We met up with Vinay Pagarani, Co-founder & Growth Manager at OneClickDrive, to discuss how the marketplace charted a digital way into an industry that was traditional for the most part. It is now among the most well-known names in the region’s car rental landscape.
Explain the background of you and the company in detail.
OneClickDrive is the brainchild of entrepreneurs and car enthusiasts who searched for hassle-free and affordable car rentals. After we realized how difficult it was to compare prices and find a good deal on a car rental, we decided to create OneClickDrive.com – an online marketplace that enables users to find the best deals on car rentals in their area.
Renting a car on your own is a hassle, but even worse, finding someone trustworthy to rent cars from is troublesome. Our rental marketplace solves all these problems by aggregating local suppliers in one destination.
What are your goals?
We understand how frustrating endless phone calls can be to find the perfect car rental. Our goal with OneClickDrive is simple: we want to provide you with the quickest and easiest way to book your next car rental at a local location near you.
We allow people to easily find and compare rates for a car rental at their desired location. We achieve this by aggregating user prices and the availability of all suppliers in our marketplace. This allows users to save time while being fully informed of the latest information so that they can rent cars without any surprises.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of yourself/company right now?
Any traveler, whether a tourist visiting a new city or a local resident who is looking to rent a car, whether economy, sports car, or luxury car, can find one of the largest collections of rental cars from certified suppliers in one place.
With OneClickDrive, it is possible to compare different suppliers’ fleets and find the best prices in a few clicks! This eliminates the hassle of researching and finding price quotes. We think that our biggest strength is making searching for a rental car quick and easy, sort of like a search engine for rental cars.
What was the path you/your company took to get to where you are today?
OneClickDrive was born out of the frustration customers face when renting cars. It was built to make it easier for people who had never rented a car before or had a horrible past experience. We remove the clutter and complications so customers can concentrate on what they really want – the best deal possible and ample choice of car models.
We started in 2016 when the three partners came up with the idea for OneClickDrive.
Having been frustrated by the car rental process, we decided to build a marketplace for the industry. Our vision was to create a new and better way for people to rent cars when needed: getting what they needed at the time they wanted it in their location.
User feedback and the need for a car rental marketplace led to the birth of OneClickDrive. What started as an idea turned into a full-service car rental marketplace that provides renters with more choices and better pricing overall. The idea is simple; find the perfect rental car that’s convenient and good value for money.
Now, OneClickDrive has reached a disruptive critical mass of over 250,000 members renting cars on the website and app, and the office has expanded rapidly.
The journey has been long and hard, but we now drive faster and better to our destination!
Why did you start this company?
I love experiencing new places and going on adventures. I used to get frustrated because it always took way too long to find a reliable car rental company. In fact, once I faced a breakdown with my personal car, and I had the hassle of trying to call so many suppliers just to find the right rental car for me. We started OneClickDrive as a way to find cars in convenient locations and be able to compare all available providers.
Fast forward to today, we are able to provide users with a wide range of options for rental vehicles. We have cars that can accommodate everyone, from luxury travelers to families looking for a reliable vehicle for vacation. With OneClickDrive, booking car rentals has never been easier!
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the biggest challenges and opportunities has been to find more suppliers. We want as many local suppliers to join us as possible to give people more options and access across different locations. We are constantly adding suppliers so we can provide our users with reliable car rentals 24/7.
At the customer forefront, we experienced many challenges as well. Since our vast competition in this industry is vast, there was plenty of pressure to create an app that captured customers’ individuality.
We needed to prioritize what features our clients would find most useful and make booking as fast and easy as possible.
Give us one word that describes you best.
Versatility is a word that describes us best. For us, there is no limit to variety – no matter your budget or where you’ll be traveling. OneClickDrive car rentals keep the world moving!
What makes you excited about Mondays?
Great things happen every day at the OneClickDrive office, but we’re all a lot more excited on Mondays because it’s the start of a new week full of exciting developments and people.
We care about our users and always look for ways to improve their experience. We have a talented team of experts who are always working hard to develop new and exciting solutions to help our users overcome any hurdles they may encounter. Whether it’s developing new features or fixing existing ones, we never stop looking ahead and making things better for our users.
Another one of our joys is that one of the first things we do each morning is to see what new rentals have been added that day from our suppliers. It’s like waiting for your favorite TV show or a new album!
What do you value most about your culture and vision?
The most important thing to us is our customers. Our goal is to empower every individual and help build their future, from travelers in need of affordable car rentals to the person living next door. We love having the opportunity to create a direct and personal relationship with our customers.
Being able to get as close to the city or as out of state as you need without any additional fees or hidden charges is what our company does best.
Furthermore, we believe our creativity is the best quality of our culture. We came from different backgrounds in a diverse and global culture, and bringing together new ideas is what we’re all about.
We have a diverse team focused on marketing, sales, and development. Furthermore, we want to ensure that our customers have the best experience when renting a car and that we’re always working to improve our services.
Our marketing team creates effective content that showcases our cars and our platform. They also work on developing new partnerships and expanding our presence in new markets.
