My Auto Shop

Andy Bowie spent years chasing winters around the world as a competitor before settling in Auckland and taking on roles at Frontside Media, Facebook, and eventually Uber. During his time at Uber—where he served as Country Manager for Uber Eats New Zealand—he worked closely with drivers and became acutely aware of a major problem: the car maintenance industry was stuck in the past. "From my time working with many drivers at Uber, I saw car maintenance as an industry really behind the times in its digital progression." After Uber consolidated operations in New Zealand, Andy decided to explore new business ideas, eventually landing on car maintenance as an underserved market without the competitive saturation of "sexier" spaces like food or workspace.

The concept started in October 2019, and by January 2020, Andy and a friendly development agency had built and launched an MVP in just a couple of months. The initial model was UberEats-style: customers would book their car service, mechanics would fix it, and e-scooter-wielding drivers would pick up and drop off the vehicle. Andy intentionally launched during a quiet period to test operations, but almost immediately got national newspaper coverage, which brought a sudden surge of jobs. "Unfortunately, (or fortunately) we landed on the national newspaper and suddenly had jobs coming through, which led to a frantic couple of weeks."

The early traction came from press coverage, but building the two-sided marketplace required old-school, persistent outreach. For garages, Andy focused on picking up the phone, sending letters, and walking through doors for face-to-face conversations. On the customer side, the narrative shifted during COVID: instead of convenience (pickup/dropoff), the value proposition became trust and fair pricing—positioning My Auto Shop as the solution for customers seeking value during an economic squeeze.

COVID forced a major pivot. The original Uber-style model prioritized convenience, but lockdowns revealed a different customer priority: trustworthiness and upfront pricing. Andy made the hard decision to shift toward an Airbnb-inspired model, keeping the pickup service as secondary. "The big decision was transitioning our business model from an UberEats-style model to a more Airbnb-inspired model—helping customers seeking value not convenience." This pivot proved successful; the team "really started to see some traction in the last couple of months" by late 2020. The lesson: test assumptions in the market rather than doubling down on initial assumptions.

After about 11 months in operation, My Auto Shop had a small but growing team of "young weapons from Auckland Uni" and a solid understanding of both customer needs and how car mechanics work. Andy was planning to raise capital and scale the footprint in 2021. The long-term vision was to become a one-stop-shop for everything car-related, but the immediate focus was simplifying the UX around describing maintenance needs. Notably, Andy was committed to proving you could build a hyper-growth tech company without sacrificing work-life balance—a deliberate counterpoint to startup culture.