The GoGet journey
Perth born and bred, Nic Lowe and Bruce Jeffreys arrived in Newtown in 2002. Both wondered how they were going to navigate this new city, and neither wanted to own a car, nor could either justify the cost. A need soon turned into a business idea.
After extensive global research and touting the idea of ‘Newtown CarShare’ at their local festival one Sunday that November, Nic and Bruce turned strong public interest into an operation on the smell of an oily rag. Starting with twelve founding members and an eclectic collection of three cars – an old Corolla, a Hiace ute and a loaned VW Polo – Newtown CarShare was launched on Friday June 6, 2003.
Changing lives along the road
12 members soon became 50, and maintaining close customer relationships meant Nic and Bruce started to hear that customers were putting their hard earned cash back in their pockets for other things – a uni degree, a family holiday, a four day working week. Plus it was good for the environment.
Strong customer relationships were key to organic growth – constant service feedback and improvement meant customers started telling their friends. The word got around, and creating value in members’ lives meant it was becoming harder for a competitor to replicate the business.
Shifting the business up a gear
Business grew quickly, and soon went interstate. Melbourne was launched under the new brand ‘GoGet’ on November 18, 2004. Bruce recalls by the fourth or fifth year, the growth became really significant, with the number of cars growing rapidly from 20, to 80, to 200, to 550 and now over 2000.
Even with a new level of rigor at the board level, the GoGet entrepreneurial spirit still drives the business today, from constant expansion to selling the solutions they have developed to solve their own problems, like their unique fleet management system. With over 18 million privately owned cars in Australia, Nic and Bruce know they have just scratched the surface.