Our sales team is responsible for selling cars through our platform and making sure that customers have the best experience when renting a car. They work closely with our customer support team to address any questions or issues that may arise.
Mahesh Pagarani, Co-founder and Head of Sales, says, “Our main goal is to encourage people to rent cars from local suppliers. Our sales team regularly creates innovative marketing campaigns for our clients and works hard to keep the supplier chain growing.”
Finally, our development team is responsible for improving the overall functionality of our platform, including updates to our app and website.
“Our development team looks to help improve the functionality and quality of our website and app in every facet, truly representing a systematic infrastructure. We want users to find what they need, no matter how simple or complicated their needs are”, says Ahmad Abdo, Co-founder & Head of Development at OneClickDrive.
Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
The best part about our work is that we always have to innovate and think creatively. Whether it’s designing a new feature or just looking for ways to improve the user experience, being able to always evolve is something we are proud of.
Initially there was much work in standardizing the service model of the local car rental industry in Dubai as well as compiling them in just one convenient marketplace. However, we have come leaps and bounds since then to become a force in the industry over time through constantly innovating on the platform to stay ahead of the curve.
Reflecting back on most of my experience with OneClickDrive, I would say that creating a speedy and user-friendly app while crafting our content and making sure it’s easy to navigate so that users can find what they need, when they need it, without any hassle, was the most challenging part but the team has done a pretty good job so far!
The work involved researching relevant suppliers, getting their information onto the website, designing a customer-friendly interface, connecting with these suppliers through different channels, and doing customer validation experiments.
What are your company’s strategies, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
We have four unique strategies that set our company apart from other similar types of businesses. Furthermore, we offer a car rental marketplace, aggregating and listing available cars from industry suppliers. We also provide users with genuine photos of the listed cars so they can gauge to what extent they would like to scrutinize a particular car before renting it.
Our website and mobile app are very easy to navigate for visitors unfamiliar with car models and enthusiasts who know exactly what they want, so everyone can get on board with our services easily.
Lastly, we also make it easy to find the best deals with filters like location, budget, and more.
What are the key values which helped you to overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about a memorable incident in your leadership.
What we value most is building quality relationships with people. We believe in people as a source, not an expense. We also help car owners reduce their risk by listing their vehicles on OneClickDrive and getting great returns on investment. An undeniable success that is something I want to share was when the app crossed the 1 million downloads mark- the result of hard work and attention to detail.
My favorite thing is that OneClickDrive is a vision I created with my co-founder to solve a problem we both experienced firsthand. From day one, we set out to make an easy, accessible marketplace that made car rentals simpler and more rewarding, regardless of whether you’re just visiting or living nearby.
What I think helped me the most in leadership is keeping in mind that everyone here has a different perspective. What looks impossible from one perspective might be easy from another – if you are willing to learn from others. For me, it has been an essential part of empowering my ideas and looking at what people have to contribute instead of expecting them to follow my lead.
These aren’t just valuable lessons for dealing with challenges outside of the company; they’re also great ways to foster a culture that supports diversity inside our company.
How do you see the company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
As one of the fastest-growing marketplaces, we’re excited to see where OneClickDrive is headed in the next two years. We are spreading like wildfire and want to keep it that way.
We see OneClickDrive as a coveted local business with a global presence, and we will work to expand our inventory of rental cars and add features that enrich the world of car rentals.
In addition, we look forward to building an international company and globalizing our platform to allow more people worldwide to experience it.
When it comes to changing OneClickDrive into something different than what it is now, I’m sure there are many potential options. I believe in using a holistic approach with regard to that. I tend to look at all parts of the business, including marketing and growth.
Let’s see where the future takes us!
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your company in this competitive world?
Over the last few years, our team has gone to great lengths to make sure that individuals, families, and other tourists never get gouged on car rental prices. Prices published on OneClickDrive – which are very competitive in themselves – are always net prices without any add-ons or taxes.
Also, we are always adding quality suppliers in an ever-expanding number of countries. We have a plan to expand our platform to more countries and provide more unique benefits to clients.
Currently, our clients get to leverage and market their rental fleet to our 200,000+ monthly users without the need to invest the time and resources in building and maintaining their own Internet platform, thereby helping them achieve significant revenue growth.
Furthermore, they also get access to some uber-cool features in the back-end, giving them complete control over their listing account.
What are your company’s services/solutions or products on par with the current industry standards? Tell us something about your upcoming products or services.
Innovation is synonymous with innovation. This is because creativity is just an idea, but innovation is executing the idea successfully. That’s why we always believe in innovating and making sure that there are more options at our end to make the consumer’s life easier.
Currently, we are not just limited to offering car rentals from local suppliers, but also list services such as airport pick up and drop and chauffeur services.
We are always planning and working on new products and services that could revolutionize car rental and allied industries.
We plan to expand into other types of mobility rentals soon. It’s under wraps at the moment.
Furthermore, we are spreading our wings and expanding our services to regions such as Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.
Connect with Vinay Pagarani on LinkedIn.
Find OneClickDrive on LinkedIn.