tech

Festivus Month – A December to Remember

Working at a start up company is sort of like riding a roller coaster. It’s awesome and scary and thrilling, etc. To celebrate the Holidays at Mojo Motors, the Party Planning Committee came up with Festivus Month, “A December to Remember.”

It started with cookies each day for pretty much the entire month. We voted on our favorites and the winner received a $25 Amazon gift card. Then there was a dreidel tournament which included plenty of Hanukkah gelt, you know, those chocolate gold coins.

Finally, there was a Yankee Swap AKA White Elephant Gift Exchange at the Holiday party complete with a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush and scratch off lotto tickets. See the pictures of Mojo Motors’ Festivus below or see them all on our Google+ photo album. [keep reading]

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Disruption is hard

Disruption is hard. When I joined Mojo Motors a year and half ago, I thought we were going to tear the used car industry a new one. Boy was I sort-of right.

Shopping for a used car is a pain. It’s hard to find the right car, track prices, and get a good deal without spending a ton of time and fielding a lot of calls. We built a solution at Mojo Motors that really helps people buy a used car. We had to take care of our dealer partners too, and we thought we had. You see we charged them whenever a Mojo member purchased a car. Sounds fair right? [keep reading]

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Holiday Gifts for Clients or Customers

Gifting clients and customers is hard, especially when you have a lot of them. There are hundreds of active dealerships using Mojo Motors and they’re likely receiving holiday sausages, cheese trays and gift baskets with fancy crackers and mustard dipping sauces.

We wanted to send our dealerships something memorable, capable of standing out amongst the dairy and meat products they’re already being sent. Last year, we sent Mojo Motors-branded Sigg bottles to all of dealers. They were great bottles, but at over $30 a pop, they were expensive. This year we wanted to do something more cost effective but just as cool, if not cooler. [keep reading]

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Why I love Yesware

As awesome as our website is, no product sells itself. Like sales teams at almost every startup, Mojo Motors has to find creative ways of getting our message heard. We need to break through the noise to sign up dealers since it takes roughly five calls before we get a decision maker on the line.

People that work at dealerships are busy and they’re constantly being sold new tools and products, so they have a habit of blowing off any new product that gets pitched to them. And really, don’t we all do that?

The challenge for us is to find ways of differentiating ourselves from all of the other products currently being pitched. Of course we can try different messages and using our gut we can guess what’s working and what isn’t. Thankfully, it’s 2012 and sales can be a lot more science than art so our gut can rest up for lunch. [keep reading]

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We Are Quitters

Vince Lombardi said, “once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” By that token, Mojo Motors isn’t just a bunch of habitual quitters, we are addicts! You might find this nauseating, but fight your urge to spit at your computer in disgust and let me explain.

Riding the subway this morning I listened to Freakonomics Radio, a podcast by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, the duo, who co-authored the best sellers Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. They did an episode called “The Upside of Quitting,” in which they challenge our common cultural perception of quitting. They argue that if something is not right for you, ignore the sunk cost and quit it sooner rather than later.

We’ve all heard quotations from the likes of Napoleon Hill, who said, “a quitter never wins and a winner never quits,” General MacArthur, who was sure that “age wrinkles the body, but quitting wrinkles the soul,” and even Mike Tyson, who said “champions don’t quit.” They are all wrong. [keep reading]

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What makes an internship at a start up different

Every college student and post-grad can recognize the importance of a summer internship and I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to intern at a variety of different companies. As I reach the end of what will most likely be my last internship ever (I am graduating college in December), I am looking back to reflect on the many differences between an internship with an internet automotive start up like Mojo Motors and an internship with a much larger company.

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An intern’s advice on how to hire interns

Let’s start with a full disclosure. This post was written by an intern with a simple argument – start-ups should make good use of intern services and not just use them for grabbing coffee or researching/processing/pushing/crunching data. Since I’ve pretty much spent all summer interning at Mojo Motors, here is my take on what interns can offer a company, why it is important to pick them well, if companies should pay interns, and how you can benefit most from an internship program.

Make the jump for answers to all of your intern related questions and an intern’s experience at a start up.

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Joel Ewanick resigned, so now what?

Ewanick FrenemyLast weekend, GM’s marketing head honcho, Joel Ewanick, resigned. Business Insider covered it, the Detroit News covered it and a whole bunch of other websites covered the story too. People had a love-hate relationship with the man. He’s the automotive world’s frenemy. Think of Ewanick like coffee. It’s bad for your teeth and probably your health, but it’s just the kick in the pants most people need to get their day started.

Ewanick fired advertising agencies, started a war with Facebook and said Super Bowl commercials were a waste of money. Ewanick also changed company culture, developed an advertising strategy to save GM billions, helped turn around a failing brand, took risks with their media spends and demanded creative ideas. So what does Ewanick’s exit mean for Mojo Motors, car shoppers and dealerships? Let’s take a look.
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Usability testing for less than $500

dos equis usability testing Two weeks ago, Mojo Motors conducted usability tests on a new prototype website. Usability testing is when people (participants) use a product to help its creators determine what works and what doesn’t. It allows the creators (testers) to watch people that are unfamiliar with a website or product basically mess around and complete a series of tasks or scenarios. These tests shed light on how someone in the real-world will likely use the product. It also allows the testers to notice big mistakes that could “make or break” the website.

We wanted to find out if people understood that the Mojo Motors prototype can help car shoppers ‘Follow’ cars to track changes in price. We took participants through the the entire process of shopping for a car from signing up on our website to following cars to receiving price alert emails and finally contacting a dealership.

Keep reading to see how we conducted our usability tests and the awful stock pictures with little-to-no relevance on the subject matter. You can also click on one of the links after the jump to quickly find relevant information because this post is long.
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Your old Internet Explorer is dead to us

Using Internet Explorer is sort of like using Tripod to build a webpage or checking your email on AOL or using AOL at all for that matter. It’s like spraying down your kids with DDT to fight off mosquitoes or owning a television without a zapper.*

It’s like using an AM/FM equipped headset or thinking the 80′s was the greatest decade in recent memory. It’s like using leaves as toilet paper or making green bean casseroles for dinner. It’s like using products that come in aerosol cans or writing with gel pens. It’s like calling your mobile a “car phone” or driving a car with a proper manual transmission.**

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