An all-Filipino team, led by the former country head of restaurant directory Zomato, has developed a mobile app for automotive services that can deploy valet drivers to assist motorists in all their needs—from car wash to repair to registration.
“If you need towing service, battery replacement, oil, gas, car wash or auto repair, you can call our hotline 24/7. If you are among a lot of people who lock your cars with keys inside, we can help you. We also provide roadside assistance service. It is the first of its kind here,” says Anton Ojeda, the chief executive and one of the six founders of BeepBeep.ph.
“You won’t find another company doing everything for cars. Our valet service is the first in the world. Nobody does that,” he says.
BeepBeep.ph is a specialized online directory for auto needs that offers valet services including pickup and delivery of the vehicles as well as roadside assistance, says Ojeda, who used to be the country manager of Zomato.
Ojeda says he left Zomato, a multinational IT conglomerate based in India to start another company from the group up. “I left Zomato last year. We built it to a certain point and for me, I wanted to do something else. Sometime last year, we were thinking about what else we can modernize. What other industries need that kind of renovation or bringing into the digital age. And we found that people have the hardest time to maintain a car. I talked to some people in the industry and they all had the same opinion,” he says.
Ojeda says he and his partners built an online directory for 7,000 car service establishments in Metro Manila in January this year, but eventually launched more features to make the life of car owners easier, better and hassle-free.
“As a customer, you don’t have a lot of power because you don’t have a lot of information. The idea for BeepBeep is we put all the information in one place. We went out and sent our own guys to each street in Metro Manila and count all car service establishments. We put all the information in our website. Right now, we have 7,000 in our list,” he says.
“We have 50,000 users already. The idea is to use technology to make lives easier for car owners,” says Ojeda. He says that in Metro Manila alone, there are more than 3 million motorists who do not have enough information on different types of repair shops, location of car wash providers and prices of towing and other services.
BeepBeep.ph links motorists to dealerships (casa), fuel stations, repair and paint shops, parts and accessories outlets, detailing joints, car wash facilities, battery distributors, wheel and tire stores, towing services and even the Land Transportation Office for registration.
Car owners have the option to tap its valet service to do all those all those tasks or chores for them, he says. “Our primary business is the platform, the website. We also run advertising on the site. We make money from the aggregation of services,” says Ojeda, who leads a team of 60 professionals based in Eastwood, Quezon City and another 60 drivers who serve as valets for different services.
“We have a dedicated call center. We have valet drivers who are regular employees. We partner up with several people for car wash services,” he says.
“Car maintenance takes your time. You don’t want to waste your weekend in a car shop. We will schedule your car when you can take it, and we will eliminate the hassle for you. We will send a driver to pick up your car and bring it to the casa or car shops for repair or maintenance services. When it is done, you can pay everything online. All communications happen over your phone. Somebody will call you or you can use the app. If you are in the office, we will bring your car to your office,” he says.
Gianpaolo Acosta, a former advertising executive, serves as the chief operating officer, while Enah Baba, a communications executive in the hotel industry, is now the PR and marketing manager of BeepBeep.ph.
“We are backed by Filipino investors. It is a young team. I and Paolo are the oldest. Everybody else is in their mid 20s,” says Ojeda.
“Commercially, the roadside assistance has been running for about a month and a half now. The platform itself, with the directory, has been opened the whole year. We are slowly introducing the valet service to the market,” he says.
Ojeda says BeepBeep.ph also offers car wash services through third-party partners. “A little over 10 percent of our visitors are people looking for car wash. We can bring the car wash to you. We will send a bike there fully equipped, to do the car wash, detailing, vacuuming, exterior and interior,” he says.
He says BeepBeep.ph validates all its partner establishments. “It is a lot of learning for us. We work very closely with the dealerships, car shops to make sure that the experience is correct. We are ready to start doing it more commercially,” says Ojeda. “We also plan to do car registration for car owners. Let us take care of it and everything is legitimate.”
“Our plan is to be nationwide. After Metro Manila, we will introduce it in the Visayas and Mindanao, probably in Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro. We are also looking at Luzon—Bulacan and Pampanga in particular,” says Acosta.
Ojeda says once BeepBeep.ph completes its expansion nationwide, it will bring the same model overseas. “We will be off to another country, most likely in Southeast Asia, probably Thailand or Indonesia. We already have people who are interested and we are talking about it,” he says.