How Subskryb Hit $24K ARR with a Subscription Vehicle Platform in Toronto (Interview with CEO Giovanni Smith)

Introduction and Giovanni's Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Giovanni Smith. He was born and grew up in Jamaica, studied architecture, then moved to Canada in 2008. He started off as an estimator in construction in 2010 and became a leader in 2013, where he oversaw multimillion dollar projects and led a team of 50 persons outside the office. During his career, he always tried different ventures to learn and grow. Today, he's building Subskryb, that's s-k-r-y-b on the end, help folks understand

00:24subscription vehicles as a service in that space. Giovanni, you ready to take us to the top?

Giovanni Smith

00:28>> Yes, sir.

What Is Subscription Vehicle as a Service

Nathan Latka

00:30Alright. So, first off, subscription vehicle as a service, what does that mean?

Giovanni Smith

00:33>> Well, what we've done is create a service that, you know, forget about long term commitments, you know, forget about your rental, you know, for a day or two, You can jump into a car for a week on a weekly model or a monthly model. Therefore, having access to a variety of vehicles and not having that long term commitment, but still having access to proper nice cars. Mhmm.

How Subskryb Differs from Turo

Nathan Latka

00:57I guess so so how would you compare this to, like, Turo or somebody's car rental marketplace where you can get it for a week?

Giovanni Smith

01:03>> Yeah. So Turo we've been on Turo. We've we've lived the Turo life. We've experienced the Turo life, and that's why we we created Subskryb. My cofounder and I, we've we've been top hosts on Turo for a number of years here in Toronto. And the difference is that Turo has, like, a marketplace where people can control the prices and the customer experience is not not the best. Right? So and when there's a issue or problem on on

01:31>> the platform for Turo, you know, you're you're really left on your own to really figure it out. So Subskryb, what we've done is we try we've created a system, a ecosystem that will connect all the partners and players in one space. Subskryb will monitor and manage the assets and manage the customer experience itself. Therefore, you know, you have the best in class service, best in class vehicle, maintain cars, and there's no if, but, or maybe in

01:58>> terms of who's has a problem or if you're responsible for that problem, but Subskryb really has the main control over the experience.

Nathan Latka

02:07Got it. And so you're a marketplace then?

Giovanni Smith

02:10>> No. No. Not a marketplace. The way how we see our marketplace is literally I'm from Jamaica. You walk into a market, people are like, I can sell it for $5. No. Let me sell it for $4. No. Let me sell it for $3. Right? What we try to do is is is really get existing assets. Like, if you have a car in your in your driveway, we regulate the prices. We regulate the experiences through our hubs

02:33>> and how we distribute the the cars. And also, we manage and and maintain the prices prices and and Giovanni.

Nathan Latka

02:40Sorry. Just don't mean to cut you off, but just to be clear. You have car owners. You need that as their asset. They supply one side of your marketplace. You then need car renters on the other side of your marketplace, and you need them to transact, and that's how you make money. Is that accurate? Exactly. Okay. So and just to be clear, you don't buy your own cars, so you don't own inventory?

Giovanni Smith

02:57>> No. We don't. You don't. Nope.

Nathan Latka

03:00And so last month, how many car owners have their car listed on the platform?

Giovanni Smith

03:06>> So, right now, like, we have because we just switched over to this model, and we have roughly, say, over 10 different owners right now. We do own some of the assets, but through our different companies, what we used to have on Turo. So we now we've flipped that over into the Subskryb brand. Right?

Nathan Latka

03:24So How many individual cars are on the platform listed on the platform?

Platform Supply: Car Owners and Listings

Giovanni Smith

03:29>> So right now, we have over 30 cars right now, and we they're growing. Just right now, we just own one based in Toronto right now.

Nathan Latka

03:37So 30 cars across 10 owners only available right now in Toronto?

Giovanni Smith

03:41>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

03:42Okay. Okay. This is great. And last month, so in April, how many car renters rented at least one car in the month?

Giovanni Smith

03:49>> Oh, we have, I would say, easily renters. We have maybe around fifteen, twenty, give or take.

Nathan Latka

04:00Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with SaaS founders, but imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually. Saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this. We've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second, but you log in, you connect

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Demand Side: Renters and Monthly Activity

Nathan Latka

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06:24interview. Okay. So 20 rented last month. And and now that we know both sides of the marketplace, help us understand how you make money.

Giovanni Smith

06:31>> Yeah. So we make money by taking a piece of the pie. Right? And we we offer the coverage in terms of insurance, and we take a piece of the transaction, and that's how we actually take make make money.

Nathan Latka

06:43What's the revenue breakdown between insurance and your take rate? Is it fifty fifty?

Giovanni Smith

06:47>> No. No. So insurance differs. Right? Depends on the person who's renting a car. So therefore, if you have a certain age bracket experience, then it depends on The premium will go up accordingly or goes down, right? So but that that would determine exactly how we take up the And, G, I understand that.

