BIG fan of Skurt. I first used it three months ago in LA shortly after their stealthy launch. Barack on their team picked me up at LAX, drove me to my car mins away, and handed me the keys within 10 minutes of arriving at the airport. A month later I rented a car in Avis (because Skurt isn't yet available in SF) and waited over an hour just to get my car. Apparently reserving a car weeks in advance doesn't help. 😤
I've spoken with @apcommunicate, @joshmangel, @harryhur5t, and team about their longer term plans to build an on-demand car rental service, everywhere. Like Uber when it first launched, it sounds "magical" but I have honest reservations on the business model. Question for the team: Are there enough people renting vehicles and can you offer this type of service at a competitive prices sustainably?
@rrhoover I'm with you on the on-demand experience for car rental vs. an Avis. Despite having Avis Preferred and other top tier status with the other companies, I don't think the service experience will compare. Avis may have bought Zipcar, but I don't see them trying to replicate Skurt anytime soon.
@kunalslab@rrhoover I agree Kunal. We've had a lot of customers come over to us from Hertz Gold/Avis Preferred who felt as if they just weren't getting 'Gold' or 'Preferred' service, the feedback from them has been overwhelmingly positive!
This looks pretty awesome! I hate the games that car rental places play... How quickly can something like this scale out, and how soon before services like Enterprise and Avis revolt?
@epicsaurus we can scale quickly due to the fact we don't own inventory. The last time we saw a revolt from archaic taxi monopolies it didn't work out too well for them! cc: Uber
This is spectacular. Definitely solves the pain point of heading to Rental Car locations (specially when you have a bunch of luggage to take along) and the long waits and the finger-crossing with hopes of getting a decent car.
How do returns work though, someone will come pick up the car, make sure it still has all the doors and roofs without any dings? Also, can they be extended dynamically (hourly basis perhaps) in case you are caught up on the 405 :)
@sarthakgrover Interesting question @harryhur5t@joshmangel I would also be interested in understanding how you solve the issue of delays. Usually customers get charged for being late, how do you solve this to keep the frustration level on end user side as low as possible?
Really cool! Can you make the text 'download with Skurt app' clickable so that it links to the Apple store? Texting or mailing the link to the app is not as convenient. When do you plan to launch the Android version?
@seysconstantijn Thanks Seys! The text and email options were made so that you can send a download link to your phone if you're viewing our site from your desktop. If you're viewing from your phone, just tap the "Get" button at the top and you'll be taken straight to the app store.
I met up with @harryhur5t a few months back and I have to say I'm very impressed by Skurt's model. Rental car lots/offices are the worst experiences especially after a long flight. I can't wait to see where they take it next.
I assume that the two biggest rental car customers are corporate frequent fliers and consumers with recent car accidents or mechanical problems. How do you plan to capture those larger portions of the market when the top dogs (Hertz, Avis, etc) have partnerships with corporations and insurance companies?
@hellobrent great question Brent. As we expand and become more geographically ubiquitous, we plan to build solutions to help these companies save money and manage all of their reservations centrally. I think it will also become a 'give the people what they want' situation, where corporate employees and insurance customers simply won't accept anything less than the Skurt experience.
Hey hunters! Get $100 off the first time you use Skurt: http://www.skurtapp.com/?ref=pro...@rrhoover – Great questions! The rental car market is a $26.4B market in the US alone and growing. By not owning inventory or having physical infrastructure, we can focus solely on keeping prices competitive and our customer experience flawless. Additionally, we utilize excess inventory from our partners, allowing us to stay consistently competitive and pass even further savings onto our customers. We aren't trying to squeeze any unfair under 25 and gas fees from our customers like the big guys, rather build a brand that people can trust to offer them the best experience with fair prices, every time.
@joshmangel awesome concept, guys. are your partners existing rental car companies? have you convinced them to engage in revenue sharing with you in order to maximize their earnings from unused inventory? if so, just wondering how you've convinced them that this wouldn't cause cannibalization. best of luck and great launch!
@paul_hq@joshmangel - Another great question! We currently partner with independent rental car companies to help maximize overall fleet utilization. Our partners consider it another distribution platform for them which allows them to earn on units sitting without potentially affecting their brand.
Can't wait to have this in more locations! Whenever I know I'm renting a car it is expected to spend at least an thirty minutes to an hour waiting to get it sorted out.
How does gas/fuel work? Do I have to return with a full tank of gas? Do I only get charged for the fuel I use? Is the price set at $7+/gallon like the big guys or is it the same as the pump price?
@sshah1983 We do the opposite of the big boys here. Use as much gas as you want, even return it empty if you'd like. After you return, we'll fill it up and charge you the exact market price of gas. E.g. currently around $3/gl in the LA area. No fees or mark-ups.
