No more trawling through hundreds of ads: Startup turns the car market upside down

Carzilla’s platform offers a different approach to car advertising that challenges traditional methods. Instead of dealers having to create detailed inventory lists with pictures of all their cars, Carzilla collects relevant leads and matches them directly with dealers. Customers can describe their wishes and the platform will then present their needs to relevant car dealers.

For customers, this means they no longer need to know exactly what car they want before they start searching. Customers can simply have an idea of their wants and needs and receive offers from dealerships that have cars that match those criteria. This saves time and removes the complexity of sifting through large volumes of ads.

“Our product is really aimed at customers who are not car geeks. It makes the whole process easier as customers can get quotes on cars without going through hundreds of options. Carzilla was created to make the car buying and leasing process as simple as possible, both for dealers and for customers. We help people figure out which car they want and work to better prepare them for leasing and the costs that come with it,” co-founder Rasmus Vind tells TechSavvy.

On the reseller side, Carzilla allows resellers to choose which leads they want to pursue. Resellers only pay for the leads they want to work with, making the platform cost-effective and targeted.

End the endless series of online ads

Carzilla was founded by Rasmus Vind and Mads Sjørslev Lorenzen, who both have many years of experience in the automotive industry. Rasmus Vind, who has a background as marketing manager at the Nellemann Group, discovered a challenge with existing advertising platforms and lead generation tools – it requires the customer to visit the dealer’s website. In September, Carzilla quietly went live.

“We started by generating a few leads to a small group of resellers with whom we were in constant dialogue to optimize the product. We’ve changed the product and our setup a few times along the way – and now we’ve found a product we think there’s room for in the market. In short, we offer a new way to advertise cars. The advantage for dealers is that they don’t have to create a long inventory or ad list with pictures of their cars, as you do on traditional advertising platforms,” explains Rasmus Vind.

On Carzilla’s platform, dealers can choose which leads they want to work with and they only pay for the leads they want. This allows Carzilla to adapt to dealers’ needs if they do not want to receive all leads. Carzilla is still in the early stages of continuous product development, but now offers both a subscription solution and Pay Per Lead.

Will grow organically. For now.

For Carzilla, the journey has only just begun and for now they want to grow organically and gradually strengthen their brand awareness. But the long-term goal is to become a household name in the car industry and be one of the most used platforms for car buying and leasing. They also have an ambition to work towards becoming a platform where customers can get help and advice on everything from car selection to financing options.

“We have focused on testing the product and confirming that there is a market for us. In the long term, we want to increase our brand awareness so that we reach more people who are at the beginning of their car search. We have ambitions to become a household name, but we have deliberately chosen to start small and gradually expand our marketing,” Rasmus Vind explains and continues:

“We have been fortunate to be able to finance the development of the platform ourselves, but we are preparing to seek funding when the time is right and the platform has proven its worth. The attention we have received from the industry confirms that we have a concept that can potentially create a solid market position.”

The vision of Carzilla is to make car buying easier for ordinary people who are not experts in the car market. For the two founders, the positive feedback from both buyers and dealers has only reinforced their belief that they are doing something right with Carzilla.

“At first I thought the hardest part would be getting customers to use the platform, but it turned out that there was a lot of interest. People want a simple way to get car quotes without having to browse ads. It also showed us that people are ready to use a platform like ours, even without much knowledge of our brand,” says Rasmus Vind.

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