More than 100 body shops in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley have joined a growing local network of top shelf operators: Google scores of 4.5 and up, highly Yelp-ranked and in the key to all of it: personal vetting by a so-far-solo lead generator called Otto.
Even odder on Otto: so far, it’s free. The service currently costs nothing.
“I’m not getting paid yet; I haven’t wanted to charge shops,” founder Ilan Mandil told Autobody News.
This will change as Mandil adds other Los Angeles County neighborhoods and more U.S. metro areas, but so far, it’s gratis. Start-up costs, from his savings, have been minimal — “it’s been surprisingly cheap so far.”
The friendly price is right, aligned with nearly everything about Otto, including a personal walking tour before the shop gets in. Mandil and his cohort of owners want to grow slow, want to go slow, to do it right, he said.
So far Jack Balyan averages a job a month via Otto at SoCal MSO Premium Collision Center. But he’s only been at it in earnest 90 days, and Mandil launched in April, with traction gaining in summer.
How much would you not pay for an extra job a month?
Meeting of the Minds
Mandil calls all collision men and women he’s considering for the network, also personally visiting a couple dozen to-date. On Balyan’s approach to his business: when he saw Mandil’s email, Balyan called him.
Balyan emailed Mandil: “‘Hey, can I call you?’” Balyan recounts. “You want to make sure it’s not phishing or whatever.” The shop being vetted asked a few questions of its own.
Jack Balyan.
Of Premium’s shops —Sherman Oaks, West Hollywood, Pasadena — Balyan owns two and co-owns one. They’re 10,000 to 30,000 square feet, where 44 employees fix 160 to 180 cars a month. Sherman Oaks is “I-CAR Gold-certified, dealer-certified, and we’re with most of the insurance carriers’ DRPs.”
Balyan said Mandil found Premium because of all of the above, “because of our reviews, our partnerships, our certifications.” But banish images of confetti and brass bands and gilded plaques to hang on front office walls. This is about the work, and Balyan doesn’t consider his shops costly.
“We’re not at the higher end, we’re at the actual end,” he said. “We want the relationship, not just the car.”
So the two began talking. Mandil sent Balyan sample photos, and Balyan sent Mandil a hypothetical estimate. In practice, Otto presents three estimates to a vehicle owner, who picks a nearby shop.
Crucial to collision is conversions. “That’s the most important part from the shop’s perspective,” Balyan said.
More Than AI
For Mandil, “this is more than an AI company. [So] it is indeed an AI company. But it transcends that.”
Screenshots from the Otto app showing nearby shops, left, and preliminary damage assessments, right.
Otto begins with pre-estimates, where its AI lives. Estimating is an advanced AI area, as it taps the tech’s main talent, which is speed. “We can ascertain a lot more from photos,” said Mandil, from a tech background as app developer and product manager.
And Balyan agrees with other owners: these are pre-estimates, amended as required, as teardowns can reveal.
“We have our own estimating,” making AI estimatics like Otto a convenience, “a rough idea … to get the ball rolling.” Premium has BodyShop Booster, which includes estimates and other functions. Body shops are also developing their own software and CCC has some AI elements.
In a way, Otto’s AI isn’t even its best feature.
“What’s next is what sets Otto apart,” Mandil said.
Mandil sees rather an “auto body repair marketplace” for any driver desire — repair, tinting, wrapping, quotes through the website, and estimates. One collision client — OEM-certified with eight locations in collision and mechanical — has already asked whether Otto can move toward internal reviews, buffing shop reps.
A “comprehensive directory plus price comparison … a shop advocate and consumer advocate,” in Mandil’s vision.
“It’s something I feel no company is doing, certainly not doing well: a go-to entity for questions on repair. Otto will be the place to go when you don’t know what to do.”
To collision customers, “it finally provides them qualified leads. The only reason you’re on my platform is you have auto body damage.”
For drivers with “no idea where to go or how much to pay,” Otto’s got their price transparency back. “It’s only going to work if they know me and trust me,” Mandil said. “It’s an immense amount of work.”
Otto is “an early-stage start-up” — call it pre-pre-seed — and Mandil hasn’t sought investors, angel or others. “You don’t want to get an investor too early.”
He’s marketed Otto via Google ads, organic social media and an animated video, among other efforts: “Seven avenues in all,” he said. The local CBS TV affiliate ran a spot, as did a car-focused radio show in Houston, one of the cities he’s considering next. He’s also headed to Atlanta to check things out.
“Big car markets,” he said. “Me going and spending two weeks there, me hiring people with great skills.”
The website has had several thousand web visitors, the app several hundred downloads. Of 100+ shops, about two-thirds are using the service. Sure, he sees it scaling, but “if I have customers using my app, everything else will work itself out.”
It’s worked so far for Balyan and for similar customer service reasons. He said Otto can save vehicle owners “half a day” of work, connecting them with “legit shops, and legit shop owners: transparent, and no bait-and switch,” building relationships for years.
“The less BS you get into, the better it is for everybody,” Balyan said.
Paul Hughes