Nathan Latka

07:09But if you look at your total revenue that you actually generated in April and just look at what was insurance versus take rates, what was the revenue split?

Giovanni Smith

07:17>> I would say more maybe 25% or so.

Nathan Latka

07:2125%.

Giovanni Smith

07:24>> It's insurance. Insurance takes stays at about 25% or so.

Nathan Latka

07:28And do you like, let's fast forward ten years. Let's say this company works out perfectly. Do you see more of your revenue coming from insurance or your take rate? Oh, both. It's it's Money, what's your focus gonna be? Ten years from now, where are you gonna make more money?

Giovanni Smith

07:44>> Not on insurance. Not on insurance. There's so many other avenues with our business that we'll make money from. It's not gonna be insurance. That's if you're focusing on insurance. Our focus not is not on insurance. Right? Our focus is the asset itself and how they use use the assets and what upgrades they want to the asset. So a subscriber is way more than just the insurance.

Nathan Latka

08:04And of the 20 car renters that rented at least one car last month, what's the average ticket value? Is it a $100, a thousand bucks, $5,000?

Giovanni Smith

08:13>> Well, with our with our model, right, it's it gives depends on the car. I'll give you the average rate. Just think about a per per day can go between 120 to 150 a day. Right?

Nathan Latka

08:28And how many days are people usually renting for?

Giovanni Smith

08:31>> Minimum, three to four days right now. We're trying to push them to the weekly model whereas, therefore, they can get a break on the price. So that's that's how that's how we kinda gauge it right now.

Nathan Latka

08:43Okay. So three days at, you know, 150 per day is almost $500. So let let's say that the average renter is paying you $500 to get a car through your What percent or how much of the 500 will you take?

Giovanni Smith

08:55>> Yeah. We take roughly between 20 to 30%, give or take. Depends on the situation.

Nathan Latka

09:01And it depends on what you negotiate with the car owner?

Giovanni Smith

09:04>> Exactly. Depends on how we that particular car, and then the car owner's situation, we will it ranges, but that's on average.

Nathan Latka

09:11Okay. So if you have a $500 value, you take 20%, you're making a $100 basically per renter.

Giovanni Smith

09:17>> Yeah. Give or take.

Nathan Latka

09:18And 20 renters last month, that would mean you did about $2,000 in revenue last month. Is that right?

Giovanni Smith

09:24>> Yeah. Give or take.

Long-Term Revenue Vision

Nathan Latka

09:26So how do you scale? What's harder to scale? The renters or the car owners?

Giovanni Smith

09:30>> Right. It's a car. So, right now, what we're doing is getting more we need more supply, 100%. And, as I know, I don't know if you're aware, but more of the OEMs, they're trying to get into the subscription model. The car dealerships are trying to get into the subscription model. And we're trying to leverage that, right, in terms of getting more assets on our platform. So, utilizing those assets that we can get more more products on

09:57>> our platform.

How Subskryb Recruits Car Owners

Nathan Latka

09:58How, Giovanni? What's the playbook? How do you convince other car owners to just put their car on the platform?

Giovanni Smith

10:03>> Well, what we what we do is we show them a potential on earnings. Right? That's one way. And also, we show them in terms of the ease of use of our technology and how would they how Subskryb makes their lives better in terms of giving us the asset, we manage the asset, sit back, and leave it up to us for a period of time for us to manage and market the asset.

Revenue Model: Take Rate and Insurance

Nathan Latka

10:27What are the potential profit opportunities for this if you're trying to sell me on listing my car on Subskryb?

Car Owner Earnings Potential

Giovanni Smith

10:34>> Yeah. So on average, I would say, you know, if say your car gets rented out for for the month, give or take. Right? Let's say it's a

10:46>> nice car, you know, a $100,000 car, between a $60 or $80,000 car, for example, let's use that one.

10:54>> We we we see that you could actually get get between 2 to $3,000, give or take, for that month for that car. Right? Depends on, you know, the the customer, the time of year. There's so many different factors that will reflect or affect that price for the for the for the month.

Nathan Latka

11:11But let's say I'm listing my car on the platform. Right? Obvious and and I'm saying, hey, what does a pro form a look like for a year? You're gonna say, okay, well, of three sixty five days, we can we think we can rent it this percent. Right? And then of those percent of days you think you can get it rented, then it's gonna be at this price per day on average. Right? So, what's the percent for

11:30a year? How many days do think you could rent a car if the car is on your platform?

Giovanni Smith

11:34>> 70% of the time.

Nathan Latka

11:35That's what you quote.

Giovanni Smith

11:36>> Okay. You guarantee that?

Nathan Latka

11:3870% of the time, we think we will be able to have the car out rented. Right?

11:43You guarantee that?

