Gerald Okonkwo, Founder; Parkit. In November 2021, Parkit, a network of tech-enabled auto care and car wash centers announced that it had been acquired by Fixit45, an auto tech platform that provides a seamless, collaborative infrastructure for interactions to occur across verticals that include auto repair and maintenance services, fleet management, auto parts sourcing and delivery, auto care, refurbishment and upgrades, repair financing and mechanic workshop software.
Journey to being Parkit
With an academic background in Computer Engineering from Madonna University and a couple of courses in Entrepreneurship in emerging economies at Harvard and Project management/Business Administration, the journey began in 2012 when Gerald started a facility management company, tagged WE FIX which handled property maintenance projects like cleaning, project sites enhancement, etc. Moving to Lagos in 2015 and interning at a construction firm opened his eyes to another big challenge in the industry at that time, having artisans at your beck and call.
According to Gerald. “Sometimes we would be on site, some artisans would not show up and we would need to replace the person, and you don’t know how to get a quick replacement. So, I started a company called “iFix” which was an online platform for hiring artisans, just like an Uber for artisans.”
In June 2018, Parkit was born. I eventually teamed up with my friend and schoolmate Schneider Komolafe, who is a graduate of electrical engineering. Schneider was an integral part of the team responsible for developing irecharge; a fintech platform for making payments, and was a part of the team conducting research on mini / portable servers at the National Space research and development agency (NASRDA). He also worked with the United Nations as a technical consultant. Schneider’s experience as a software developer and IT consultant spans over 12 years.
“Our business was founded to use technology in making the customer journey for car washes very seamless by automating payments, training, helping them acquire the right tools and consumables for the job, and providing professional care services that were not available in-country,” he said.
Parkit developed the technological infrastructure required to seamlessly run a vehicle care outlet; from accepting and processing payments digitally to managing consumption and requisitions of vehicle care products, to staff management, overall insight on sales, and general business performance. Car wash and auto detailing outlet owners can now via the use of this technology get an overall view of their outlet’s performance at just a glance.
Challenges
In 2018, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recorded that there were 11.8 million registered vehicles in Nigeria, of this number, 39% (4.6 million) were privately owned, 56% (6.7 million) were commercial vehicles, 1.1% (135,216) were registered as government-owned, while 0.4% (5,834) were registered for diplomats. Against this backdrop, we felt a strong need to deploy a solution that made it easy to locate car washes, process payments, and schedule visits. The three big-ticket issues faced had to do with staffing, administrative oversight, and consumables.
“Our original plan was to hire the available people in the market, but they were not meeting up to our standards, regarding the kind of experience we wanted to give to customers. To solve this, we hired anybody who had a strong interest and desire in playing in the vehicle care space and training them, having developed a proper curriculum that takes them through a 2 to 3 weeks program giving them the basic tools to upskill them within the shortest period of time. Our curriculum looked at best practices for carrying out car wash and detailing services as well as the production of 5 different vehicle detailing variants; car shampoo, upholstery cleaners, tyre and engine wash liquids, vehicle polish, and air fresheners.”
Consumables are a key factor in the auto care business, in fact, a big deal as the quality of work done is often closely tied to the quality of products used.
“When we started, we had to import most of our consumables and materials and buy off-shelf products. But then, sad market realities especially FOREX hit us hard and we had to pivot to producing these different variants of car shampoos, polish and other detailing fluids that we use in-house.”
Acquisition Blues
As of August 2021; Parkit had processed over 50,000 vehicle detailing transactions, trained over 100 professional detailers, and had produced over 15,000 liters of vehicle detailing consumables. For Gerald and Schneider, playing in the auto care vertical was just the entry point to the automotive aftermarket industry, vehicle repair and general services were next in line due to the many challenges faced across the entire space. In July 2019, the Cars45 vehicle after-sales services team contacted Parkit to extend a hand of partnership, to offer their vehicle wash and detailing services for vehicles procured before being re-sold. This partnership commenced in August 2019, with Parkit offering vehicle wash and detailing services to Cars45. This eventually extended into co-locating on vehicle detailing centers with the first location being situated at Wole Ariyo in Lekki phase 1, Lagos State. Following the emergence of Fixit45, an Autotech platform dedicated to redefining the automotive experience for car and fleet owners and facilitating value-creating interactions across stakeholders around July 2021, we knew that the industry was ripe for further disruption. Fixit45’s avowed ambition spans across verticals that include auto repair and maintenance services, fleet management, auto parts sourcing and delivery, auto care, refurbishment and upgrades, repair financing, and workshop solutions software as well as pre-purchase inspections, underlying these with moderation for transparency, compliance, and accountability.
“Considering how broad and fragmented the industry is, we knew at some point that it is either we raise capital to expand our offerings, or we eventually get acquired by a company playing in that space. We have had a strong working relationship with Cars45. As such, when Justus from Fixit45 reached out with a proposition, it felt like a natural extension of that relationship. It was something we gladly jumped on because it aligned with our long-term goals which were playing in the space and disrupting the entire sector,” said Gerald.
By September 2021, the Fixit45 team approached Parkit for an acquisition, according to the Co-founder CEO of Fixit45; Justus Obaoye “We found synergies in what they were doing at the time, and we approached them to join us in this journey to fix and build the aftermarket ecosystem, which has culminated in the acquisition. Parkit has been fully integrated into the Fixit45 family, and we look forward to providing market leadership.” Parkit was eventually acquired by the end of September 2021, with Gerald and Schneider taking up roles in Fixit45 as the Vice-President of Business Development and Software Engineering Manager respectively.
Lessons Learnt
The journey to building a startup that has been acquired can oftentimes be an arduous one with a mixed bag of experiences to boot. He shares some key lessons he’s learned so far on the job.
“Be very clear on what the mission is, what is it that you are trying to achieve with your business in the long term. This will help you attract the right partners and provide a compass in terms of forging key partnerships or acquisitions.
If you have an idea, just get started, regardless of what you want to do, and ensure your value offerings are very clear, as well as your vision for the company, have an exit strategy, have a plan from the beginning, it helps to align with what your choices are going to be when you get to those bridges. From the beginning, be clear on what you want to achieve.”