@apcommunicate@sshah1983 Cool. That's pretty badass. Any fees for canceling last minute? When I was working as a management consultant, one of the perks of booking through Hertz/Avis is that you could simply not show up and you wouldn't get charged for being a no-show. That was convenient when client meetings would bounce around.
@sshah1983 Because our service is based around a delivery experience, we just ask renters to cancel at least a couple hours before their reservation. If they don't, no biggie, we'll credit their account back for next time. No fees.
@apcommunicate@sshah1983 Super cool! Excited to try it out at some point. Hope your cost structure/unit economics makes this sustainable/scalable. My head is kind of exploding thinking of the logistics around this. Reminds me of what Zirx/Luxe is probably dealing with only I guess your demand is more evenly spread throughout the day.
@sshah1983 Our transaction size is also much higher than those services which enables us to go above and beyond for our customers while also growing a real business.
@rrhoover thank you for posting us, we're having an amazing day with you guys, and thank you all for the upvotes!
I'd be interested to know from the PH community what specific pain points they hate most about traditional car rental?
Also, would you guys benefit (in some cases) from having the car delivered right to your hotel, airbnb or home?
@harryhur5t Absolutely! I was in Austin a few months ago and was thinking about on demand car rentals as I was staying at a house nowhere near any major public transportation routes.
I noticed these small Car2Go cars parked on some of the side streets as I walked around and thought that this seemed like a good idea. I decided to jump on their website on my phone, to see if I could jump into one of these cars right away.
Turns out I couldn't. I would actually need to visit a Car2Go office and verify my Driver's license and perhaps sign something. Problem was it was the weekend and the office was closed.
First off, hats off to you guys for making the on boarding as smooth as you did. Being able to scan in my license and bypass the bullshit really is fantastic.
I noticed right now local pick up is understandably near LAX. I honestly think if you can get a car to me anywhere in cities like Austin or LA where public transport is still figuring things out, you'll have a lifetime customer in me.
Simply having the car delivered really makes your service a much more enticing option to something like ZipCar.
Finally good job on making the insurance pricing clear as day through the booking process. Often the most intimidating part of renting a car is trying to decide what coverage to get while the rental agent tries to up sell you.
One question, if you elect to forgo coverage because you have car insurance that covers car rentals and get into an accident. Does Skurt charge any penalties while you are getting the car repaired?
One other thought. Any plans on offering pickup trucks or small moving vans down the line? Would love to be able to grab a Tacoma to pick up some wood from the lumber yard for the day.
@rustydingo that sounds like an awful experience! We are, in fact delivering locally in LA by request and plan to roll it out to other major cities soon. SF is next.
With regards to the insurance, there are no penalties, your insurance should cover everything - and if it doesn't we have some options for you at the lowest prices in the industry!
We certainly plan to expand our categories as we grow, stay tuned!
Awesome team, awesome app. Only complaint is that they are currently only in LA. I think people getting spoiled in LA and then going back to the old school way of car rental will only create more demand in new cities. Congrats on the PH launch guys.
@jeshalom hey Jack, we aren't exclusive to airports. We in fact have select delivery zones within LA that we're testing out. By request, you can have your car delivered (and picked-up from) your hotel, airbnb or even your home!
How does the insurance aspect of Skurt work - is it leveraging the independent car rental companies current plans? One of my biggest pain points with renting from a large company like Hertz is that I always feel like I am being tricked into paying for an insurance plan when I rent a car travelling, that I am probably covered for under my own insurance. Do you bring anymore transparency to the insurance aspect of renting a car?
@samyj13 most definitely! I'm really pleased you've brought this up. We too were sick of feeling like we were being ripped off. There's an inside joke in the rental car industry (so our attorney tells us), that the major rental car companies are some of the 'largest insurance companies that happen to rent cars'. This really stuck with us, it's just not how things should be, considering that most people are in fact covered under either their personal auto, or their credit cards. We plan to fix this through education of our customer, we don't 'sell' insurance, rather offer it at the lowest rate feasibly possible to our customers that truly need it.
@somewhatjustin Hi Justin. We don't charge any under 25 fees. As of right now, we have one of the lowest age requirements in the industry at just 21 yrs old. If at some point we find a way to rent to people even younger, we'll certainly do it.
@ow Thanks for the complements. We don't do one-way rentals of that distance yet but we hope to soon. That said, email me personally when you're in LA and we'll get you a Skurt while you're in town. It's aaron@skurtapp.com.
Congrats on the all the PH love! I just booked a rental for 10/12. Looking forward to trying it out. I've been using Silvercar for a while and when they started they used to pick you up at the airport, now they make you take a shuttle to the Pay2Park lots. A minor inconvenience but still inconvenient... Its one of the reasons I'm excited to try Skurt.
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