Drivemate

Drivemate

Expat Life in Thailand sat down with Silratth Sukwatthanasiri CEO and founder of Drivemate which is a peer to peer,
car sharing App that is achieving great things in Bangkok. Similar in concept to airBNB but for cars, it offers Thai millennials, businesses and expats all the advantages of car rental or usage without any of the hassles of ownership.
This bright, young, business savvy, Thai businessman having grown up within a hard working Thai dynasty of business ownership studied in Japan and graduated with. He had been schooled since an early age how to research and set up a business. To recruit, train, motivate and deploy staff. To present the benefits and sell to a wide audience delivering cost effective results for a known target audience. He had worked hard for the family business for about 7 years learning his trade and honing his skills. He told me that he was in Japan watching TV and stumbled on a Ted Talk interviewing one of the two women founders of a car sharing business in the US called Zipcar and Buzzcar in France.

He thought that it made so much sense. Why leave an expensive asset on the driveway at home deprecating every day whilst at work when you don’t use it and why tie up all that capital when you can use it so more effectively elsewhere. He talked it through with his wife Thanyatorn and together they researched the market. They saw that the concept was working effectively in the US, Switzerland, France, Japan and other countries and were convinced that they could make it work in Thailand. The company Turo in the US had more than 5 million people using it successfully and 200,000 cars in. They approached LMG Insurance who liked the idea and said that they would work with them and that they would provide first insurance cover to all of their customers. They formed and opened the company in July 2016 and got to work and after 6 months showed impressive sales. With these results and what they had learned in practice in Thailand they sought ventures capital interest and were lucky to be introduced to 500 Tuk Tuk in the US run by two very sharp Thai financiers. He pitched the idea to them and they were onboard quickly as they realised its potential.

Full Story: https://expatlifeinthailand.com/travel-and-leisure/drivemate-2/