When Louwman called us in the summer of 2021, they were already on track to create their own innovation funnel for automotive. Their own scan, test and build framework had led to the development of 2 initiatives; Amigo and Freddi.

The first one to be developed was Amigo, a closed community car sharing proposition. They had done the interviews, the market scan, the competitor analysis, price sensitivity test and probing experiments to get the market signals needed to move forward.

So why call Aim?

In the summer of 2021 the first pilot with users took place. They were not paying customers, but winners of a prize contest who were able to use the cars free of charge for a period of time to gather user insights for Amigo itself. Using a whitelabel solution for technology, they were able to quickly gather input. 

After this, Amigo decided to launch their proposition with their own app, making it more user friendly. However, it proved to be quite difficult to get this app up to par in the speed they wanted to go. Thus the new Amigo proposition was commercially launched with an app that didn’t work sufficiently enough. The second impediment for Amigo was the target audience. It proved to be much more difficult to find and attract their target audience than expected based on the prize contest.

When Aim joined the Amigo team, we first went back to the basics: interviewing all possible target audiences again to find the right friction points.  After 80 interviews, this resulted in devalidation of the current target audience and validation of another group. 

So now it was time to prove traction for this new target audience. 

The Plan consisted of 6 different steps, based on the Business Model Canvas.

Desirability study

• Customer segment and value proposition : 2 groups validated through interviews
• Experimentation sequence for channels and acquisition to find the strongest group (all with new photography and design of course):
  
  • A/B test landingpages for 2 target groups
  • A/B test social ads for 2 target groups
  • offline flyer + QR code test for 2 target groups
  • A/B test 2 different value propositions for 2 target groups
  • Onboarding leads A/B test, web only vs web + app 
• Surveys for first paying customers, finding out frictions

Feasibility study

• Landscaping key partners in the value chain
• Landscaping key activities in the value chain
• International competitor analysis
• Customer journey mapping for test results from desirability study in combination with the activities and partner landscape

Viability study

• Willingness to pay research was already previously done by Louwman; we conducted a second 
• Price sensitivity analysis for different pricing model (km’s vs time)
• Updated business case, based on new input
• TAM SAM SOM

With the goal of actively participating in the sharing economy, the team commenced onto the next step: launching a new version of Amigo.

• The customer acquisition flow was relaunched, to attract the right customers for Amigo. By experimenting in social media ads, the team quickly discovered the optimal regional area to focus their launch on.
• In parallel, the app was altered to meet the needs of the new proposition 

Even with the new proposition, it proved difficult to ramp up acquisition as a standalone brand.

Time to dissect what ingredient is missing to create a better flywheel.

• Is it brand? 
• It is channel?
• Is it communication?
• Is it proposition?

The current team continues to experiment their way through this journey. So if you see a homepage that says ‘Louwman Carsharing service’ or ‘Carsharing as a service’ instead of Amigo, you’ll know the team is busy framing every single aspect of the company.

Each step of the process, it was important to think 2 steps ahead. The Louwman innovation committee is continuously updated on the progress Amigo is making.  And even though it’s not an easy innovation road, they still support the innovation process and believe in its effectiveness.