these strong foundations disintegrated, leaving the founder, and a few dedicated team members, with only their resilience and unwavering belief in the product, to keep the company going.
Here, Mario shares his inspiring story of how he pursued his vision for LinkedCar, and how building on the Salesforce Platform enabled him to scale the business fast, cultivate innovation, and create a future-proof product for customers.
How was LinkedCar born?
I was driving a lease car for a period of time, and I realised that, as a driver, I didn’t know the answer to things like who I should go to for summer or winter tyres, or if I got a crack in the windscreen. It became clear that the data for lease cars was very scattered. I wondered why there wasn’t an app to refer to whenever, and wherever, you switch cars, that focuses on the driver, not just the vehicle, and combines all the relevant information in one centralised place.
I started speaking to people in the automotive industry, such as lease and insurance companies, and they liked the idea but flagged that the one thing that was missing was real-time vehicle information. For these companies, if we could provide information such as the number of miles driven and whether the driver drove safely, it would not only create added value for them, but could transform their entire business models. So, we expanded the app to include real-time information based on this feedback.
The timing of when I founded the company was the biggest challenge of all. LinkedCar was launched in January 2020, three months before the pandemic. We had just signed up two big customers and we were riding a wave of enthusiasm. But in March, everything collapsed. No cars were being sold or leased during this time and the industry had to prioritise survival over innovation. We cried for a day, yes, but then we carried on because we had a lot of belief in the business. It was not my first startup but it was by far the hardest startup I have founded.
What made you choose the Salesforce Platform to grow and develop your business?
I have been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 15 years and, during that time, I have seen what Salesforce can do for businesses. As a company, LinkedCar’s ultimate focus is on functionality for our customers. Salesforce enables this by covering all of the basics like security, multilingual, multi-currency, and business processes and flows, meaning we don’t need to worry about them.
Another reason is that a major priority for me is scalability. With Salesforce you can scale internationally extremely quickly. As a product-based business, we don’t need lots of team members working on implementation. Instead we can use the Salesforce ecosystem to help implement within international markets, while we continue making the product the best it can be.
How do you innovate and stay one step ahead of the curve?
We stay very close to our customers and, by listening to what they want and need, this helps us stay one step ahead. Quality is also very important to us, so we don’t deliver anything that isn’t quality-approved. The Salesforce platform is highly flexible and this means there are different ways you can go about implementing new features or updates. Our approach is not to wait until there is a conflict to make a change, but to keep implementing new things that ensure quality and help create a future-proof product that is useful to our customers for a really long time.
Company culture is important for staying ahead of the curve too. Everyone at LinkedCar is aligned on ensuring quality and so, before big decisions are made, the team presents them internally to give people the chance to ask ‘why did you do it this way?’ and to challenge and improve the change being made. We are also not afraid to say no if necessary. We have the foresight to gauge whether something will be good for customers, or not, in the long run, and our customers praise our honesty on this.
What motivates you as a founder in 2021?
It’s the small wins that motivate me. We have won a few awards in recent months and I really appreciate those because we had such a hard year in 2020. But it reminds me that 2020 was also a year of planting seeds, and now we are starting to see them blossom.
We have also been nominated for bigger awards such as by Deloitte for ‘Rising Star’, as well as for the ‘Best Startup in Belgium’ award. This is huge for us, but it is worth remembering that those foundations were laid in 2020 when we had a disaster on our hands — no customers, no money, only the idea and the drive to keep going. So that is incredibly motivating to me.
It also acts as a reminder to me that the key to success really is resilience.You have to pick yourself back up more times than your competitor, and keep pivoting and adapting until you find success. It’s important not to forget that. A strong team is crucial too. Without a team that backs you up and shares the same passion as you, resilience will get you nowhere.
What one piece of advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?
Try to find a network of other entrepreneurs to turn to for advice — an accelerator, for example, can be a great source of support. You can learn from others who are facing the same challenges and they can learn from you too.
I would advise to be wary of ‘startup consultants’ who claim they can make you a millionaire. More often than not, these consultants haven’t started their own companies, therefore they haven’t been in your shoes. Listen to people who have started their own businesses and don’t be afraid of asking for advice. This is my third startup and I’m still asking for advice; a good network is always important to maintain.
LinkedCar is a customer-first mobility platform for the automotive industry, working to help companies shift to a loyalty-driven mindset with a focus on interactivity and customer experience. Find out more here.
