Interview with Oleg Gribanov - founder of Car Service DARENTA

Technology is uniquely changing the world.

Whereas retail, communication, cinema, and music have been affected for a long time, they are only now reaching the more traditional offline areas such as transport.

But how to get there!

The giant UBER, with more than $ 40 billion in capitalization, has caused a storm of protests and unrest in many cities around the world, severely pressing the taxi business.

The French giant BlaBlaCar replaces many regional trains and electric trains.

About online booking of air tickets and the fate of air ticket offices, and soon the travel agency, you can not say anything at all.

Big things always start small, the main thing is to catch the trend and not turn off the right path.

Today our guest is an entrepreneur who is on the very crest of the right wave

- The founder of the Russian car-sharing company Darenta. - Can you describe the whole essence of your service in one sentence?

- Online car rental, where an individual can rent his car for any period and in any city.

- You took a ready-made Western idea and brought it to life in Russia, or there are no analogs?

How did you get the idea of ​​creating a service?

- I studied Western sites, for example, Crunchbase, looked into which projects they invest in the most and what has not yet been implemented in Russia.

By looking for a niche, I noticed that there is a trend in the mutual use of property in the world.

Car owners are ready to rent their own cars along with them as a driver, or simply lease them so that you can become a driver if you wish.

Everything that looked like a taxi was busy in Russia, so I focused my attention on projects like relay rides and Buzzcar. The latter was recently bought.

Our car-sharing allows you to rent your car if you have unlimited OSAGO and CASCO insurance.

More than 350 cars are already available!

Looking for a Malaysia honeymoon?

- When did you start working on the implementation?

- In May 2018, our team discovered an idea. In September we launched a passable landing page.

On New Year's Eve, we launched a full-fledged website.

In February 2020, our mobile apps for iOS and Android appeared.

- How much money did you spend on the project?

Did you attract investments?

- At the moment I have spent 500,000 rubles from my own budget.

Unfortunately, it has not been possible to attract investments yet. We are open to suggestions.

- How complex is the legal component of the business?

- Since we do not have a lawyer in our team, it is difficult for us, but we believe that after receiving the investment we will be able to find the necessary specialist for the team, whom we can afford and who will raise us to a new level!

- Who is responsible in the event of an accident or car theft?

- The one who caused an accident or theft of a car.

Our startup does not change or cancel the laws of the Russian Federation.

- Who pays for the insurance?

- Landlord-car owner.

- The driver's name must be entered on the insurance policy.

Will the insurance pay for the damage if the driver is a temporary renter?

- We invite those car owners who have unlimited insurances to our project.

What exactly pays for this or that insurance is indicated in the policy.

You can also get clarifications from the technical support of the insurance company that sold the policy.

If someone has problems with finding an insurance company, then we can provide support in this direction, provide insurance contacts.

- How do you verify the driver's identity?

- No way. We shouldn't do this. Just like the Yandex.

The market does not verify the identity of online store owners and product buyers.

Or another example: when someone wants to sell or rent an apartment through Cyan, then this marketplace does not identify the seller, landlord, or tenant.

The value of the marketplace is different. These sites are not created for identification purposes.

- What happens if the driver, for example, burns the seat of my car with a cigarette and says that it was?

Or, on the contrary, the owner of the car will demand compensation for the damage that was already at the time of the transfer of the car?

- For this, there must be an agreement and an act. Before the start of the lease, you need to sign the contract and the actin duplicate.

Everything is the same as in those car rentals that were long before our rental. At the moment we have over 350 registered vehicles.

Fortunately for us, those car owners who submitted their cars to our site did not ask us such questions, since they had already solved all this before our car sharing appeared.

There is only one question from all landlords to us: how many applications will we bring them?

And if a car owner has questions about insurance, contracts, fines, taxes, or the like, this means that he never handed over the car.

We do not work with such people yet.

In the future, when we have partners in the form of insurance companies, we will be able to invite all car owners, but so far we are calling only those who need tenants,

- Now a little about business.

In which countries do you operate?

- Today Darenta offers cars not only in Russia but also in the Republic of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, UAE, Dominican Republic, Thailand, Cambodia.

That is, wherever they speak Russian or where Russian tourists go.

- What is the company's turnover now and how fast is it growing?

Have you achieved operating ROI?

- The turnover is now very small. We have not yet reached payback.

At the moment we have a large concentration of cars where they do not want to rent them, and vice versa, there are regions like Sochi, Crimea, etc., where many would like to rent cars, but there are not very many who want to rent them.