Flexibility and freedom combined
The car leasing market hasn't experienced much over the last few decades. In order to stay current and evolve their business, Athlon realized they needed to deliver added value to their customers. However, they also knew their traditional culture and policies were set up to avoid risk-taking. Their strict guidelines and processes made it harder to get new ideas implemented. To address this, Athlon joined the Corporate Accelerator Program where teams were taken out of their corporate environment in order to build new business concepts at a fast pace, in an entrepreneurial environment. The idea was to combine flexibility and freedom without compromising on price.
Data leads the way
The team from Athlon entered the 13-week Corporate Accelerator Program under the name of ChangeMyCar. The first weeks were heavily focused on customer discovery and customer validation. The ChangeMyCar team worked hard on finding out more about their customers, end-users, their car choice, difficulties and problems. After the research was conducted, some key assumptions were validated whereas others were invalidated which allowed the team to pivot from a focus on millennials (B2C proposition) to a B2B proposition based on the data they had collected.
Innovative winners
Looking at the business model, they found that 40% of lease car drivers wanted or needed a more flexible product than their current offering. That equals to approximately 180.000 cars. The team then spoke to a group of current Athlon customers about the ChangeMyCar MVP; Of which 80% of those customers saw the added value of the ChangeMyCar app for their employees.
After 1 year ChangeMyCar generated €1 Million in revenue, and in 2018 ChangeMyCar was awarded the coveted Fleet Industry Award which celebrates remarkable and innovative products, tools or services.
"In one week’s time, we went from a vague concept to a super concrete idea including client feedback. I didn’t think that was possible but it actually is!"
Joost van Aalten, Co-founder ChangeMyCar