Giovanni Smith

11:45>> Yeah. Be based based on unless we don't have COVID. COVID doesn't hit, then we can pretty much guarantee that because just based on our experience for for the past six to seven years, you know, our car is

Nathan Latka

11:58But, Giovanni, my question is, will you if a founder commits to giving their luxurious car to you for a year, will you commit to booking two hundred and fifty five paid days with that car?

Supplementing Revenue with Events and Film

Giovanni Smith

12:08>> Well, that is it's a challenge. That's our challenge. And that's based on data we'll say, yes. This is what the expect expectations are. I know. I don't wanna say a 100%, but no nothing's a 100%. Right? So I know you had it is a tough question, but just based on data, some of percent of the time.

Nathan Latka

12:29I'm just thinking like a whole like a owner of a car. Right? If I'm not gonna just like like, I'm either gonna be on your platform or I'm not. I'm not gonna like list it one day then take it off the next. So if you tell me in a year you can book two fifty five days at $150 a pop for $40,000 in revenue of what you're gonna keep 10,000, I'm gonna make 30,000 on a $90,000

12:47car. I'm gonna give you that car for the whole year and not worry about it. But if you can't book, I'm not gonna list it again on your platform because it's a pain in the butt, unless you can commit to like that long term revenue. So how do you deal with that?

Giovanni Smith

12:57>> That's a very good question, Nathan. And the way how we could do that is is utilize that car for other purposes. You know, events, get them out to to market it differently. So therefore, we don't have only one sense of, like, income revenue for that vehicle. And that vehicle is a car that can be in movie shoots, can be in weddings, that kind of stuff. Then we can supplement that can supplement that car to get other

13:23>> revenue. Right?

Nathan Latka

13:24Really smart.

Founding Story and Bootstrap Decision

Giovanni Smith

13:25>> So that's how that's how we could get more try and get more get that. When when did you

Nathan Latka

13:29guys launch the business? What year?

Giovanni Smith

13:32>> 2020. November 2020, COVID, you know, we my partner and I, we we we start we registered the business then and became Subskryb, and, you know, we just took it from there, just running with it, man.

Nathan Latka

13:46And did you guys decide to raise capital or bootstrap?

Giovanni Smith

13:49>> We're strictly bootstrapping right now. Was Right?

Team Size and Structure

Nathan Latka

13:53And And how many folks are full time on the team?

Giovanni Smith

13:56>> So right now, we have over full time, I would say, two to three persons. And then we have a team of around 12 persons that give her a time, like, you know, to help develop certain things, tech marketing, all that stuff. Right? So few hours a week, you know, they're they're really helping the the the vision here in terms of us growing.

Famous Five: Books, Tools, and Habits

Nathan Latka

14:17Well, marketplaces are tough, Giovanni. We're rooting for you though. In the meantime here, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite book?

Giovanni Smith

14:23>> Favorite book, I would say,

14:26>> is that think The Power of Thinking Big by John Maxwell, C Maxwell.

Nathan Latka

14:31Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Giovanni Smith

14:35>> I really I really like Ray Dalio. I like the way how he his culture, how he keeps his culture in his business. That open book kind of aspect, really cool. I admire that.

Nathan Latka

14:48Number

14:49number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Subskryb?

14:55Oh, we lost your audio.

Giovanni Smith

14:58>> Platforms are Carlos, can you hear me? Favorite online tool? Yeah. Yeah. I would say definitely LinkedIn is working well, but we're exploring with definitely all the social platforms right now.

Nathan Latka

15:11Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Giovanni Smith

15:15>> Maybe three to four. I hope my wife is not hearing this. Maybe three three to four, sometimes four hours.

Nathan Latka

15:21Alright. Night, six hours.

Giovanni Smith

15:22>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:23Married and any kids or no?

Giovanni Smith

15:25>> Yes. I'm married. Three children. Young.

Nathan Latka

15:28Three kids. Nice. Busy guy. How old are you?

Giovanni Smith

15:31>> 38, man.

15:32>> 38.

Nathan Latka

15:33Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Giovanni Smith

15:36>> Oh, man. Woah. Maybe traveled earlier. Maybe got got married earlier, get the kids out of the way, you know, that kind of stuff. But yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:48Guys, Subskryb is a marketplace where you can rent list your expensive car and then have renters go book it. It's a marketplace. Last month, they had 20 renters book a car for an average of $150 per day for three days. Again, on average, that's a $500 sort of transaction of which Subskryb makes money by keeping 20% of that. It's about $100. They're doing call it $2,000 a month right now in revenue trying to get more cars

16:10signed up on the platform to meet the consumer demand that they're having. Giovanni, we're rooting for you, man. Thanks for taking us to the top.

Giovanni Smith

16:15>> Thanks, Nathan. Thanks a lot.

Nathan Latka

16:19One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU, CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM

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